Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by jwilber » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

adriand wrote: post #266

throw0101d wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s reflective of people losing hope in the system’s ability to make their lives better. Kyla Scanlon (?) coined the term "financial nihilism" to describe this feeling: * https://kyla.substack.com/p/gen-z-and-financial-nihilism She thinks it's why things like cryptocurrencies/BTC have taken off: it's a chance to 'hit the jackpot', as many folks don't see another way to (financial) success.

I’m genuinely curious to what extent the hardships younger people face economically are related to wasting huge amounts of time on screens. The average Gen Z person spends nine hours per day on screens. The average 18-24 year old American spends more than three hours per day just on social media. I recognize all the various societal and structural factors that disadvantage younger people. At the same time, people hav…

Hardships do come from high screen time, definitely. The poor job market is not one of them.

The “screen” effect doesn’t exist. But the percentage of students enrolled in cs programs grew a lot of the last few years, and I’ve seen the passion difference have an effect. Two friends of mine graduated last year. Both had zero offers out of undergrad (this is the norm right now, again, completely irrelevant to screen time). One of them was passionate about coding and kept working on side projects/leetcoding, eventually landing a role at a tech company after a year of working at a boba shop. The other, who struggled with coding and was verbally not passionate about it (complained about it a lot, didn’t interview prep much) ended up throwing in the towel a few months on the job hunt.

An anecdote, but probably generalizable across those in today’s job market. But the market is the core problem, second to the individual’s willingness to grind. Neither are related to screen time.

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

#322

Post by ceejayoz » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

garbawarb wrote: post #180

331c8c71 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Financial markets produce a net positive outcome for investors (gamblers), no? The average rate of return in the S&P500 is about 10% and it's considered the baseline for thr stock market.

The gambling equivalent is day trading, not holding VOO for a decade.

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

#323

Post by nine_k » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

Dusseldorf wrote: post #278

nine_k wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Making money helping people with poor vision (selling glasses) is fine, of course. I mean exploiting their weaknesses, like using a tiny typeface to write important price information while showing a big price-like number prominently. Doing something formally correct which turns into a trap because of the customer's disability.

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

#324

Post by rurp » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

polio wrote: post #230

bdangubic wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has the possibility of making your rich the core issue is that such possibility does not exist. if you are successful gambler to the point where you are on the path to riches you will be banned from all platforms faster than Jets are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs

In sports betting contexts, you're often just betting against other players, I believe. If they're anything like prediction markets, the exchange isn't going to care how successful you are, as long as you're betting.

Not only do winning players get quickly banned like sibling said, the house take on the major platforms is vastly higher than with traditional sports betting.

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

#325

Post by ToucanLoucan » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:26 PM UTC

jwilber wrote: post #321

adriand wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m genuinely curious to what extent the hardships younger people face economically are related to wasting huge amounts of time on screens. The average Gen Z person spends nine hours per day on screens. The average 18-24 year old American spends more than three hours per day just on social media. I recognize all the various societal and structural factors that disadvantage younger people. At the same time, people hav…

Hardships do come from high screen time, definitely. The poor job market is not one of them. The “screen” effect doesn’t exist. But the percentage of students enrolled in cs programs grew a lot of the last few years, and I’ve seen the passion difference have an effect. Two friends of mine graduated last year. Both had zero offers out of undergrad (this is the norm right now, again, completely irrelevant to screen tim…

> Hardships do come from high screen time, definitely. The poor job market is not one of them.

This times a thousand. I wouldn't have the jobs I do today if I didn't spend probably on balance an unhealthy amount of time in front of my own screens in the 90's. I got into programming because I loved screens and wanted to make them show me different things.

The difference today is two-fold IMO:

* The job market, as stated, is shit, especially for tech right now. For decades kiddos have been propagandized into going into a future in comp science of varying depths and qualities, both here in the US, and overseas. We have more tech workers than ever, wages are falling because of over-supply, and too many are focused on niche framework technologies who's skills don't translate well across the wide breadth of what's actually used in industry. Example: my company is hiring right now and it's DIRE to try and find mobile developers who actually develop in Kotlin/Java/Swift/Objective-C. I'm drowning in resumes for React developers but we don't use any of that and have no desire to.

