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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

#171

Post by watwut »

dist-epoch wrote: post #101
Retric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

By customers you mean "people to sell stolen watches to"? Cause if that is the question, neither of these is a good place. Affluent people wont buy obviously stolen watches directly in the restaurant, they will go through middleman that makes them look legit.

And people being there to bet wont be buying watches that much either.

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

#172

Post by lapcat »

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…

> you might as well throw your money at something that has the possibility of making your rich

I don't think anyone is getting rich from sports betting. It's not like the lottery, where the jackpots are massive and the odds are very long. And the jackpots get massive in the lottery because they accumulate when nobody wins, whereas in sports bettings, the gambler always either wins or loses, based on the outcome of the sporting event; there's no carry-over.

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

#173

Post by nly »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #134
daymanstep wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strategy (2) doesn't tell you how to come up with the initial prices, and bookies can potentially lose a significant amount from giving "bad" initial prices. If an individual is winning a lot of money from a bookie repeatedly because of these bad initial prices, then it is a sign that they might have a better model than the bookie, and so it is in the bookie's interest to ban them, since sports betting is a zero-sum…

> If an individual is winning a lot of money from a bookie repeatedly because of these bad initial prices, then it is a sign that they might have a better model than the bookie, and so it is in the bookie's interest to ban them I don't think this follows. If an individual is winning a lot of money repeatedly in this way, it is a sign that the bookie should give their bets a lot of weight when adjusting prices. But th…

The vast majority of small bookmakers in the UK don't come up with their own prices. They either copy other bookmakers or pay for them.

They also typically use off the shelf software for book management and risk.

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

#174

Post by watwut »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #97
tokioyoyo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It could be banned. Would that stop it? Probably not. Was not that big of a thing 15 years ago. The goal of a ban is not to reduce the consumption to 0, but try to lower it a significant amount. Although, since people are generally aware of it and participated in it, it might not be that easy to go back to beforetimes.

Yes, gambling was huge in the US before, you just didn't know about it. Illegal gambling market in the US was massive because you could go offshore. One of the issues with offshore providers is no taxes, no harm prevention, etc. Legalization allows you to generate tax revenue and implement harm prevention effectively for the very small amount of users that are gambling addicts (if you compare to some of the things th…

> Legalization allows you to generate tax revenue and implement harm prevention effectively for the very small amount of users that are gambling addicts

You do not need legalization for harm reduction. But, the state earning on gambling means effective regulations will be against state interests.

Gambling earns mostly on addicts. Not on people who bet a little here and there. By extension, state will need those addicts existing and loosing money to get taxes too.

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

#175

Post by tgv »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #163
tgv wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling (without very strict rules) has a net negative outcome. You're not doing anything valuable, nor neutral, by gambling. So it could well be viewed as immoral.

Gambling is addictive because it gives you a dopamine rush. That’s why people gamble because it’s actually enjoyable. I personally don’t see the argument for categorising it as immoral on the basis that’s it’s not useful. The same could be said about plenty of other enjoyable things. However exploitation is clearly immoral. That’s where I have issue with gambling. Gambling operators don’t get rich thanks to the avera…

It was more to provide an alternative to the parent's remark that it isn't. I fully agree that its exploitation is by far the greater evil.

I do not concur on the dopamine argument. There's no solid evidence for it. The underlying mechanism is probably much more complex. But since we're not discussing a signal path to addiction, it's an unnecessary complication of the argument that instills the belief that there's a medical cure.

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

#176

Post by Simulacra »

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…

I agree that it's 100% hope. And a little hope can be very bad. I once read an article about kidnapping, and the author stated that often kidnappers will reassure their victims that they will be let go, that everything will be all right, and that little bit of hope keeps the victim compliant.

I think casinos do the same thing..

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

#177

Post by Retric »

dist-epoch wrote: post #101
Retric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Hanging out at the same restaurant is a terrible idea for a watch thief, you will be caught over time.

That’s not an issue for the loan shark.

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

#178

Post by walthamstow »

What I find most sad about this is the symbiosis between the USA and the UK and how corporations (or politicians) in each one will look to see the most profitable (or divisive) in the other and copy it.

This is how the US ended up with rampant sports gambling/advertising, something the UK has had most of this century. It's also how we ended up with voter ID in the UK despite having near-zero problems with voter impersonation.

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

#179

Post by tpm »

lapcat wrote: post #172
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…

> you might as well throw your money at something that has the possibility of making your rich I don't think anyone is getting rich from sports betting. It's not like the lottery, where the jackpots are massive and the odds are very long. And the jackpots get massive in the lottery because they accumulate when nobody wins, whereas in sports bettings, the gambler always either wins or loses, based on the outcome of th…

You are right customers are not getting rich from sports betting, but the true reason is that once 'the house', the betting company sees a consistent winner, it will ban them or lower their betting limit to discourage them from betting again. There are people that would get rich otherwise. Also betting companies are coordinating their odds to prevent arbitrage.

And also, of course: there are gangs influencing the outcomes of the sport events and selling the bets or organizing betting on them. Fraudster bosses, if they are smart, are absolutely getting rich. And betting company owners too. But you didn't mean those.

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

#180

Post by garbawarb »

331c8c71 wrote: post #56
darth_avocado wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while they tend to be absent from more affluent ones. It’s not that they don’t want to be, it’s that affluent neighborhoods tend to keep things that are considered “low class” out of them. The only Safeway in my city that doesn’t sell lottery tickets is the one in the most affluent neighborhood.

I bet the better off do gamble on the financial markets though

Financial markets produce a net positive outcome for investors (gamblers), no? The average rate of return in the S&P500 is about 10% and it's considered the baseline for thr stock market.
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