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Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

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Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#261
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely addiction does; so we're going to ban alcohol (and weed), and then maybe move onto video games and books and and and and? Prohibition has generally been a lot less effective than regulation. The problem in the US, in my view, is much more the utterly-gutted effectiveness of the regulatory state than it is the existence of legal gambling.

So then you must have a clear set of principles on how to regulate gambling to maintain it as a healthy activity with no degenerate pathways?

Sure, like we already do for other addictive industries like Tobacco and Alcohol. It doesn't have to be perfect because it's hard reduction - if half as many people get addicted that's still a big win.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#262
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 went to a local team baseball game and it was frankly depressing. To see someone being put on the big screen to make some guess in a future inning with a plug for a bet site at a baseball game; frankly at this point just allow steroids again if you're selling out that bad.

>just allow steroids again if you're selling out that bad.

As I understand, they basically do. HGH, TRT, and other stuff is used for quicker recovery and to slow effects of aging.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed -- I will continue to shout it from every perch I can: politicians who are actively working to proliferate these apps should be (at least journalistically) investigated. I would bet on this being a well-above-random signal of either a personal gambling addiction or corruption.

But how much would you bet?

It'd depend on the individual, but just picking someone completely at random (I live in New York so looked up who's pushing the bills here): https://nysfocus.com/2024/06/05/resorts-world-casino-lobbyin...

Word document metadata shows the bill's proposed text was written in circulated in a .docx file created by a lobbying firm that's paid $90k/month by the Malaysian owner of a local casino.

Not bad for 30 seconds dedicated to a first blind attempt!

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#264
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,…

Clearly, it's going to happen anyway at least some of the time, but the "what's to stop" is pretty obviously getting caught. It's already happened in at least three instances from the past year I can think of, though I don't remember the names because they were all pretty small-time players (Jontay Porter, who was already mentioned, is one of them). Anyone that is caught doing it gets instantly banned from the sport for life, which hopefully provides an even larger counterincentive compared to whatever incentive there is to attempt throwing a game.

It's not perfect, but the leagues don't have much of a choice. The US Supreme Court ruled that banning sports betting was unconstitutional, so until the court rolls over to new justices with new opinions on the matter in a few decades, it isn't going anywhere. It doesn't make any difference how much some fans on the Internet don't like it. Federal lawmakers can't ban it.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that might be a little extreme? Where is a legal betting app allowing people to bet on that?

At some point there is enough money triggered for a specific outcome of the game. If hurting someone credibly increases the odds, it's not if but when will people cross the line.

While the opportunity for this isn't zero, the reality is that there are safer and more lucrative ways for criminals to make money, especially for those who have the aptitude to pull something like this off.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'd think you'ď be VERY hard pressed to bet $10 million dollars, but I don't know that.

Pretend to be 1,000 people, and each sock puppet bets $10k.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#267
post #46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don’t know much about market making but as a member of Gamblers Anonymous since 1998 I’ve seen just about every kind of devastation caused by every kind of gambling. In the last few years I’ve seen a significant increase in the number of very young men coming to us. Here in Australia, the gambling industry absolutely is laser focused on targeting young men using every psychological trick in the book, includin…

It will just be like meth and painkillers: everyone pretends there isn't a problem for years until it gets so bad that the government has to step in.

Absolutely looking forward to the headlines in 2034 about how gambling apps were just too tricky and deceitful so there's no way anyone could have known how bad they were.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#268
I just don’t understand how this kind of thing can be legal. How can you say “I’m running a gambling game, and if you’re not that good at it you can bet as much as you want and lose as much as you want, but if you are good, you’re not allowed to bet more than would hurt my bottom line.” I don’t understand how you can have different rules for different customers like this

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elite football and basketball athletes at major programs are tiny, tiny minority of all student athletes in this country. I went to a decent regional state school (DII at the time) and I had advanced economics and math classes with a number of athletes, including football players. It's just not correct to generalize from the programs that are NFL feeder programs.

Fair, but NFL feeder programs are not educating their athletes, including a number of athletes who will not make the NFL or NBA. They are getting little to no education and have no shot at turning pro. Worse yet, the chase for more and more football money has screwed over regional conferences, which harms the run-of-the-mill student athlete in non-revenue sports (think track, swimming, tennis, etc) who has no pro asp…

I definitely agree with your second statement about football ruining the conferences for all the other sports. I don't think it's sustainable and I think within 10 years we'll see a correction, where football largely dissociates from the rest of the regional conference model.

To your first point, though, whether an individual student athlete avails themselves of the free education being offered to them is kind of up to them. I know multiple athletes who played at elite programs who managed to get educated just fine. I suspect the ones who aren't getting educated would be no better off, or worse off, if they didn't attend college at all.

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