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The battle to stop clever people betting

economist.com

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Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#31

Post by watwut »

m4ck_ wrote: post #26

I would love to see the gambling industry beaten back into whatever holes they slithered out of. If you want to gamble it should be in some smokey back room at a liquor store. I'm surprised the christian right isn't making more of a fuss about gambling, but I guess they're getting greased to look the other way.

It is not gay, it is masculine, it does not hurt women, so christian right likes it. That it also hurts playing men does not bother christian right either, they will blame women and gay for that anyway.

Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#32

Post by airstrike »

ACCount37 wrote: post #12
Havoc wrote: post #3

I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though

Polymarket's purpose was specifically to let the best of the best take the pot by predicting events with real world impact. So, ideally, it's "gambling" in the same way day trading is gambling. Contrast that to normal "sports betting" - which aims to block skilled betters, and squeeze suckers for their cash.

Polymarket is an "insider trading" festival. Plenty of suckers getting squeezed there too.

Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#33

Post by chongli »

Havoc wrote: post #3

I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though

Since my friends gamble on sports and I enjoy sports a lot I’ve placed a few bets here and there. I don’t find it addictive at all. My sense of loss aversion must be just too high for it or something. Every time I lost a bet I wanted to uninstall the app it annoyed me so much. Once I lost the initial bankroll and bonus bets I uninstalled the app.

I think the folks who get addicted must have much lower loss aversion and higher thrill-seeking. People like me can’t become even regular recreational gamblers (betting small amounts without ruining their lives) because it’s too frustrating.

Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#34

Post by watwut »

ACCount37 wrote: post #12
Havoc wrote: post #3

I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though

Polymarket's purpose was specifically to let the best of the best take the pot by predicting events with real world impact. So, ideally, it's "gambling" in the same way day trading is gambling. Contrast that to normal "sports betting" - which aims to block skilled betters, and squeeze suckers for their cash.

A lot of day trading is pure gambling tho. And prediction markets dont even pretend to not be gambling, except for legal reasons.

Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#36

Post by piva00 »

ACCount37 wrote: post #12
Havoc wrote: post #3

I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though

Polymarket's purpose was specifically to let the best of the best take the pot by predicting events with real world impact. So, ideally, it's "gambling" in the same way day trading is gambling. Contrast that to normal "sports betting" - which aims to block skilled betters, and squeeze suckers for their cash.

It's betting but even better for the house: they don't need to put anything on the pot to lose it, just taking a cut from the zero-sum game others are betting on.

That's why Kalshi/Polymarket don't care about winners, they don't lose money to them, others do.

It's all gambling, as most of day trading also is.

Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#37

Post by deadbabe »

Why wouldn’t you ban clever people?

Isn’t the point to let all players have a fairly equal chance? Someone’s going to win the money regardless, so it’s not like you’re saving money.

If the same data savvy people are just going to win most of the time, why would people bother playing? Ultimately you would not have enough players and the industry collapses. I don’t understand why this makes the casinos the bad guys.

Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#38

Post by piva00 »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #19
Havoc wrote: post #3

I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though

The analogue that people have of betting is, for some reason, drugs. Addiction is an inherent property of taking drugs. Gambling is not like this in any way. It is not inherently addictive, 99% of people who gamble have no issue with it. It isn't to chase a couple of bucks either. Billy Walter has made hundreds of millions. A recent court case leaked that Tony Bloom's syndicate was making £200m in profit per year. Th…

> The idea of personal responsibility will always be completely abhorrent to some part of the population.

The idea of personal responsibility is also way overrated by some part of the population like you, gambling is addictive and a net negative to society. Problem gamblers ruin not only their life but of their families as well, it's an addiction with a very high rate of suicide.

Allowing it to be done through your phone is like supplying opioids at the candy store. Not everyone gets addicted but you certainly increase access to the ones in most danger of becoming one, and for what purpose?

Personal responsibility doesn't ever solve systemic issues, you are defending the increase of a systemic issue and blaming the victims which it's the actual abhorrent thing...

Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#39

Post by watwut »

ancillary wrote: post #8
ACCount37 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to part gamblers with their money. Sport betting was never anything more than that.

Yeah, on the spectrum of ways to make money, running a sports betting site is pretty bad. It's zero-sum (unlike, say, founding a company and getting rich from shares that were initially worthless), doesn't really incentivize discovery of any truly valuable info (if you find out a player is injured an hour before everyone else ... ok?), and seems to disproportionately hit people who are already not doing very well. Se…

It is not zero sum. If it was zero sum middle man would earn nothing. It is strictly negative sum because it is profitable.

Re: The battle to stop clever people betting

#40

Post by istjohn »

begueradj wrote: post #15
Havoc wrote: post #3

I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly. Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though

> I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted" Being addicted is not an intelligence criterion because every human is addicted to something -good or bad. That's actually a basic principle of how we function cognitively. - https://psychiatryofscottsdale.com/psychiatrists-honest-take... - https://psychiatryofscottsdal…

Every human is not addicted to something good or bad. You're abusing the definition of addiction.
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