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Addiction Markets

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Re: Addiction Markets

#221

Post by Karrot_Kream »

loeg wrote: post #191
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports betting is only one form of gambling, so I have no idea what you're talking about. This article, like your post it seems, is conflating the two and mixing in vague assertions of corporations and whatnot to add a layer of emotion that serves more to manipulate than to elucidate. There's always been gambling in my lifetime. There's been legal ones like Indian Casinos and Vegas. Then there's been the below board…

The very recent complete nationwide legalization of sports betting is most of what people are mad about.

That's not what the article and a lot of commenters here are saying though. The article makes vague insinuations about "corporate gambling".

If you're just targeting sports books I think other than the folks making money from the industry, you'll find few fans. They offer predatory parlays with often outright negative EV or very high variance returns. They kick sophisticated money out they can find edges. They leave no room for above board players like market makers providing liquidity through efficiency.

I think a better article and discussion could emerge from just tackling the harms of sports books.

Re: Addiction Markets

#222

Post by Karrot_Kream »

noitpmeder wrote: post #211
exogeny wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is completely wrong. Who is the other peer in your transaction on Polymarket or Kalshi? Susquehanna. Jane Street. Two Sigma. It's not some rando two towns over. The PMs get paid to front run access to these market makers, who crush the retail bettor, er, predictor.

What do you mean here by front run? Don't most of these exchanges use normal limit books with visible resting orders available to trade against? My understanding was that these shops were acting more as market makers, with the idea of guaranteeing liquidity and tight spreads in some number of markets. If you think the listed bid-ask spread is mispriced you're more than welcome to move the market to whatever price you…

Yes they act as MMs. There's only so much edge they can get in prediction markets from their money skills alone.

Re: Addiction Markets

#223

Post by parineum »

laterium wrote: post #199
musicale wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you lose (most people, most of the time), you don't have to pay tax on winnings because there aren't any. But gambling itself seems like sort of a regressive tax that preys upon those susceptible to gambling. Edit: at least with state lotteries the state gets most of the money so it is more like a tax; in the case of corporate sports betting the corporation takes the money and then pays a small corporate tax on…

Regressive taxes can be counterbalanced by redistributive policies. Sales taxes are regressive too for example and bring much much more revenue. The issue is sales taxes disincentivize consumption whereas gambling taxes disinventivize gambling.

> Sales taxes are regressive too for example and bring much much more revenue.

That's because "tax the rich" is actually pretty bad tax policy because the rich really don't make a lot more income than the upper-middle to lower classes.

If you look at countries with robust social safety nets, they don't get there by taxing the rich.

Re: Addiction Markets

#224

Post by energy123 »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #54
mberning wrote: post #26

I don’t have an overly paternalistic view of the government. I’m rather libertarian in that regard. But is it too much to ask that we place some guardrails on things that are know to have trouble with? Smoking, drinking, gambling, etc. I certainly feel that people should be able to do it if they really want to, but making it super accessible and highly advertised seems like a bad idea.

There are guardrails. Gambling is legalised to introduce guardrails so that regulated providers can exist and provide a product that stops people using offshore. Neither accessibility or advertising impacts rates of addiction. It is a real addiction. Does a lack of advertising stop heroin use? Behave.

So the number of smoking addicts magically went down over the last few decades?

Re: Addiction Markets

#226

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

cael450 wrote: post #201
wombatpm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax advertising for gambling? Require all advertising for gambling to go through a state agency? There is lots a state can do besides banning.

Yeah but banning them is the right thing to do. Why would you have a state agency review gambling ads?

I imagine outright banning would create a fairly large grey market. The objective should be harm reduction, as eradication would be basically impossible.

Re: Addiction Markets

#227

Post by Karrot_Kream »

stackskipton wrote: post #185
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #71

On a somewhat related note, there seems to be a huge interest in vice policing on social media. Gambling, sex, drugs, these are some of humanity's oldest vices. Why has it become so popular on social media to highlight these, along with a narrative of social or cultural decline?

