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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

#211

Post by mrweasel »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #119
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 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.

When Denmark liberalized gambling small "casinos" with slot machines and sports betting started to pop up everywhere. Those wouldn't be an issue if it was regular people popping Friday afternoon to get a coffee and spend $10 - $20 on the slot machines and perhaps put down a few bucks on this weekends big game, but you're right, it no.

The addicts and lonely line up waiting for these places to open, they spend everything they've got and the gambling places encourage it by providing them with free coffee, snacks and in some cases dinner.

No, gambling isn't immoral, but praying on the addicts, the mentally challenge and the lonely is. If you can't stay in business without exploiting the weak, you have no right to exist. The only negative consequence I see from banning gambling is the potential dangers of a black market.

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

#212

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

Everything is gambling . You are either gambling money or time or a combination or both to end up ahead in a particular metric that interests you

However gambling time is seen as virtous and to be celebrated, whereas gambling money is the devil.

At least if you lose money you can make it back, when you gamble time good luck getting back your 4 year studying for a gender studies degree.

Also here on HN gambling on a startup which most likely go to 0 is seen as amazing, whereas betting on the Jacksonville Jaguars to win the SuperBowl is seen as bad and to be condamned , even though the Jaguars bet is at least an order of magnitude more likely to generate profits than the startup one.

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

#213

Post by oreally »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #117
fullshark wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks have positive expected returns: the risk premium. Sports bets have negative expected returns in aggregate and if you are good enough to only bet the ones you can spot with positive expected returns they ban you from the platform.

Stocks do not have positive expected return. The return on the average stock is 0% in the US which is negative after fees (this is a common misconception, market returns are positive only because large companies get larger and this is contextual, when this isn't true then even the market will lose money). This is to say nothing of 0DTE options. There is a risk premium but this premium can be positive or negative. It…

If stocks did not have positive expected return no one would invest. What you're talking about is daytrading where there's a large failure rate so much so people call it gambling because of the nature of how swingy and illogical it can be.

Besides that, there's also the perspective that options help stabilize the market via hedging.

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

#214

Post by h2zizzle »

foogazi wrote: post #198
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.

> 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?

I'd wager (heh) a bit of both. The distinction isn't that the affluent neighborhood gets to make its own decisions or be cared about by large corporations whose presence ostensibly enhances their quality of life, it's that poor neighborhoods don't. The reason the latter have these socioeconomically deleterious establishments is the same reason they don't get grocery stores or gyms: the people making the decisions don't see them as customers to serve, but as marks to exploit. And suddenly we're back to the notion that privilege isn't necessarily having it "better," but sometimes just having what most would consider the dignified standard.

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

#216

Post by michaelcampbell »

Throaway152 wrote: post #188

What I'd like to know is why did legalizing sports betting = complete change of the sports media landscape? Like the question asked doesn't seem to be around how sports betting has been integrated. it's just "is sports betting good or should we ban it." Im fine with sports betting, what Im not fine with is my hockey games being saturated with ads, odds, and commentary about something that they keep telling us is tang…

> What I'd like to know is why did legalizing sports betting

Financial interests.

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

#217

Post by bhc »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #119
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 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.

The gambling industry has funneled a ton of cash into academic researchers producing papers that gave credence to the idea of "addictive personality," which in turn was massaged by PR experts into the notion that some people are just born addicts, and the gambling industry can't help it if they become addicted to gambling too. "Addictive personality" itself is on very shaky grounds statistically, and the derived PR messaging certainly is false. The gambling industry is likely more culpable in this mess than even a typical, generally well-informed person might be aware.

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

#218

Post by tgv »

kqr wrote: post #206
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.

I think this is hard to argue against because you haven't defined what you mean by strict rules, but here are some positive outcomes of gambling: - 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 infrastructu…

What I mean by strict rules is (but not limited to): no profit for the organizer, loss limit for everyone across all bets, etc. But I don't know what set of rules would qualify to make gambling neutral.

- Infrastructure is better off paid by taxation. That's much fairer, and more predictable.

- I don't see insurance as gambling. It has a chance element, but that's not enough to qualify something as gambling. You buy security against large losses at a moderate price (*), instead of building up large losses for nothing. It's also a step which you hope doesn't pay out (sickness, fire, theft).

- Selling through lottery is exploitation.

(*) YMMV

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

#219

Post by alexashka »

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…

[flagged]

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

#220

Post by FergusArgyll »

GenerWork wrote: post #209
bongodongobob wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This sounds like Nevada. I remember arriving in the Reno airport for the first time and being astounded that there were so many slot machines around. Even CVS had slot machines!

It's wild, first thing you encounter when you come off the plane is just rows and rows of slot machines. Jarring
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