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The rising human cost of sports betting

nytimes.com

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Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that should be illegal. If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game. If that means their business model is no longer viable, then that is their problem.

Predatory tactics, facilitating addiction, not good. But what you’re saying feels to me like a rule that says you aren’t allowed to play betting games unless you take every single bet. What? Consider that for yourself. Every person on the street who walks up to you and says “I bet you that…”, you are required to take that bet? Or you’re never allowed to make a bet again? We as people pick and choose what bets we take…

The house already provides a list of which bets players can make, and what the odds are.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by modern? My understanding is that the rise of index funds has been the biggest trend in this space over the past 20-30 years. Riskier bets like individual stock picking, or "experts" that con others with dubious ways of predicting the future, have been around forever.

Well, there are various other modern trends: * All stock market stuff feels modern, because 15-year-olds don't talk about it but 25-year-olds do. So it feels like something that wasn't really around/popular when you were young. * Some would say retailer investors who want to buy individual stocks should be holding them for the long term - and that a mobile app, letting you trade on the go, is an anti-feature. * The r…

Apps like robinhood encourage and even gamify frequent trading at the expense of naive investors and because that's where brokers make money. Coinbase and their ilk do the same in the crypto market. Frequently trading stocks, and doing anything in crypto is just as much gambling as betting on a sports game, appeals to the same demographic, and is just as destructive.

Yes, stock picking and penny stock scams have been around forever, but it has never been so easy.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#153
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State lotteries are a means to shift tax burden from the wealthy to the poor. Every time one is implemented to "support education", it is always followed by a tax break for the upper class, resulting in a net 0 increase in school budgets.

State lotteries are just a tax on the stupid.

No, it's a tax on the hopeless.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my position for a while on so called "vices". Prohibition is ineffective and often does more harm than good, but allowing companies to advertise these products to young people and those who are susceptible to abuse is a net negative for society. Worst of all are government run lotteries. A state run lottery may be preferable to one run by organized crime, but running millions of dollars worth of ads wit…

State lotteries are a means to shift tax burden from the wealthy to the poor. Every time one is implemented to "support education", it is always followed by a tax break for the upper class, resulting in a net 0 increase in school budgets.

>Every time one is implemented to "support education", it is always followed by a tax break for the upper class, resulting in a net 0 increase in school budgets.

My gut tells me tax breaks are the exception and more often than not increased revenues are simply paired with boondoggle spending because money is fungible.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#155

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

These numbers aren't believable. There's no way to consistently make $1k on every $3k wagered. Possibly for weeks, or even a couple of months. But there is no method of betting on professional sports that can do that over any significant time period.

If you got to the point of betting $30k a day, you were definitely going to get limited by the sports books. They also can and will arbitrarily limit the amount of money that you can withdraw. Sports books are really only designed to deal in that much money with a limited set of people who exhibit very clear patterns.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#156
post #68

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-b... This is a long read, but is really insightful on how the industry really works. If you're a consistently winning bettor, you're going to get blocked pretty quickly when you're betting against the house. Why would a casino want to play a game where they don't have odds in their favor when they can just ban the sharps and feast on the casuals? With parimut…

There was a period, maybe 15 years ago now, where I had my online accounts at pretty much every major UK bookmaker either closed or highly restricted. One new account had a profit of something like £350 in the first first week, and then it was heavily restricted. It wasn’t like I’d taken them for thousands! In the end, I was fortunate enough to have one contact in one bookmaker who flagged my account, allowing me to bet a decent amount for a good while (Thanks Corals!). Eventually I just shifted everything to Betfair.

In Australia bookmakers are obliged by law to stand a minimum bet size, based on the event and location (country vs metro horse racing for example). [1]

[1] https://www.championbets.com.au/bookmakers/minimum-bet-limit...

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that should be illegal. If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game. If that means their business model is no longer viable, then that is their problem.

Predatory tactics, facilitating addiction, not good. But what you’re saying feels to me like a rule that says you aren’t allowed to play betting games unless you take every single bet. What? Consider that for yourself. Every person on the street who walks up to you and says “I bet you that…”, you are required to take that bet? Or you’re never allowed to make a bet again? We as people pick and choose what bets we take…

People who run casinos or gambling businesses always have predatory nature. This is the rule everyone should be aware of.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#158
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State lotteries are just a tax on the stupid.

People like to say this because it's a nice sound-bite that lets people feel like they themselves are not among the stupid. It ignores the reality that poverty is a causative agent for lacking the appropriate math skill to recognize that playing the lottery is not a good financial choice, and self-perpetuates that poverty.

I think poor people understand the math behind the chances of winning the lottery.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#159
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-b... This is a long read, but is really insightful on how the industry really works. If you're a consistently winning bettor, you're going to get blocked pretty quickly when you're betting against the house. Why would a casino want to play a game where they don't have odds in their favor when they can just ban the sharps and feast on the casuals? With parimut…

I think that should be illegal. If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game. If that means their business model is no longer viable, then that is their problem.

Well, I think I mostly agree with you in theory. But I was just thinking about something else, let's say that algorithms giving secure wins and counting cards at blackjack are allowed, people starts winning and casino start losing, they have loss and let's say that it's not convenient anymore to have a casino, and they go out of business, country loses a revenue stream for taxes, people loses their jobs, and an industry doesn't exist anymore, or it goes black and doesn't pay taxes anymore, you need to invest money in police and investigations in order to catch unregulated games houses, betting people might be or not be paid, criminality gets its way, and everything can happen.. I am not sure but I think I agree with you in theory, in practice I think we would end up fighting another unfightable underground market at even a bigger cost to human life, it's just another human dependency that you can't fight starting from casinos or dealers, you need to start it at schools

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predatory tactics, facilitating addiction, not good. But what you’re saying feels to me like a rule that says you aren’t allowed to play betting games unless you take every single bet. What? Consider that for yourself. Every person on the street who walks up to you and says “I bet you that…”, you are required to take that bet? Or you’re never allowed to make a bet again? We as people pick and choose what bets we take…

The house already provides a list of which bets players can make, and what the odds are.

the reader of those rules believes they are true. You are teaching others right now, that they are some kind of true, specifically in a statistical way. This thread is overflowing with examples that counter those game rules.
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