U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#141

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #107

vkou wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A retired fireman pissing his life savings away into a slot machine hurts me, because now I have to either support him, or deal with him sleeping between the dumpsters, in my building's back alley. Slot machines are a hack that exploits human psychology, to the loss of everyone, and the benefit of... Casino owners. I understand that people want to gamble. I also think that it should be aggressively discouraged.

> A retired fireman pissing his life savings away into a slot machine hurts me, because now I have to either support him, or deal with him sleeping between the dumpsters, in my building's back alley. how about instead of trying to protect him from his own mistakes like a child, you just let go of the need to take care of people who willfully mess their lives up? > I understand that people want to gamble. I also think…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#142

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 12:37 AM UTC

RugnirViking wrote: post #136

coralreef wrote: post #7

In contrast: "The Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for states to legalize sports betting, striking down a 1992 federal law that had prohibited most states from authorizing sports betting." https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/14/politics/sports-betting-ncaa-...

Am I understanding you right? You are not currently allowed to bet on the outcome of sporting events anywhere in the US? That's fascinating news to me

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#143

Post by pnw_hazor » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 1:11 AM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #42

existencebox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By my most literal interpretation of this law my inlaws can now be arrested for our march madness bracket. This seems absurd that we've let even this level of ambiguity come to pass in a country that used to pride itself on personal liberty; especially when the law was paid for by clear corporate cronyism and special interests to benefit from its passage. Can anyone legally versed tell me why I shouldn't be this ince…

Well, clearly we can not infringe upon the personal liberty of the corporate person that is paying for this law to be enacted. That would be wrong, in today's 3/5ths equality between humans and corporate persons.

In WA it was the Indian Tribes that paid progressive Democrats to make Internet gambling a felony.

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#144

Post by jandrese » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 1:18 AM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #102

jandrese wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is when they have dependents. As a society we have decided that it is a bridge too far to make people pass a test before they can procreate/own pets/etc... so we have to make sure that most of them will be able to maintain their responsibility via lots of bans and regulations.

if dependents are the issue, why not only make it illegal for people who claim dependents on their tax return? or better yet, just make it illegal to neglect your dependents. I don't have any dependents myself. why do you care if I spend all my money?

The tax thing doesn't make any sense at all so I'll ignore it.

Making it illegal to neglect your dependents is already codified into law in a couple of places, like alimony, but a general purpose law runs into the problem of defining neglect and enforcing it. It's the sort of thing that is a total mess in the courts with an endless parade of he-said she-said cases.

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#145

Post by zrobotics » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 2:09 AM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #125

Ajedi32 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance is the precise opposite of gambling; instead of concentrating reward, it distributes risk. When you buy insurance you're not betting that something bad will happen to you, you're hedging your otherwise implicit bet that something bad _won't_ happen to you.

So gambling by insurance companies is ok, just not people. Unless it is an insurance co-op (which I think would be great), there is always entity on the other side with the concentrated risk. It seems so many laws are about protecting people from themselves, but then we need exceptions from them for society to work at all. Like you can't legally invest in a non-listed company if you are not an accredited investor. Ma…

How is the insurance company taking a concentrated risk? My auto insurance co is betting that more people will drive safely and not make claims than the value of claims paid out. They distribute, not concentrate, their risk. They accept that there will be some people who have claims larger than what they have paid in, but that risk is distributed over a large pool.

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#146

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 2:34 AM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #139

Dylan16807 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's complicated because you're changing your bet as the odds move, which is pretty gambly. If you were doing both bets before the game started, at about the same time, then the second bet would effectively not be gambling. Not because of your motivation, exactly, but because it reduces the variance in how much money you'll have at the end of the game. If you buy a matched pair of tickets so that you guarantee a $6…

I don't get how your argument about time relates. You don't acquire the risk of injury, death or property damage at the same time you purchase insurance. In both cases under discussion, there is existing risk that is mitigated by betting. > If you were doing both bets before the game started, at about the same time, then the second bet would effectively not be gambling. Not because of your motivation, exactly, but be…

> Why would the second bet in your example be any different from the second bet in mine?

