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Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

bloomberg.com

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Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#231

Post by bionsystem »

hinkley wrote: post #174
bionsystem wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't do that, did I ?

Say I've got a building full of people. 48% are male. 35% have blue eyes, 50% are over 50, and 22% are balding. You can start speculating on the relationship between age and hair status because they're both based on the same population: the inhabitants. Older people are more likely to be bald is a fair hypothesis. But if you start trying to make guesses about how many bald men are in the building, you have a problem,…

Oh, you mean that the increase in bankruptcy risk is not necessarily only for the addicted gamblers, is that right ?

In that case I admit I got tricked by the phrasing in the article, and shouldn't have mentioned gambling, just bankruptcy risk.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#232

Post by ktc1 »

bettringf wrote: post #9

I worked at a quant sports betting trading company, on occasion it would send the employees to place annonymous few grand bets at physical shops because it's such a problem getting people to continue accepting your bets if you are any good. And found out that the more you bet, the more percentage commission you pay to exchanges like Betfair, which is quite contraintuitive - commission goes up with volume, not down. I…

Could you not just bet with the Asian bookmakers? (sbo, pinnacle, ibc etc.)

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#233

Post by ktc1 »

bionsystem wrote: post #15
bettringf wrote: post #9

I worked at a quant sports betting trading company, on occasion it would send the employees to place annonymous few grand bets at physical shops because it's such a problem getting people to continue accepting your bets if you are any good. And found out that the more you bet, the more percentage commission you pay to exchanges like Betfair, which is quite contraintuitive - commission goes up with volume, not down. I…

> it's such a problem getting people to continue accepting your bets if you are any good. Why don't they just use those people to adjust their odds faster for everybody else ? Or do they limit the size you can bet rather than just banning you ? > I also found out that the more you bet, the more percentage commission you pay to exchanges like Betfair, which is quite contraintuitive - commission goes up with volume, no…

>Why don't they just use those people to adjust their odds faster for everybody else ? Or do they limit the size you can bet rather than just banning you ?

Some of them ban outright and some restrict your stake. When I worked for a bookmaker we had an account that had made several hundred thousand £s from us and was limited to betting relatively small amounts. He would always bet as soon as our odds would open and then we'd adjust them.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#234

Post by Gtex555 »

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.

the government's goal should be to protect the population not to be fair to one person who enjoys the odd $5 bet.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#235

Post by tiznow »

rawgabbit wrote: post #215
harlanlewis wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Donaghy (ref): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Donaghy

I don’t know how much cheating by referees has got to with it. But many years ago I found the NBA to be a foul shooting contest and gave up on it. It is unwatchable.

The modern NBA stinks for reasons far beyond refereeing and cheating. The Donaghy scandal was a "low point" but the game was 5x as watchable then

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#236

Post by tiznow »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #66
HDThoreaun wrote: post #63

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. 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.

> 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

$500 per year? I know people who put a grand on FCS football on Fridays

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#237

Post by sensanaty »

caeril wrote: post #192
dehugger wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you loathe sports that much why are you forcing yourself to watch them? "Fitting into absurdist normie culture" is ludicrous. Are you not capable of making friends without drunkenly feigning interest in their hobbies?

Short answer: No, I'm not. People are generally extremely intolerant of others who deviate slightly from the norm. Having friends is a fun fantasy, though.

Out of my entire friendgroup there's perhaps 2 people that are into any sports at all to the level of regularly watching it.

I think what you need is to see a therapist and to rethink your position in life a bit, because it seems very misanthropic without being based on reality. I'd wager that most people don't care about sports all that much, at least anecdotally.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#238

Post by sensanaty »

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 had a long-haul flight last year and was sat next to a gentleman who worked for one of those betting companies in Europe who I had a chat with during the flight. The guy exuded pure sliminess from the minute he explained his job, and I couldn't believe the kinda crap he was proud of peddling to people.

It's a good grift unfortunately, an insane amount of money is involved in it as is usually the case with these sorts of morally bankrupt endeavors.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#240

Post by snapcaster »

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.

What do you mean prohibition never works? Are you really going to claim legalizing sports betting a few years ago DIDNT increase gambling in the US? This doesn't strike me as a good faith comment just a platitude
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