I think part of it is just every change in something, there is strong push back until we establish good equilibrium as society. With Sport Betting, throwing advertisements and having bets talked about by sports analysts during the game is starting to be seen as bad thing because it's seen as really bad habit, like smoking and maybe society should attempt to regulate it better.

Yeah I'm a fan of normalizing but regulating gambling more. Restrictions on bets for EV and variance. Disclosure limitations. Age verification. That kind of thing.

Re: Addiction Markets

#228

Post by parineum »

mberning wrote: post #173
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are guardrails. Gambling is legalised to introduce guardrails so that regulated providers can exist and provide a product that stops people using offshore. Neither accessibility or advertising impacts rates of addiction. It is a real addiction. Does a lack of advertising stop heroin use? Behave.

If advertising didn’t work to drive consumption no business would ever spend a dime on it. When your product has addictive qualities advertising absolutely increases the number of people that get hooked. This is something that was well understood in the past, for example the huge curtailment in cigarette advertising.

I want to chime in not necessarily to disagree but there is a lot of unknowns in how effective advertising really is and in a lot of cases, if it is at all.

Additionally, the curtailment of cigarette advertising wasn't because it was understood to be bad, it was because a bunch of politicians found it to be politically beneficial to "do something" so they threw everything at the wall. Increased taxes, counter advertisement, advertising bans, smoking bans in certain places, required packaging, etc. Who knows what actually worked, if any of it did.

We're seeing a big decline in alcohol consumption right now in younger generations right now and none of those things were done to cause it.

Re: Addiction Markets

#229

Post by georgemcbay »

musicale wrote: post #192
edot wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damning which way, though? Are gambling taxes too high, or are corporate taxes too low? And since corporate income is surely higher than gambling income, I’m inclined to think that gambling taxes are too high AND corporate taxes are too low, creating this odd fact. Edit: and I know it sounds weird to say that gambling taxes are too high, when one could argue that high taxes are meant to disincentivize a thing - but i…

When you lose (most people, most of the time), you don't have to pay tax on winnings because there aren't any. But gambling itself seems like sort of a regressive tax that preys upon those susceptible to gambling. Edit: at least with state lotteries the state gets most of the money so it is more like a tax; in the case of corporate sports betting the corporation takes the money and then pays a small corporate tax on…

> When you lose (most people, most of the time)

For modern gambling (not including some prediction market setups) its actually all of the people (still allowed to play), most of the time.

Because if you win regularly they limit or outright ban you from playing. If they keep letting you play they have determined algorithmically that you're statistically a loser over time.

So not only is this easy access to online/app-based gambling financially devastating for those predisposed to become addicted to it, its also effectively legally rigged in that the house has no obligation to take bets from people who are actually good at it, and they have all the data they need to detect that very quickly.

Re: Addiction Markets

#230

Post by galaxyLogic »

shipman05 wrote: post #187
rufus_foreman wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It feels like banning advertising for gambling would be a sweet spot between harm reduction and maintaining individual liberty No. If you want restrictions on gambling, on advertising it, on participating in it, on making money from it, you want to restrict individual liberty. I want to restrict individual liberty, I have voted against gambling when it has come up for a vote in my state over and over. You want to…

"If you want restrictions on gambling, on advertising it, on participating in it, on making money from it, you want to restrict individual liberty." I grant that, but I never claimed the contrary. I never suggested that banning advertising reduces ALL harm or preserves ALL individual liberty. I just believe an ad ban is a good compromise position. I'm a former smoker. I would have been outraged had the government tri…

Makes sense. If something is harmful to people, government should

1. Ban advertizing of it. (because it provides no benefit for the nation as a whole)

2. But allow people to do it. (because they will then do it illegally, which is bad for the nation as a whole)

I think it's that simple.

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