If you're conditionally making the second bet based on outside factors, then you might not actually be implementing a strategy of reduced variance. (And if you were making that bet unconditionally then why did you wait until midgame?) It's tricky. I'd rather deal with simpler upfront scenarios.

> Let's go with a more real world example. Let's say you have a shop near a stadium in the UK and you place bets so that you win money on outcomes that are likely to lead to vandalism or looting. My understanding of your position is that this is not gambling unless the shopkeeper miss-estimates his risk and bets so much that he gets vandalized and still comes out ahead.

That could possibly work. If the looting is basically guaranteed, the bet acts to reduce variance. But looting tends to be pretty random, so under real life circumstances it probably wouldn't work out that way.

The laws aren't set up for such tiny corner cases, of course.

> I might buy a case that insurance companies don't gamble the same way that some bookies don't gamble, because they have the information they need to safely hedge their bets with certainty as they are made.

> In my view, consumers generally have much less information about the risks they are hedging, that means they can't have the certainty required for buying insurance to not be gambling

The information is needed to figure out a fair price for the insurance. If you don't have enough info you might overpay, but overpaying isn't gambling. If you turn a 10% risk of a $10k loss into a guaranteed $2.5k payment then you got ripped off but you didn't gamble. Your variance is still dropped to zero.

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#147

Post by repsilat » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 3:08 AM UTC

coralreef wrote: post #7

In contrast: "The Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for states to legalize sports betting, striking down a 1992 federal law that had prohibited most states from authorizing sports betting." https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/14/politics/sports-betting-ncaa-...

What a bizarre legal situation -- instead of banning sports betting, the federal government tried to force states to ban it. It isn't like 1992 was pre-Wickard v Filburn.

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#148

Post by kshacker » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #140

Passthepeas wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has always perplexed me why there is a desire to deal with kind of thing at the federal level in the first place. States being able to decide these things for themselves is supposed to be what makes such a massive country stay functional.

Human hubris. If you're a federal lawmaker, and you know you make great laws, why wouldn't you want all 50 states to get the benefit of your wise decision-making? In so far as the federal government can unilaterally expand its reach, it will tend to do so, if just because being part of the federal government makes you more likely to think things should be regulated at the federal level. The authors of the Constitutio…

More than hubris, the people paying you to write laws want to make sure they pay just one place and not 50 states.

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#149

Post by coralreef » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 3:56 AM UTC

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #90

coralreef wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An underlying stock market is useful because it allows companies to raise capital to take risk. But many of those trading tools are just vehicles for speculative trading. When I buy options contracts as a trader, I'm speculating the price will go up or down. I'm not adding anything productive to the economy. For me to win, another trader must lose.

You're sending price signals. The market needs active traders not just investors to function properly.

Sure, capitalists will always say "I'm providing liquidity", and I'm fine with that, there is some value in that.

But I'm still gambling on an outcome in a zero sum game. What is the purpose of anti-gambling laws? To protect the common man? But the state is okay with you losing everything on stocks? The point is its an unjust hypocrisy.

Re: U.S. Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets

#150

Post by ciupicri » Wed, Jan 16, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #111

EpicEng wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't only hurt themselves. They are tax paying citizens and the government has an interest in their welfare. They may have dependents. Now Timmy can't go to college because Dad blew their savings. They get a divorce, now mom and dad are depressed and Timmy enters a life of crime (or, less hyperbolic; doesn't make as much taxable revenue as he could have otherwise.) There are all sorts of laws which protect peop…

> There are all sorts of laws which protect people from themselves, this is nothing new. See; seatbelt laws for an obvious and simple example. and they are all a grotesque overextension of state power. although seatbelt laws are actually not a good example; they protect people outside your vehicle as well. I guess we just have different values. I don't want to be a revenue center for the state to optimize.

How do seatbealts protect people outside the vehicle?