Addiction Markets

Post by bongodongobob » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 10:53 AM UTC

photon_garden wrote: post #233

shipman05 wrote: post #142

It feels like banning advertising for gambling would be a sweet spot between harm reduction and maintaining individual liberty. Sports gambling ads have ruined sports media. State lottery ads are even worse. The government should not spend money to encourage its own citizens to partake in harmful activities.

Norway does a great job of this with the government-owned alcohol monopoly. The stores are always just a little bit out of the way, with slightly inconvenient hours. You can still get a beer if you want, but it takes a little bit of doing.

Post by TimByte » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 10:55 AM UTC

nekusar wrote: post #30

People are also leaving out stuff like Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, and Magic The Gathering. All of them also introduce rarities (arbitrary exclusiveness), hidden cards in a pack, and extreme gambling gamification. The only non-gambling MtG packs are the preconstructed commander decks. All 100 cards are published. But the packs and boxes? Pure gambling, especially for the chase rare cards. And before anyone asks, yes, my usern…

Post by kurtis_reed » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 10:57 AM UTC

Humorist2290 wrote: post #118

But if you want to outlaw this harmful activity [licensed gambling], you have to find a way to replace 6.4% of Maryland’s budget, which is slightly less than the entire amount the state brings in from corporate taxes. A fraction of the proceeds of losing bets from a fraction of Maryland's citizens contributes almost the same to state services -- EMS, education, road maintenance, etc -- than the total corporate taxes…

Post by eszed » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 10:59 AM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #135

fairmind wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-Smoking, especially in teenagers, seems to have been successful.

Vaping is counteracting that somewhat. (There's the perception among many kids that vaping is deeply uncool – and they'd be correct – but that's not something we can rely on.)

Post by Epa095 » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 11:09 AM UTC

parineum wrote: post #223

laterium wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.