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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

#271

Post by ryandrake »

prewett wrote: post #222
331c8c71 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There are many ways to use the financial markets that are not gambling. Buying an index fund or Coca-Cola isn’t gambling; it is not even very risky. Nor are individual stocks gambling, as you can get a reasonable idea of what a company’s price ought to be and how it is likely to perform in the future, at least for well-established companies. It’s also harder to get into debt, as long as you don’t short, because you c…

Buying a stock or mutual fund is the very definition of gambling: placing a monetary bet on an unknown future event. Just because this activity has historically had a +EV, doesn't make it any less gambling.

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

#272

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #145
Tangokat wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Great post, thanks for linking to that. The prevalence of crypto millionaires is definitely a big factor. Especially for people under 35; when you see your peers becoming rich from essentially random behaviors (like buying the right coin), it really undermines the idea that success is linked to hard work. And that impression funnels back into culture.

[deleted]

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

#273

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #125
victorbjorklund wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, we could get into a discussion on the morality of gambling itself, but if we look at pretty much every global ethical tradition (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc.) it is frowned upon strongly. It seems to me like widespread gambling = negative social effects is a pretty widespread, obvious conclusion that most civilizations have reached. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling#Religious_views

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by ryandrake »

nine_k wrote: post #81
kelseyfrog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they do it, it's gambling. When we do it, it's investing.

Investing is putting money into (hopefully) productive use, like a company with revenue, in an expectation of a return. Gambling is basically redistributing money according to a random numbers generator, It's a negative sum game (because the house takes its fee), but a surprise positive spike game. That spike forms an addiction in the less fortunate.

When you buy a stock, you're not contributing it to the company's productive use. If I buy $1000 of MSFT, Microsoft doesn't get an extra $1000 in their bank account to invest in their business. That $1000 is going to another bettor to settle his previous bet, and at some point in the future, I'll sell and get an unknown amount of money to settle my bet. Just because historically betting on the stock market has been +EV doesn't mean it's not still gambling.

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

#275

Post by dpark »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #237
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…

> > It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better On the contrary all epicenters of gambling are extremely rich areas populated by people who have mastered such art. The proximities of the stock exchanges of every country are basically the richest zip code in the country

> On the contrary all epicenters of gambling are extremely rich areas populated by people who have mastered such art.

This does not seem to be a rebuttal. The “extremely rich areas” are generally funded by the not at all rich who lose their money gambling.

Additionally most in the “extremely rich areas” are not actually wealthy. And there are many, many gambling areas that are not rich at all.

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

#276

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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

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

Much less. Something I’ve noticed is the parents of the wealthy teaching their children to invest versus e.g. day trade. In middle class or poor households, on the other hand, it’s not uncommon for the kid to be trading crypto instead.

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

#277

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ryandrake wrote: post #274
nine_k wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing is putting money into (hopefully) productive use, like a company with revenue, in an expectation of a return. Gambling is basically redistributing money according to a random numbers generator, It's a negative sum game (because the house takes its fee), but a surprise positive spike game. That spike forms an addiction in the less fortunate.

When you buy a stock, you're not contributing it to the company's productive use. If I buy $1000 of MSFT, Microsoft doesn't get an extra $1000 in their bank account to invest in their business. That $1000 is going to another bettor to settle his previous bet, and at some point in the future, I'll sell and get an unknown amount of money to settle my bet. Just because historically betting on the stock market has been +…

> When you buy a stock, you're not contributing it to the company's productive use

You are marginally reducing their cost of capital.

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

#278

Post by Dusseldorf »

nine_k wrote: post #90
RataNova wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's frustrating because technically it's all "legal" and marketed as harmless entertainment, but in practice it’s just another way to extract money from people who have the least to spare

Maybe their having the least to spare is a consequence, and poor impulse control is the cause. Anyway, it's like making money off other human deficiencies, say, poor vision or dyslexia, and mistakes made due to those. It feels unfair , it does not feel like a conscious choice. Hence the understandable backlash.

That doesn't feel like a very apt analogy. Poor vision or dyslexia can't easily be hijacked into a cycle of addiction the way poor impulse control can. Making a bit of money helping someone with poor vision is very different than blasting advertisements on every single medium and using predatory practices to draw in those with poor impulse control. Not to mention the continued exploitation afterwards until the victim has nothing left.

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

#279

Post by hobs »

RataNova wrote: post #96
pavlov wrote: post #66

The role of gambling in society has massively expanded in the past 25 years. Legalization of sports betting, online poker, and meme cryptocurrencies are all highly visible examples of normalized gambling. Young people increasingly seem to believe that they need to gamble to get anywhere in life.

When traditional paths to financial security feel increasingly out of reach (housing, stable jobs, etc.), it's not surprising that high-risk/high-reward thinking becomes more normalized...

You can also see it as the more we let corporations bend and break the rules of our society the more we will see the monetization of things that harm us directly for some small group's material gain.

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

#280

Post by Spooky23 »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #264
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 mean hard work has never made anyone wealthy, it usually makes someone else wealthy. What makes you wealthy is being good at negotiation and intepersonal skills, family connections, and luck. And, of course, a touch or genius—there’s a reason that some of the wealthiest people in tech are also sometimes the most brilliant. Somebody who figures out and properly leverages a labor saving technique, even if it seems ob…

I disagree. What a high level professional gambler is doing is hard work.

Hard work doesn't make you rich, but it's part of the things that you need to prosper. I'm no inspirational poster child, but hard work, building a network, doing good things for people were all essential to my long term success. I didn't have the benefit of familial connections, but that helps too. There's a saying that you make your own luck, which is true... if you're not on the field, you can't get lucky.

People making a living playing poker is fine, but it's just like being a working musician, an investor or an athlete. I had a friend who made a living on horse better. You've developed a set of skills and have a usually limited window to cash in on them. The 95% of people gambling aren't attracted to the game of skill, and flop around with the 101 things to do in a gambling establishment that aren't poker.

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