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Addiction Markets

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401–410 of 479 posts

Re: Addiction Markets

#401
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A state is funding essential public services not through productive economic activity, but by extracting money from people losing bets

Sounds like a win to me, you can leave more for productive activity to grow and attract more, there less incentive for illegal gambling, and no one is forced to do it. If there’s a massive burden with addicts, you can still impose that the gambling industry pays more to offset.

> no one is forced to do it

Go tell that to joint bank accounts and family court.

Re: Addiction Markets

#402
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about, alcoholism is a classic rampant poverty addiction?

From what I saw, there was no "alcohol" as you know it. Most peasant families consumed something called toddy that came from palm trees and date palms. It's a family drink and it's nowhere close to what you call as addiction.

Palm wine addicts have existed since pre history. Or banana beer, or other forms of wine, etc. But distilleries existed virtually everywhere by the 70s.

But even putting that aside, gluttons, drunkards, and gamblers are certainly ancient and well attested, certainly in the western (abrahamic/hellenic) tradition. Perhaps there are some societies without this but it not poverty or want or lack of abundance that provides relief.

Re: Addiction Markets

#403
post #374

I'll make a bet here: By the 2040 US presidential election, anti-gambling legislation will be a bigger party platform issue than abortion is for one of the two major US political parties. We are ruining a generation of men with this, just as we did with alcohol in the era before prohibition. A wiser and more sensible approach is desperately needed today, but will not come for another 15 years until the damage is ines…

A generation of men?

The ads and apps are very much targetted at men. I have seen "some and few" gambling apps targetted at women. Traditionally too, gambling was more of a "male" issue.

Also, the people loosing money on crypto, MtG and games with gambling mechanics tend to be more of men. It is kind of a gendered issue.

Re: Addiction Markets

#404

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.

"Make it legal but very annoying" is an underrated policy option. And banning advertisement is the first resort in this line of regulation. If there are no ads to tell you, you have to, first, be informed that sports gambling is a thing people do, then decide that it's a thing you want participate in, and then obtain information on how it's done. This adds friction. Friction reduces participation. But if you really w…

Agree. Gambling, smoking, drugs, and possibly weed should be legal, but just barely more preferable to obtain legally than illegally.

Re: Addiction Markets

#405
post #40
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people will just use some offshore website instead No they won't, because moving real money to and from these shady offshore websites is a nightmare, and without enforcement there will be too much fraud in the system for the vast majority of regular people to bother. Gambling is so prevalent today because 1) there is incessant advertising, including being overlaid on the game you are watching and 2) it is convenien…

This is not a hypothetical, people already do it like that in my country (Argentina), you send your money to a person that buys tokens using cryptocoins, since these websites don't comply with the local regulation, even kids are addicted to gambling.

When your government is as incompetent as you can get while avoiding a revolution people start to gamble.

The rise of gambling in the US does indicate an economic hopelessness that mirrors Argentina, but it’s not quite to the same level yet.

Re: Addiction Markets

#406

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.

Nah the sweet spot is to make the gambling companies pay for the treatment and recovery of the people addicted to their products, up to whatever amount they gave the gambling company.

Should we also make sugar companies, coca cola/pepsi pay for people that become obese?

Re: Addiction Markets

#407
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…

As a Magic player, yeah some people definitely have a compulsive addictive gambling relationship with the product. And Wizards has been leaning into that recently with more rare versions of mechanically identical cards.

However, you can buy sealed product to both build your collection and get cards to trade. And the main reason for sealed to exist, ostensibly, is limited.

And a lot of people don't interact with the "gambling" aspect at all. I'm very deep into magic after 10 years, and I almost exclusively buy singles and do prereleases. I might buy like 10 random packs total in an entire year.

Re: Addiction Markets

#408
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A state is funding essential public services not through productive economic activity, but by extracting money from people losing bets

Taxing productive economic activity is bad

Having a government tax base funded significantly from the exploitation of addictive behavior and siphoning money away from productive consumptive purposes is also bad, but less easy to make a sound bite from.

Re: Addiction Markets

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not catch your meaning. Experts sometimes spell it "off-premise": https://www.nabca.org/covid-19-dashboards-premise-retailers has "While there are several different retail channels permitted to sell alcoholic beverages for offsite (off-premise) consumption". https://www.parkstreet.com/states/california/ has "Retailers [c]an sell product directly to consumers for on or off-premise consumption". "Off-premises" is…

Check on that in a dictionary of repute. My own folk etymology of this infelicity is that it started with the mispronunciation, which is actually hard to avoid in rapid speech, and bled over to people simply writing the wrong word. Edit: [in reply to your edit] It is indeed a rather common malapropism.

The OED says that the "house or building..." use of "premise" actually comes from an earlier legal meaning ("The subject of a conveyance or bequest..."). Even for those who (inaccurately) think etymology determines "correctness", this isn't an incorrect use of the word.

Re: Addiction Markets

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until 2004, Massachusetts banned alcohol sales for off-premise consumption on Sundays. Still in effect is a ban on sales for off-premise consumption after 11:00pm and before 08:00am. Also, the number of stores that can sell alcohol for off-premise consumption is restricted by a quota system.

Your premise, that a premise is a premisis, is incorrect.

"Premisis" is not an English word, as far as I can tell.
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