201–210 of 525 posts
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> widespread gambling = negative social effects Though this is conflating correlation for causation. As you note yourself in GP, dire social conditions is what makes people see gambling (or risk-taking more generally) as one of the only viable options to get out.
Just because the causation goes one way doesn't mean it cannot go the other way, too. We call those vicious cycles.
In this case, I can agree bad social conditions cause gambling, but I don't think the data supports the opposite, at least not more than many other things we take for granted, such as
- alcohol,
- beauty/fashion industries,
- social media,
etc.
I happen to enjoy sports gambling and would be sad to see it disappear. I'm writing this because I want you to know what you're depriving me of. Because _other_ people make poor decisions, we need to take that decision away from everyone.
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I would say gambling in itself isnt immoral. The problem is that a small % of people get addicted and end up spending all their money and more on betting. And that the industry makes almost all their profits on those that are addicted.
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.
- Insurance prevents financial catastrophe by aggregating risk, yet it is nothing more than wagering you'll get into trouble.
- Market liquidity is provided by people willing to bet on price developments, which smoothes out fluctuations in availability.
- Large infrastructure projects and charity donations been financed through lotteries -- it's a way to raise money without a guarantee of return.
- If you want to sell something which a single buyer cannot afford, and it is difficult to share, it can be sold through a lottery which lets buyers buy a ticket's expected value rather than the full cost of the thing.
These benefits still exist when unregulated, but of course it seems to work even better under the appropriate regulation.
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…
> Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. This is a neat moral message… but is it really true? Gambling is addictive, so the reality might be that even without such deep social problems you get similar levels
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.
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…