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We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

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Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#231

Post by Aurornis »

blitzar wrote: post #62

Americans may be shocked to hear that in the rest of the world gambling has been a thing for centuries. We also have people under the age of 20 drinking alcohol. I am not suggesting in any way that gambling is good - but it wasnt invented last week in america

> Americans may be shocked to hear that in the rest of the world gambling has been a thing for centuries

People who write vacuous "America bad" comments online without understanding the topic may be shocked to learn that America has also had gambling for a long time.

The debate now is about the current changes to regulations and proliferation of apps and ads. Gambling now is objectively more accessible and less regulated than in the past.

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#232

Post by socalgal2 »

zug_zug wrote: post #222
socalgal2 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to prey on a subset of humanity This triggers thoughts. I don't like people being taken advantage of. At the same time, I like my personal liberties. It feels like you can spin this idea for nearly anything. Apparently 25% of alcohol sales are to alcoholics. That sucks and you could spin this has the liquor companies taking advantage, but I have tons of…

Well I think a good way to differentiate things that are guilty-pleasures like a twinky and gambling is to take a survey of people and see what % say "I wish I had never ever gambled in the first place" vs "I wish I never had been allowed to buy twinkies" It'd actually be quite easy to set certain sane limits on gambling like you can't gamble more than 1% of your annual income per year, but I bet gambling platforms w…

I know 100s of people who've been to vegas and had a good time gambling, not one of them would say "I wish I'd never gambled in the first place". I personally know zero people who gambled so much they regret it. I'm not denying those people exist, but I suspect if you ask everyone, a very small percent have had a strong negative experience

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#233

Post by skippyboxedhero »

jackfruitpeel wrote: post #88

The craziest thing here is that online gambling has been legal in the UK and Ireland for many years, and it's been such an obvious negative for those countries — and had been optimized brutally like any other tech product. When I moved over to the US a decade ago, I remember thinking 'well at least they're smart enough to have banned online gambling'. I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to…

what do you mean legal "for many years"? it was never illegal. we have had telephone betting for decades, gambling for centuries...the reason online gambling was banned in the US was because the biggest donors to both parties requested it...there is no other reason because banning is a proven way to maximise harm (and even overly restrictive regulation has been proven to be very poor, as in Hong Kong).

thanks for telling everyone you are in senior leadership

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#234

Post by georgemcbay »

dash2 wrote: post #67

An argument not mentioned here and which I didn’t appreciate until I actually took part in these markets myself, is that you need a supply of stupid/uninformed people to take the other side of the informed people’s bets.(In economic terms, no-trade theorems apply.) That suggests to me that the dream of perfect information revelation isn’t going to come true. Instead, the liquid markets will be those with a large supp…

I agree with you overall but I'm not sure the Trump bet is the best example.

He certainly isn't going to be thrown out of office (unfortunately) but those 16% of bettors also win if he dies this year, and he's 80, fat, still gobbling burgers and shows signs of someone that has had at least one stroke so far.

On the other hand he has access to the best medical care, but even still a 16% chance he drops dead before the end of the year isn't that outrageous.

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#235

Post by pcthrowaway »

UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote: post #127
bluetidepro wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. Can't say I agree with that specific take (and find it a bit naive to be honest), unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has.

[flagged]

Sounds like there's a good chance your company is one of the few I'd want to work for then. I don't think I'd meet your standards though, having worked in decentralized finance in the past

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#236

Post by keeda »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

"where key decision makers in government have the tantalizing options to make hundreds of thousands of dollars by synchronizing military engagements with their gambling position" To wit: where key decision makers in government can get paid to reveal war secretes to our enemies.

Or heck, with the amount of $$$ on the line, cash-strapped nation states could even finance their warfare this way. Like that $14M bet on when an attack would land in Israel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47401044 -- that could buy a lot of drones!

Aww, conspiracy theories are no fun when they're so plausible.

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#237

Post by AlexandrB »

FajitaNachos wrote: post #149
kibwen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer prediction markets to gambling because the platform isn't the bookmaker. Just because you prefer poker to slots, that doesn't suddenly mean that poker isn't gambling.

poker and slots are two very different variants of gambling. Sure, there is plenty of chance/variance in poker but there is an undeniable skill component that is lacking in slots.

The one that really infuriates me is blackjack where - if you apply skill by counting cards - you get kicked out of the casino.

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#238

Post by zug_zug »

socalgal2 wrote: post #232
zug_zug wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I think a good way to differentiate things that are guilty-pleasures like a twinky and gambling is to take a survey of people and see what % say "I wish I had never ever gambled in the first place" vs "I wish I never had been allowed to buy twinkies" It'd actually be quite easy to set certain sane limits on gambling like you can't gamble more than 1% of your annual income per year, but I bet gambling platforms w…

I know 100s of people who've been to vegas and had a good time gambling, not one of them would say "I wish I'd never gambled in the first place". I personally know zero people who gambled so much they regret it. I'm not denying those people exist, but I suspect if you ask everyone, a very small percent have had a strong negative experience

Yes it's a very small % of the population, but it's actually a significant percent of the earnings of these platforms.

Just for illustration -- when I worked at Zynga they'd sell in-game purchases for over $10k USD for virtual items because there were people who just couldn't help themselves, and those "whales" were actually the bulk of the profit of the company.

That's why these platforms should have mandatory sane limits that can only be exempted with special circumstances.

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#239

Post by bluGill »

matt_daemon wrote: post #221
jackfruitpeel wrote: post #88

The craziest thing here is that online gambling has been legal in the UK and Ireland for many years, and it's been such an obvious negative for those countries — and had been optimized brutally like any other tech product. When I moved over to the US a decade ago, I remember thinking 'well at least they're smart enough to have banned online gambling'. I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to…

Same in Australia and only recently (that is, in the last year) has there been any restrictions on showing gambling ads during live sports events. It’s difficult to compare how normalised it is here versus what the US is currently going through. As for sportspeople throwing games, well that’s been happening for as long as betting has been around as well, see countless examples from football (soccer) and cricket.

It has been going on in the US for years - even when it was illegal, there was still illegal gambling and more then one person has been caught throwing games. Sports beet was always legal in Law Vegas though (at least from what I can tell), but most states banned it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Rose#Betting_scandal,_per...

Re: We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do

#240

Post by titanomachy »

UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote: post #127
bluetidepro wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. Can't say I agree with that specific take (and find it a bit naive to be honest), unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has.

[flagged]

Only a Sith deals in absolutes. You really think someone who took a job at Google as a bright-eyed young graduate is forever tainted and could never be worth hiring?
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