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Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

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Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#61

Post by driverdan »

bartedinburgh wrote: post #36

I used to work for one and was not proud of it because I felt our products did not provide any value. My boss had this theory how betting small amounts of money is just another form of entertainment people enjoy, just like going to the cinema or playing a video game, and thus we were in the entertainment business. I didn't really buy it and I wondered if he truly believed it himself. Not everyone has a chance to work…

> My boss had this theory how betting small amounts of money is just another form of entertainment people enjoy, just like going to the cinema or playing a video game, and thus we were in the entertainment business.

For some that's true. I know people who like to responsible gamble from time to time. It's entertainment for them.

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#62

Post by thehardsphere »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #39
hapless wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco industry is made up of wholly legal and aboveboard business enterprises with many happy users. They have a long history of malicious behavior, but it is not, on the face of it, wrong to take such a job. But I still might avoid it, myself. Once bitten, twice shy. You spend fifty years conspiring to conceal damages to your own customers and maybe I prefer not to work for you even after you stop doing it

Tobacco kills around 10x more people than heroin (at least in the US).

Do you have a source for that?

I find that figure incredibly dubious considering that tobacco requires years of chronic use before it kills you, and it typically doesn't kill you in a way that is entirely attributable to that single cause.

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#63

Post by brango »

candiodari wrote: post #59
brango wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except something like 90% of revenue comes from 5% of "players" so it's obviously just what he told himself to placate his conscience that he wasn't ripping off addicts.

How is this different from Apps on the playstore ? Insurance/Banking/consultancy ? Or, I have to say, sometimes I wonder how the amounts people spend on music truly vary. The merchandising for most bands means that if you really want to spend millions on a band, you can (e.g. the "pharma bro" Wu-Tang clan saga). Bands themselves say that this is where most of their income comes from ... This whale principle certainly…

The question is about ethics. How is it relevant whether other people are taking advantage of addicts as well?

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#64

Post by lodi »

My rule of thumb: will your customers regret their purchase in hindsight? If you suspect most of them will, then yes, it's unethical to collect their money now.

Elsewhere in this thread people have compared casinos to video games, tobacco, and facebook. Video games run a full spectrum from predatory to wholesome, so you'd have to look at that on a case-by-case basis. I regret some, but definitely not most of the games I've bought/played. I'm not a smoker, but I think most smokers would prefer to not need to smoke. Looking at it another way, I don't think any smokers would prefer that their children start smoking, so in my view tobacco is unethical. Facebook has both saved and ruined lives so it's in a grey zone for me.

By this test, casinos/lotteries/etc. land firmly in the far unethical side of the spectrum for me personally, but you might have a different view based on your own experiences. Ideally someone would find hard data to support one view or another.

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#65

Post by falcolas »

driverdan wrote: post #60
ainiriand wrote: post #3

Tl;dr - Yes. The first source of money for online casinos is not the money that the poor addict pours into it, it is the huge money laundering operations that are done in the back. Online casinos are not based in places that you will imagine particular transparent in terms of tax policy. They are based in Malta (russian money), Gibraltar (UK money) or in places like the Caiman Islands, Panama... A journalist was murd…

You're assuming that money laundering is unethical.

Is there an argument in favor of it (money laundering) being ethical? The most I can think of is anonymity for the general public, but is this an actual use case?

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#66

Post by frobozz »

Why do you ask? What change in your own behaviour would the different answers elicit?

Is this just an intellectual exercise? In that case, it's a reasonable question that might lead to an interesting conversation.

Are you thinking of working for one, but worried about how you would feel? In that case, I don't think any amount of reassurance from internet strangers would help.

Are you worried about how others might view you if you have it on your CV? That may be a valid concern, but in that case, it's an XY problem.

Are you looking at a pile of CVs, and thinking about whether to reject someone on these "ethical" grounds? You don't know what predicament caused the candidate to take that job, or to (want to) leave it, or the exact nature of what they did there.

If you work on technology that can help to identify harmful play and intervene appropriately, then you are probably creating technology that makes the world better, even if you are doing so for a company whose other products may be making the world worse.

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#67

Post by falcolas »

bdz wrote: post #48

Hard to answer. Actually I'd really hear answers about a similar question: Is working on p2w games unethical? I was wondering about that in connection with the whole Battlefront 2 fiasco. EA got a lot of flak but I remember when Apple announced the in-app purchase for free apps back in 2009. Feels like it was only yesterday but that was when a lot of things clearly changed. https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/15/apple-ann…

The question is, in my mind, is P2W (or even, controversially, cosmetic loot boxes) gaming different than gambling? Does the fact that your rewards are digital instead of monetary really matter when discussing addiction?

Obviously my answer is that yes, it is unethical. The problem is (and this applies to gambling as well) that it's too damned profitable for companies to give it up without a huge fight.

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#68

Post by youngbullind »

thehardsphere wrote: post #62
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco kills around 10x more people than heroin (at least in the US).

Do you have a source for that? I find that figure incredibly dubious considering that tobacco requires years of chronic use before it kills you, and it typically doesn't kill you in a way that is entirely attributable to that single cause.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least, given the prevalence of the use of each in society.

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#69

Post by dwaltrip »

thehardsphere wrote: post #57

I'm going to play devil's advocate here; I don't actually know what my own opinion about this is, and I never gamble online so I don't even know much about it or how horrible it might be. So I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions that should hopefully help you work out exactly how you got to your opinion and either change it or hold it more firmly. Why do you say "online casinos are designed in such a way to attra…

What's the proper way of differentiating between chemical addiction, experiential addiction, and neither?

Re: Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical?

#70

Post by candiodari »

brango wrote: post #63
candiodari wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different from Apps on the playstore ? Insurance/Banking/consultancy ? Or, I have to say, sometimes I wonder how the amounts people spend on music truly vary. The merchandising for most bands means that if you really want to spend millions on a band, you can (e.g. the "pharma bro" Wu-Tang clan saga). Bands themselves say that this is where most of their income comes from ... This whale principle certainly…

The question is about ethics. How is it relevant whether other people are taking advantage of addicts as well?

I'm just saying that, to varying extents, large portions of the economy are "taking advantage of" addicts. Certainly if you work for FANG, they all (including Amazon) have their addicts. As do things like reddit, in fact probably most sites.

You cannot let your life be controlled by "ethics" like this. It's not reasonable.

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