Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts • Hacker News Board

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#301

Post by a_dabbler » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 11:42 PM UTC

feoren wrote: post #294

itsoktocry wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can always just take the same amount of money and bet it on the stock market. There's a big difference between betting on sports (zero sum) and buying stocks (ownership in a company), even if the latter can be silly at times.

The gambling addicts who get their fix from the stock market are mostly not buying stocks. They're mostly buying puts and calls, which are much closer to bets (you win big or you lose it all), and much closer to zero-sum (either you or the guy you bought it from loses). If they are just buying straight stocks, it's either a meme stock like GME or multiple-leveraged.

AFAIK there are generally basic restrictions on being able to engage in options trading and I don't think the platforms are trying to encourage you to make more options trades in the same way gambling companies do. It's also highly regulated

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#302

Post by a_dabbler » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 11:51 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #256

Gtex555 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are we banning cars then? What about unhealthy food? Heart disease is the number one killer in this country so if the gov wanted to protect people it would make sure everyone was skinny.

You're presenting a false dichotomy. Cars are a form of transport which has obvious benefits. Even unhealthy foods are food which is y'know the thing people consume to live.

What are the benefits to keeping gambling? Does the entertainment value offset the societal harms?

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#303

Post by a_dabbler » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 12:04 AM UTC

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #286

dawatchusay wrote: post #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

Well, if you didn't have those rules, you wouldn't be running a gambling game for very long, because you would soon lose all your money to the pro bettors. So those rules exist by necessity.

I think a cap on bet sizes is reasonable but typically platforms outright ban pros. A bookie can only go out of business to pros if they are terrible at setting the odds

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#304

Post by HDThoreaun » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 1:56 AM UTC

a_dabbler wrote: post #302

HDThoreaun wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we banning cars then? What about unhealthy food? Heart disease is the number one killer in this country so if the gov wanted to protect people it would make sure everyone was skinny.

You're presenting a false dichotomy. Cars are a form of transport which has obvious benefits. Even unhealthy foods are food which is y'know the thing people consume to live. What are the benefits to keeping gambling? Does the entertainment value offset the societal harms?

> Does the entertainment value offset the societal harms?

yes. Just like the entertainment value of unhealthy food outweighs the social harms it creates.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#305

Post by baobabKoodaa » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 6:35 AM UTC

a_dabbler wrote: post #303

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you didn't have those rules, you wouldn't be running a gambling game for very long, because you would soon lose all your money to the pro bettors. So those rules exist by necessity.

I think a cap on bet sizes is reasonable but typically platforms outright ban pros. A bookie can only go out of business to pros if they are terrible at setting the odds

The difference between a bet size cap and an outright ban is merely symbolic when you're talking about pro bettors.

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#306

Post by smabie » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 3:20 PM UTC

jayrot wrote: post #141

bluGill wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bookmakers can always lay the odds so that there’s equal money on each side No they can't. Large ones can, but the small ones sometimes cannot because they have to match the large ones but in a smaller pool. If everyone knows which team is going to win, diehard fans of the losing team will still bet on their team - large players capture that in their odds and break even. Small players don't have the same mix of cus…

Also, for what it's worth, the idea that betting lines and odds are set to make "equal money on both sides" is a very simplistic and often ignorant talking point. It is quite possible if not common, especially on big games like the SB, for the books to have significant exposure to one side. Making betting lines is a crazy complex mix of the house essentially betting on an outcome themselves, tempered by a limit to ex…

With a 10% edge you really don't need to be very good

And in fact if these guys were good they wouldn't be banning people at all

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#307

Post by smabie » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 3:21 PM UTC

gopher_space wrote: post #145

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From my perspective the last thing an amateur bookie wants is an outstanding balance either way. Your only way of dealing with a bad debt is banning the person and letting the other amateur bookies know about it.

Or you could beat the guy up

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#308

Post by yunwal » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:00 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #281

snapcaster wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> What do you mean prohibition never works? exactly how it reads? can you point to any historical examples where it has? > Are you really going to claim legalizing sports betting a few years ago DIDNT increase gambling in the US No? Did not claim that at all? > This doesn't strike me as a good faith comment yours does strike me that way either; although mine definitely was in good faith.

> although mine definitely was in good faith

If it was in good faith, why didn't you bother addressing the point? How was gambling prohibition "not working"?

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#309

Post by singleshot_ » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 10:08 PM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #176

idontwantthis wrote: post #163

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?

Very much so. Even planning it, without carrying it out, would be subject to criminal conspiracy charges. Recruiting people to the scheme (even the investors) would be soliciting a crime. It's illegal to interfere in the outcome of the game once the bet is placed. Finally, once it was proven you rigged it, you'd probably be forced to return the winnings anyway. I'm sure an actual attorney could come up with even more…

Doesn’t conspiracy require an act in furtherance of the crime?

Are you sure that the party who has solicited the crime is not the investors?

What makes it illegal to interfere in the outcome?

Re: Pro bettors disguising themselves as gambling addicts

#310

Post by JohnMakin » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 3:44 PM UTC

yunwal wrote: post #308

JohnMakin wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you mean prohibition never works? exactly how it reads? can you point to any historical examples where it has? > Are you really going to claim legalizing sports betting a few years ago DIDNT increase gambling in the US No? Did not claim that at all? > This doesn't strike me as a good faith comment yours does strike me that way either; although mine definitely was in good faith.

> although mine definitely was in good faith If it was in good faith, why didn't you bother addressing the point? How was gambling prohibition "not working"?

There has never been a gambling prohibition as far as I’m aware - so I won’t address an imaginary argument. Hope that helps. However, an astute reader would realize that there have been multiple other attempts at prohibiting “vices” that have failed in spectacular fashion. I trust you can do your own research here and don’t need to belabor that point.

On gambling prohibitions though - one local one I can think of is the CA gambling market. California has decided most forms of online gambling are “illegal,” (except the ones that have successfully lobbied for it), yet it is not enforced at all, only on corporate sites, which creates a massive black market that actually causes far more exposure to harm to consumers than legalization would. This isn’t a novel argument, it’s been debated for 20+ years and the results are pretty clear. I understand however people don’t seek nuance in these arguments and if your stance is “GAMBLING == BAD” I really don’t have much else to say here.