Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 103 posts

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#11

Post by echoangle »

Retric wrote: post #10
FerretFred wrote: post #2

The government will never intervene while the UK gambling industry contributes so much money. In 2022, the total figure was about £14 billion. See https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/report/annual-report-a...

It’s a really inefficient tax as the net economic loss is well past £14 billion. One argument is gambling is simply something people like to do, but in that case some regulations would be expected. Where it makes sense is when you’re pulling in outside money from foreigners, but I don’t think many people go to the UK to gamble.

Do you have a source for the net economic loss being higher?

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#12

Post by spencerflem »

echoangle wrote: post #11
Retric wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a really inefficient tax as the net economic loss is well past £14 billion. One argument is gambling is simply something people like to do, but in that case some regulations would be expected. Where it makes sense is when you’re pulling in outside money from foreigners, but I don’t think many people go to the UK to gamble.

Do you have a source for the net economic loss being higher?

It's absolutely true and not hard to look up

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#13

Post by miohtama »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9
cm2012 wrote: post #3

I work in advertising and defend tracking, targeting, Meta, etc all the time as largely harmless. But I think one exception is when they promote products which are bad. Tobacco ads are already banned - gambling should 100% be a banned ad category. So should mobile apps that are basically gambling in disguise.

What is bad? Alcohol? Cheap clothes made to be worn a handful times and that shed microplastics all over the place? Gratuitous consumption solely for the purpose of signaling wealth? Political parties that want to restrict people’s rights?

Software industry that defines bad is called compliance-industrial complex.

Defining bad is a big business. Here is a good book about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Compliance-Industrial-Complex-Operati...

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#14

Post by andyjohnson0 »

I'm in the UK and have been applying for dev jobs over the last six months. I've had at least five approaches from recruiters representing gambling companies. They seem to have a lot of money to spend on salaries, and promise experience of languages like Go, and also ML, data science, etc.

I always give them the same answer: no. I don't work for parasites.

I remember the time before the Blair government unwisely deregulated gambling, and I hope we can one day return to that.

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#15

Post by beejiu »

FerretFred wrote: post #2

The government will never intervene while the UK gambling industry contributes so much money. In 2022, the total figure was about £14 billion. See https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/report/annual-report-a...

£14 billion is the industry revenue. Gambling taxes to the state are £3.3 billion. Gambling harms are costed at £1.77 billion, of which £1 billion is death from suicide and £0.5 billion for depression. Those costs are conservative estimates (the government "expect that the true costs are higher because the lack of evidence meant that it was not possible to cost all types of harms or the wider harms to individuals or society")

In what other industry are those societal harms acceptable?

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gambling-related-...

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#16

Post by ninkendo »

cm2012 wrote: post #3

I work in advertising and defend tracking, targeting, Meta, etc all the time as largely harmless. But I think one exception is when they promote products which are bad. Tobacco ads are already banned - gambling should 100% be a banned ad category. So should mobile apps that are basically gambling in disguise.

I live in a Midwest state that allows gambling completely unrestricted, including apps where you just give a credit card and press a slot machine button and (inevitably) lose all your money.

I also watch the local news each morning as part of my morning routine.

It’s utterly ridiculous how many gambling ads are on tv now. Like outside of election season with political ads, it feels like 9 in 10 ads are for some gambling app. Sometimes a casino app, often sports betting. It feels so dystopian, like if I were an addict it would be seriously triggering me how constant and incessant the ads are. It’s always felt so strange to me that we allow this.

I’ve also had family members lose their livelihoods to gambling apps. They have perfected the addictiveness, giving you free credits if you lose too much, to keep you going. It’s extremely difficult to actually get money out of the apps too. They want you to gamble it all away, but slowly. Of all the things that have changed in this part of the country in my lifetime, this is the most obviously bad one, the one that makes me feel the most ashamed of how bad we’ve collectively let things get.

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#17

Post by giantg2 »

spencerflem wrote: post #12
echoangle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for the net economic loss being higher?

It's absolutely true and not hard to look up

Then can you share a link? I've seen stuff about negative economic effects of compulsive gambling, but never anything at the aggregate level including the non-problem gamblers. It seems really odd any country would allow gambling if the aggregate effect is negative and so well known. Politicians always talk about the economic benefits (beyond just taxes), but they've also been known to lie.

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#18

Post by echoangle »

spencerflem wrote: post #12
echoangle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for the net economic loss being higher?

It's absolutely true and not hard to look up

Can you find a link for me if it’s not hard?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63bc25b4d3bf7...

This looks fairly official and cites 1.05 to 1.77 billion £ in societal cost on page 6. That’s less than 14 billion £.

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#19

Post by pclmulqdq »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #14

I'm in the UK and have been applying for dev jobs over the last six months. I've had at least five approaches from recruiters representing gambling companies. They seem to have a lot of money to spend on salaries, and promise experience of languages like Go, and also ML, data science, etc. I always give them the same answer: no. I don't work for parasites. I remember the time before the Blair government unwisely dere…

Are there any other parasites you wouldn't work for?

Re: UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

#20

Post by noneeeed »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #14

I'm in the UK and have been applying for dev jobs over the last six months. I've had at least five approaches from recruiters representing gambling companies. They seem to have a lot of money to spend on salaries, and promise experience of languages like Go, and also ML, data science, etc. I always give them the same answer: no. I don't work for parasites. I remember the time before the Blair government unwisely dere…

Likewise. I will happily work in the vast majority of legal industries in the UK, they all have varying degrees of social good about them. I might not get a warm fuzzy feeling about all of them, but a job's a job.

But I won't touch gambling, especially in the UK. It a nasty, predatory industry that preys on people. They know they are doing it, but they hide behind BS excuses and empty promises, and time after time investigations clearly show they intentionally goad on problem gamblers.

To be clear, this isn't a moral objection to people gambling. If you enjoy it, and are in control, then have fun. It's the companies, they are scum.

Post reply on HN