Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts • Hacker News Board

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#161

Post by ossobuco » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:22 PM UTC

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

> Simulating addictive behavior, says Peabody, is an effective way to get dealers to send you free doses and keep your accounts open. This isn’t necessarily because drug dealers are targeting problem drug users, he says; they’re simply looking to identify and encourage customers who are likely to spend most. This just happens to be a good way to find and enable addicts, too.

Imagine justifying drug dealers with this line of reasoning

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#162

Post by umvi » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:23 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #127

snapcaster wrote: post #44

These apps should be banned. Gambling is a social ill with such a limited upside and so much harm it can't really be justified

So is alcohol - there are plenty of people who gamble responsibly and get enjoyment out of it. Taking away the entire thing rather than simply making sensible regulation and dealing with scumbag behavior by corporate bookies is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, not to mention extremely moralistic. And, in the end, prohibition never works - bookies still and always will exist.

> And, in the end, prohibition never works - bookies still and always will exist.

I don't think that's exactly true. Laws introduce varying degrees of friction for citizens to do something.

It's like entrepreneurship. If there are a bunch of laws in place making it hard to start a business, fewer people will start businesses. Some people will still create illegal businesses on the black market, but lots of law abiding citizens will just stop creating businesses because there's too much friction to bother.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#163

Post by idontwantthis » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:25 PM UTC

rjbwork wrote: post #130

georgeecollins wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a terrible potential to corrupt sport. When you can bet a lot of money on how long a college players plays, or how many points they get in a particular game, what's to stop them from having a relative make a bet and they just fake a cramp? The stock market is heavily regulated. I don't think you should ban sports betting, because like many vices it's easier to control if it is legal. According to Nate Silver,…

>It has a terrible potential to corrupt sport. When you can bet a lot of money on how long a college players plays, or how many points they get in a particular game, what's to stop them from having a relative make a bet and they just fake a cramp? Or get assaulted or murdered, internet death pool style? All kinds of really fucked up incentives are created by these legalized betting apps.

I wonder how many people out there would take an assault charge to win a bet. Since there’s a market you could even get investors. Get $10million together, bet it with high odds, take 25% cut, spend 10 years in jail, live out the rest of your life in comfort.

Is any of that illegal besides the assault itself?

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#164

Post by bionsystem » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:35 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #60

bionsystem wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Say 100 / 100 000 people are degenerate gambleurs at risk of bankruptcy. +28% would mean 128 are now at risk.

First rule of statistics: don’t compare percentages unless they have the same denominator.

I didn't do that, did I ?

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#165

Post by nradov » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:39 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #123

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…

It has a terrible potential to corrupt sport. When you can bet a lot of money on how long a college players plays, or how many points they get in a particular game, what's to stop them from having a relative make a bet and they just fake a cramp? The stock market is heavily regulated. I don't think you should ban sports betting, because like many vices it's easier to control if it is legal. According to Nate Silver,…

One participant can control the score in individual sports, like singles tennis or boxing (notorious for rigged matches).

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#166

Post by billti » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:39 PM UTC

ronsor wrote: post #61

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…

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.

I lived in Australia for quite a while. It's a terrible example of what can happen. There was recently a very good BBC article on it and the connection between sports, gambling, and marketing: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2yg3k82y0o

Similar to many other toxic things, once the genie is out of the bottle and the government gets used to the revenue it generates, there is a large disincentive to tackling the problem.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#167

Post by caeril » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:40 PM UTC

ronsor wrote: post #61

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…

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.

Gambling is the only way for some of us to make Sportsball interesting, and attempt to fit in with the absurdist normie culture in which we live.

Realistically, there's nothing particularly interesting about the Dallas Frackers versus the Washington Rentseekers. But if you have money on the outcome, watching a game (with a sufficient supply of alcohol) is actually bearable.

Edit: I'm explaining a real, actual reason for the value of sports betting for some people, but it seems that the Sportsball enthusiasts don't like desecration of their Holy Church. I apologize.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#168

Post by everforward » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:41 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #162

JohnMakin wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is alcohol - there are plenty of people who gamble responsibly and get enjoyment out of it. Taking away the entire thing rather than simply making sensible regulation and dealing with scumbag behavior by corporate bookies is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, not to mention extremely moralistic. And, in the end, prohibition never works - bookies still and always will exist.

> And, in the end, prohibition never works - bookies still and always will exist. I don't think that's exactly true. Laws introduce varying degrees of friction for citizens to do something. It's like entrepreneurship. If there are a bunch of laws in place making it hard to start a business, fewer people will start businesses. Some people will still create illegal businesses on the black market, but lots of law abidin…

That fails to acknowledge that a) the black market tends to be dramatically less safe b) it drives addicts underground where it's hard to identify and help them and c) the addicts this is meant to help will be disproportionately willing to participate in this new, much worse black market.

Bookies scale very well, a small number of them could serve whatever clientele is still interested.

It'll probably turn out similarly to drugs. Prohibition keeps your average citizen away, and makes the market much worse for anyone left in it.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#169

Post by some_random » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:45 PM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #115

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.

Now apply that same kind of thinking to legalized prostitution and human trafficking.

That's a really bad example because prostitution by itself is victimless crime. In fact, it's perfectly legal when money doesn't change hands! With gambling you have a winner and a loser, so all the other issues end up downstream necessarily whereas human trafficking (and other issues with sex work) is an enabling tool for criminals running prostitution operations.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#170

Post by twobitshifter » Tue, Oct 01, 2024, 7:51 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #123

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…

It has a terrible potential to corrupt sport. When you can bet a lot of money on how long a college players plays, or how many points they get in a particular game, what's to stop them from having a relative make a bet and they just fake a cramp? The stock market is heavily regulated. I don't think you should ban sports betting, because like many vices it's easier to control if it is legal. According to Nate Silver,…

NBA bans Jontay Porter after gambling probe shows he shared information, bet on games.

“Porter took himself out of that game after less than three minutes, claiming illness, none of his stats meeting the totals set in the parlay. The $80,000 bet was frozen and not paid out, the league said, and the NBA started an investigation not long afterward.”

https://apnews.com/article/nba-jontay-porter-banned-265ad5cb...