* The screens now used by would-be budding hackers are locked down to hell and back, and were put in their hands when they were likely still shitting in their pants (no judgement of course, we all did it for awhile) and they don't conceive of them as "machines I could play with" but instead, simply as a never ending font of distraction and entertainment, perfectly curated to their individual desires.

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

#326

Post by hollerith » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #203

hollerith wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the causation goes one way doesn't mean it cannot go the other way, too. We call those vicious cycles.

Yeah but those are separate claims. "Lead causes health problem, and vicious cycles are a thing, therefore health problems cause lead!" is not a valid shape for an argument. It may well be true, but both directions have to be established before calling it a vicious cycle. In this case, I can agree bad social conditions cause gambling, but I don't think the data supports the opposite, at least not more than many other…

Cause-and-effect relationships can be complicated and it is important not to jump to conclusions, but do you deny that there are millions of Americans who can correctly identify an addiction when they see it in someone they have some sort of ongoing relationshp with (either because they have training and experience in treating addiction or because they themselves or someone close to them were once addicted)?

Do you deny that those observers can correctly identify the substance or the activity that the addict is addicted to?

Do you deny that addiction is quite deleterious both to the addict and to the people with whom the addict is in some kind of relationship?

Many news stories claim that many Americans (young men particularly) are getting addicted to online sports betting. Do you dispute the accuracy of those news stories?

If so, can you guess as to the motivation for publishing these inaccurate news stories? Often a campaign to mislead the public is done because some group would gain something quite valuable if the campaign is successful. What would any group have to gain (aside from a slightly healthier country) from a successful campaign to make online sports betting illegal?

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

#327

Post by nharada » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #300

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 not just gambling. Influencer and VC culture incentivize this same 'hit it big or die trying' ethos. I have seen '5 million is too little to retire on' type of messaging on HN too. The only way to save more than that is to take on an irrational amount of risk (ie. Gamble). For genZ, the squeeze comes from 3 sides. On one side, few professions promise long term stability. There is a feeling that the ground can va…

I agree with this 100%, it's not just gambling it's that the idea there's a steady path you can follow to success has basically disappeared. In a survey[1] asking how much money was required for financial success, Zoomers averaged $10MM, almost double millennials and 10x boomers.

A lot of people online took the opportunity to criticize zoomers as out of touch and financially illiterate, but I think most people under 30 have looked at the trends over their lifetime and determined that their lives are going to have so much volatility they need a massive amount of money to weather the storm.

[1] https://fortune.com/2025/01/20/gen-z-9-5-million-financially...

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

#328

Post by dpark » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:45 PM UTC

tgv wrote: post #316

dpark wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no profit for the organizer You’ve ruled out not just all gambling but all business. The examples the parent comment above you gave are all profit generating for the organizer. Insurance in particular seems to be a clear societal win and is in fact gambling. You make a (relatively) small wager that pays out nothing if you don’t need it or potentially huge if you do.

We're clearly having different views on society. Yours seems through a strict financial lens, but correct me if I'm wrong. > potentially huge if you do. No, it isn't. You've just incurred a (probably larger) loss, elsewhere. There's no pay-off. Insurance makes large losses bearable for the individual and society. That's unlike gambling.

“I bet you $500 a month I’ll get cancer.”

Insurance absolutely has a societal benefit. It is also absolutely gambling.

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

#329

Post by ls612 » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

shusaku wrote: post #152

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…

> Gambling thrives in contexts where a ladder to success doesn’t exist or is perceived as not existing. This is a neat moral message… but is it really true? Gambling is addictive, so the reality might be that even without such deep social problems you get similar levels

Gambling is addictive for some, in the same way that alcohol is addictive for some, yet blanket alcohol prohibition is not considered a great idea in hindsight.

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

#330

Post by dpark » Sun, Oct 05, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

sigwinch wrote: post #292

dpark wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no profit for the organizer You’ve ruled out not just all gambling but all business. The examples the parent comment above you gave are all profit generating for the organizer. Insurance in particular seems to be a clear societal win and is in fact gambling. You make a (relatively) small wager that pays out nothing if you don’t need it or potentially huge if you do.

Insurance is moral stewardship, and not unearned gain. In fact, refusing insurance when your neighbors are of the same religion is seen as gambling.

You don’t earn a payout for cancer treatment. It is definitely unearned.