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

pewresearch.org

191–200 of 525 posts

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

#191

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…

> has the possibility of making your rich

the core issue is that such possibility does not exist. if you are successful gambler to the point where you are on the path to riches you will be banned from all platforms faster than Jets are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs

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

#192
post #35
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…

> 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. Neither does smoking, but we still limit the types of advertisements cigarette companies can make. Gambling is ultimately a predatory business that serves to separate people susceptible to addiction from their money.

Two word refutation: Passive smoking.

I’m sure there is an argument there somewhere, and I’d love to address that if you would care to give it another go.

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

#193
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling used to be so illegal in the US that it used its global Internet jurisdiction to shut down poker companies located outside the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg

And yet every bar I go to, as far back as I can remember, has slot machines and somehow that doesn't count? Even gas stations. Never understood this.

Scale.

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

#194

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…

https://oldcoinbad.com/p/long-degeneracy In the author’s words, long degeneracy represents “a belief that the world will only get more degenerate, financialized, speculative, lonely, tribal and weird”. The most concise and holistic explanation of this trend is: "As real returns compress, risk increases to compensate".

I dislike the author's framing of this in terms of right-wing meme culture, but almost all of the analysis is nevertheless correct. An orthodox Marxist could make essentially the same argument using different terminology - except about the inevitability of the trend continuing forever.

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

#195

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…

We already live in a country where owning capital generates more income than actually working. And this is rapidly getting worse. The GOP has sold the country on blaming minorities, and so things will get much, much worse before they can be better.

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

#196
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling used to be so illegal in the US that it used its global Internet jurisdiction to shut down poker companies located outside the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg

And yet every bar I go to, as far back as I can remember, has slot machines and somehow that doesn't count? Even gas stations. Never understood this.

That is very much state by state in the usa. My state never had slots in gas stations or bars.

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

#197
post #168
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And any active investment platforms are not different at all. A lot of matketing budget is spent to make people believe they can earn money by trading.

There are some differences: investment platforms wont kick you out if you manage to earn money. Gambling sites do that. If you are loosing a lot, gaming sites make your limits go up. If you are winning a lot, your limits go down. Investment sites dont do that. They also assign "consigliere" to you if you loose a lot. He is supposed to create a personal relationship with you. If you try to stop playing, that person wi…

Yeah, the incentives are completely different between exchanges and bookmakers. Exchanges make money regardless of who wins or loses. Bookmakers make money from their users losing.

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

#198

I left my home country over 10 years ago, and ever since I've travelled back once every 1 or 2 years. Since 4-5 years ago I started to notice these betting houses cropping up where my family and friends live. They are impossible to miss, with big pictures of different sports and no windows. The most important thing to notice is where these place are and are not. They proliferate in working class and less well off nei…

> 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.

> The only Safeway in my city that doesn’t sell lottery tickets is the one in the most affluent neighborhood.

Does the affluent community prohibit it or is Safeway self-policing?

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

#199
post #189
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is highly unlikely. It is my experience from working in the sports betting industry for several years, including the risk reporting and risk managing part. In fact I'm pretty sure several people lived comfortable life by going around our risk management by using a loophole that was possible at the time in our country - it was possible to bet anonymously in person. So while we could limit maximum winnings per b…

> several people lived comfortable life > in our country A comfortable life in which country? And "several" means "more than two but not many". > they used helpers So, this doesn't sound like just ordinary people who have lost hope. The thing about lottery tickets, as opposed to sports betting is that the lottery requires zero skill. You buy a ticket, and if you get lucky and your numbers are randomly chosen, you win…

> A comfortable life in which country?

Not that important, if you are able to win 150k USD/EUR a bet several times in a year.

> So, this doesn't sound like just ordinary people who have lost hope.

Not sure where the 'hope' got in, but in our country ordinary people are perfectly able to enter a bar and ask patrons to place a bet in exchange for a beer and a vodka. In fact the bar and the betting shop are often the same place.

> But becoming a professional sports gambler, or a professional poker player, for example, is not really the usual response to losing hope.

It's not the usual response but there is a sort of people who do this. They will not work 9-5 a stable good paying job although they are able to, but absolutely will put huge effort into finding a way to make money any other way.

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

#200
post #199
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> several people lived comfortable life > in our country A comfortable life in which country? And "several" means "more than two but not many". > they used helpers So, this doesn't sound like just ordinary people who have lost hope. The thing about lottery tickets, as opposed to sports betting is that the lottery requires zero skill. You buy a ticket, and if you get lucky and your numbers are randomly chosen, you win…

> A comfortable life in which country? Not that important, if you are able to win 150k USD/EUR a bet several times in a year. > So, this doesn't sound like just ordinary people who have lost hope. Not sure where the 'hope' got in, but in our country ordinary people are perfectly able to enter a bar and ask patrons to place a bet in exchange for a beer and a vodka. In fact the bar and the betting shop are often the sa…

> Not sure where the 'hope' got in

That's where this discussion started! From the OP: "It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better."

You've taken the discussion off on a tangent that's mostly unrelated to the original point that I was addressing.

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