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Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

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Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#101

Post by dist-epoch »

Retric wrote: post #28
kriops wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilt by association: If, e.g., violence is a problem, then one needs to deal with the violence. In general, law-abiding citizens are—and should—be free to congregate and partake in their bad habits wherever they please. And even though gambling is generally immoral, it does not infringe on anyone else's God-given rights and has no business being made illegal. Gambling is emphasized above to emphasize we are talking…

It’s not about the Gambling, it’s the fact these businesses are collecting a large number of easy victims in once place. Imagine you’re a loan shark. Which of the following seems like a good place to look for customers: upscale restaurant, movie theater, random bar, theme park, baseball stadium, city park, or a sports betting venue.

Imagine you're a luxury watch thief. Which of the following seems like a good place to look for customers: upscale restaurant, ... or a sports betting venue.

https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/luxury-watch-th...

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#102

Post by ayatollah »

dist-epoch wrote: post #95
keiferski wrote: post #67

The legalization and popularity of gambling is more than just an immoral activity that has negative societal effects. It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better. Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. If hard work or time doesn’t make your life better, then fate is just chance, and you might as well throw your…

[flagged]

The stock market is gambling only for fools, while sports betting is gambling for everyone. False equivalence.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#103

Post by skippyboxedhero »

viccis wrote: post #37
bruce511 wrote: post #13

Is it bad for society? It's certainly bad for individuals, and by extension their families. I guess if it scales up such that a serious chunk of society is affected, then yes its bad for society. Let's start with the obvious- in all forms of gambling the gamblers make a net loss. The games are hosted by very sophisticated companies, that have better mathematicians, and make money. $x is pumped into the system by the…

>It could be banned. Would that stop it? Probably not. Absolutely asinine statement. Yeah no shit it's not going to deter the most degenerate of gamblers of seeking out a place to make bets. Will it stop apps being advertised on TV and the app stores from grooming new people into it? Yes. Will it stop people mildly curious from betting on sports? Yes. If "it" in "stop it" is "all sports betting" then no, obviously. I…

The point OP is making is almost completely unrelated to addiction.

If someone is a gambling addict, they are going to do it. One of the issues with gambling addicts in the US before legalization is that they would use illegal bookmakers, and then get their legs broken. Legalizing is the only way to implement a harm prevention strategy because states regulators can control providers (for example, all states in the US have exclusion lists that they maintain and which providers have to implement, regulators have direct control over operations).

In addition, there is also a lot of evidence that if you regulate ineffectively, you will also cause harm. Hong Kong is a classic example where some forms of gambling are legalized to raise revenue (iirc, very effective, over 10% of total tax revenue) but other forms are banned in order to maximise revenue...addicts are the only users of underground services. Sweden have a state-run gambling operator, that operator provides a bad service (unsurprisingly), again addicts are driven to underground services.

For some reason the general public perceives gambling as both inherently addictive and something that can only be triggered by gambling being legal. Neither of these things are true. Substances are inherently addictive, gambling is not, the proportion of gamblers that are addicted is usually around 1%...of gamblers, not the total population. And it isn't triggered by gambling being legal, it is a real addiction so is present regardless.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#104

Post by [deleted] »

dist-epoch wrote: post #95
keiferski wrote: post #67

The legalization and popularity of gambling is more than just an immoral activity that has negative societal effects. It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better. Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. If hard work or time doesn’t make your life better, then fate is just chance, and you might as well throw your…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#105

Post by thaumasiotes »

daymanstep wrote: post #34
kriops wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilt by association: If, e.g., violence is a problem, then one needs to deal with the violence. In general, law-abiding citizens are—and should—be free to congregate and partake in their bad habits wherever they please. And even though gambling is generally immoral, it does not infringe on anyone else's God-given rights and has no business being made illegal. Gambling is emphasized above to emphasize we are talking…

Sports betting is not a game of pure chance, but bookmaking is arguably ethically quite problematic. Most individuals are going up against these very sophisticated statistical models created by teams of quants working with huge datasets that you have to pay substantial amounts to access. I think most bettors don't know what they're up against. And the bookie business model is intrinsically anti-consumer: if you win t…

> Most individuals are going up against these very sophisticated statistical models created by teams of quants working with huge datasets that you have to pay substantial amounts to access.

There are two things you might do as a bookmaker:

(1) Perceive the truth of who is likely to do what, and set odds reflecting that perfect Platonic reality, but with a percentage taken off for yourself.

(2) Adjust the odds you offer over time such that, come the event, the amount you stand to collect on either side will cover the amount you owe to the other side.

You don't need to know the odds to use strategy (2). Nor do you need to reject bettors who are likely to be right.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#106

Post by roenxi »

keiferski wrote: post #67

The legalization and popularity of gambling is more than just an immoral activity that has negative societal effects. It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better. Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. If hard work or time doesn’t make your life better, then fate is just chance, and you might as well throw your…

> It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better.

Broadly speaking I probably agree with their conclusion. But they really should consider savings and investment before donating their money to a betting website - it is pretty much the only choice that is guaranteed to not make their lives better in any way. I can hazard a guess as to the major reason their life isn't improving, they aren't doing anything to make it better. The money supply generally grows at >5% annually in most English speaking countries, find a way to get a slice of that action if nothing else.

If they really can't think of something to do with the money, give it to a friend. Then at least maybe there is some social capital for a rainy day.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#107

Post by keiferski »

dist-epoch wrote: post #95
keiferski wrote: post #67

The legalization and popularity of gambling is more than just an immoral activity that has negative societal effects. It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better. Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. If hard work or time doesn’t make your life better, then fate is just chance, and you might as well throw your…

[flagged]

That's a completely false equivalence, and an uncharitable interpretation of what I wrote.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#108

Post by swarnie »

ayatollah wrote: post #102
dist-epoch wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The stock market is gambling only for fools, while sports betting is gambling for everyone. False equivalence.

It really depends how you use it.

Put your 401k in to a global index and come back in 45 years? Yeah that's a false equivalence.

Take out a bank loan and roll 0DTE options? That's 99% the same as sports gambling for me.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#109

Post by d4mi3n »

dist-epoch wrote: post #95
keiferski wrote: post #67

The legalization and popularity of gambling is more than just an immoral activity that has negative societal effects. It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better. Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. If hard work or time doesn’t make your life better, then fate is just chance, and you might as well throw your…

[flagged]

Let's keep this conversation productive. I don't read OP's comment anything like your response seems to imply.

While I don't think OP's point about morals is relevant here (they vary widely from culture to culture), equating the stock market to gambling misses out on a lot of nuance. Your average 401k retirement fund is going to outperform your average gambler 100% of the time over one's lifetime. Long term investments also tend to not prey on addictive patterns of behavior.

I personally think for a society to function well, it behooves ourselves to recognize when there are certain patterns or behaviors that are self destructive if left unchecked. I feel addictive drugs and gambling fall into this category. That's not to say banning this behavior is the right call, but there's a lot of space to explore productive policies between full on bans and anything-goes.

Re: Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society

#110

Post by squigz »

eximius wrote: post #61

I mean, yes, but it's so far down the list of bad things for society we're facing right now. I'd rather we tackle the root problems leading to these. Increase education rather than reduce liberties. I'm not, like, strongly opposed to reducing this particular liberty, but man it's not my first priority.

I don't think we have to take any liberties away to help reduce this issue - just banning gambling advertising would help a lot.
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