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Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

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Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#71

Post by vundercind »

hluska wrote: post #67
ronsor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that people seem to just now realize that sports betting is a bad idea. As you said, the worst aspect is the large amount of marketing and advertising these platforms receive; I wouldn't care if they weren't pushed so heavily.

People have known for years - that’s the really terrifying part. Heck, when I was in business school I wrote a paper on the dangers of sports betting. There were many resources available then…and heck, Gmail invites were a rare commodity when I was in school. Edit - I just found a printed copy of the paper - I wrote it so long ago that the term 'sociopathic compulsive consumer' was being used. At the time, I found a…

I was briefly involved with a major sports & esports betting company. It was way grosser than I ever imagined, and they had multiple astroturf campaigns working on legalizing betting in more places.

Took me from a generally laissez-faire attitude about gambling, to being entirely on board with simply outlawing at least that sector of it. So very nasty.

(Incidentally, this did answer a question for me: “how did esports get so big so fast, financially?”. Never made much sense to me. The money’s in gambling, and it’s a fucking lot of money. Lightbulb went on and I felt dumb for not realizing it sooner)

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#72

Post by actionfromafar »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #63
bentt wrote: post #53

The fact that ESPN itself has a sports betting app tells you all you need to know about the perversion of sports now that gambling is blessed by the government. I think I can live with the legalization of sports betting if there are strong restrictions against marketing and advertising. If you want to ruin your life that's your decision, and you can always just take the same amount of money and bet it on the stock ma…

Most gamblers are casuals. I spend $5-10 a week during football and usually am down like $10 at the end of the year. It provides a lot of entertainment, sucks that some people can’t control themselves but I shouldn’t be punished for that. Agree that heavily regulating and perhaps banning advertising needs to be done.

That argument can be made for and against anything (substance abuse comes to mind) which has consequences for society at large.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#73

Post by JumpCrisscross »

whatshisface wrote: post #68
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most gamblers are casuals. I spend $5-10 a week during football and usually am down like $10 at the end of the year An annual cap of $500 on bets per social security number seems reasonable. At the very least, 10% of state's median income (a whopping $4,222 nationally [1]). [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N

I think a proportion of income would work better, because $500 would be a lot for some people.

> a proportion of income would work better, because $500 would be a lot for some people

Sure, if a state is willing to enforce that added complexity. I'd still have a hard cap to remove plausible deniability. Otherwise every trailer-park resident will be a millionaire while FanDuel et al do a Facebook-can't-tell-if-I'm-12-or-52 shrug.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#75

Post by hluska »

vundercind wrote: post #71
hluska wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have known for years - that’s the really terrifying part. Heck, when I was in business school I wrote a paper on the dangers of sports betting. There were many resources available then…and heck, Gmail invites were a rare commodity when I was in school. Edit - I just found a printed copy of the paper - I wrote it so long ago that the term 'sociopathic compulsive consumer' was being used. At the time, I found a…

I was briefly involved with a major sports & esports betting company. It was way grosser than I ever imagined, and they had multiple astroturf campaigns working on legalizing betting in more places. Took me from a generally laissez-faire attitude about gambling, to being entirely on board with simply outlawing at least that sector of it. So very nasty. (Incidentally, this did answer a question for me: “how did esport…

I'm completely with you, my friend. I was in business school when I studied betting. All the stereotypes of business students are true - I could have suggested putting thalidomide into lollipops and nobody would have batted an eye.

Despite that, my class had a serious problem with legalized gambling. One of the most free market absolutists I have ever met even concluded that gambling should just be outlawed. He was (and I believe still is) completely in favour of all drugs being legalized, but legalized gambling bothered him in a way that legalized crack cocaine never could have. What pushed him over was how they fund legalization campaigns with all these promises for help for addicts - they'll usually even offer to put a portion of total book into rehabilitation. And then as soon as it is legalized, they will specifically target people who could become addicted.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#76

Post by Miraste »

dkrich wrote: post #28
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll. The fact that the pros are simulating problem players because then the betting apps give you more leeway, e.g. by "send[ing] you bonus money" and raising your limits, paints the picture quite effectively in my book. > Casino's can't survive off casual players. They need the addicts to make payroll To what degree is this true? Sure, a…

This is backwards. Casinos offer huge cross subsidization opportunities like getting people to spend lots of money in clubs and bars or gamble on games like slots that have a huge house edge while apps have near zero cross subsidization opportunities and massive overhead. An app running at draftkings scale costs a lot to operate. I’ve believed for a long time and continue to that the math on these businesses just doe…

DraftKings is profitable as of a few months ago.

>gamble on games like slots that have a huge house edge

This is what they're working on next: legalization of online casino-style games. They've already got seven states. Profit margins will only go up.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#77

Post by svantana »

hinkley wrote: post #58
dkrich wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is backwards. Casinos offer huge cross subsidization opportunities like getting people to spend lots of money in clubs and bars or gamble on games like slots that have a huge house edge while apps have near zero cross subsidization opportunities and massive overhead. An app running at draftkings scale costs a lot to operate. I’ve believed for a long time and continue to that the math on these businesses just doe…

And if you keep pulling on that thread: are casinos only profitable because they’re laundering money?

If so, they are in trouble now that they've been disrupted by crypto and NFTs.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#78

Post by cardiffspaceman »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #65
dkrich wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is backwards. Casinos offer huge cross subsidization opportunities like getting people to spend lots of money in clubs and bars or gamble on games like slots that have a huge house edge while apps have near zero cross subsidization opportunities and massive overhead. An app running at draftkings scale costs a lot to operate. I’ve believed for a long time and continue to that the math on these businesses just doe…

Bookmakers can always lay the odds so that there’s equal money on each side. Then they’re just taking a 10% rake with zero risk. If they start getting killed by pros they’ll just move to the low risk strategy.

I wonder if street bookies make money “for someone” by somehow bringing lending in house. It would be the pair of activities that would be profitable. But they wouldn’t have to be that good at bookmaking.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#79

Post by bbor »

htrp wrote: post #70

> Simulating addictive behavior, says Peabody, is an effective way to get online sportsbooks to send you bonus money and keep your accounts open. This isn’t necessarily because operators are targeting problem bettors, he says; they’re simply looking to identify and encourage customers who are likely to spend—and lose—the most. This just happens to be a good way to find and enable addicts, too. ML run amuck

Throwback to that post from this weekend about “too much efficiency is always bad”…

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#80

Post by jimmydddd »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #63
bentt wrote: post #53

The fact that ESPN itself has a sports betting app tells you all you need to know about the perversion of sports now that gambling is blessed by the government. I think I can live with the legalization of sports betting if there are strong restrictions against marketing and advertising. If you want to ruin your life that's your decision, and you can always just take the same amount of money and bet it on the stock ma…

Most gamblers are casuals. I spend $5-10 a week during football and usually am down like $10 at the end of the year. It provides a lot of entertainment, sucks that some people can’t control themselves but I shouldn’t be punished for that. Agree that heavily regulating and perhaps banning advertising needs to be done.

Agreed. I've never been into sports and never watched more than a few minutes of any game. But for a few years I was in a small stakes weekly football pool and it made weekends really fun. Suddenly, I wanted to know if the Rams or the Dolphins won, and by how much. I was tracking the pool leader boards. I ended up being ahead about $20. That pool ended, and I never joined another one. But it was a mildly fun time.
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