Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

bristol.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 151 posts

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#71

Post by dozerly »

epolanski wrote: post #14
xenadu02 wrote: post #2

Super shocking (sarcasm). Gamblers are the whales of that industry. The industry is well aware of that and well aware of how much harm they can cause. But their paychecks depend on not knowing so they choose not to. Same as pay-to-win freemium games. Find the whales and milk them for all you can. For every high-spender who can afford it they know full well the other 99 cannot. They know they are ruining some people's…

The worst thing is that gambling companies are free to ban you if you win too much. So if you're still there it's just because you're being milked. There's a a giant market for second hand accounts on betting websites for this very reason.

This is my favorite line to bring up amongst my gambling addicted friends :)

They are not big fans

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#72

Post by Forgeties79 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #51
charcircuit wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1A does not have an exception for harm.

And yet SCOTUS has carved out a number of exceptions where they felt it was clearly necessary. Disorderly conduct and noise ordinances are examples. It's not the end of the world but (very approximately) being woken up by someone shouting in the street at 2 am was deemed a larger problem than restricting your individual right to drunkenly shout at your friend in that scenario.

> being woken up by someone shouting in the street at 2 am was deemed a larger problem than restricting your individual right to drunkenly shout at your friend in that scenario.

Because most of the time if you can argue “they won’t do a good job at capitalism [going to work]” then everyone goes “oh no no no we can’t have that.”

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#73

Post by mynegation »

alex43578 wrote: post #39
quickthrowman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone could create a market where problem gamblers can buy wagering power (the ability to risk more after reaching their own loss cap) from non-gamblers unless you force physical in person gambling with ID checks. Gambling should return to being legal in Vegas and on reservations, 24/7 gambling anywhere is very problematic.

Alcohol should only be legal in pubs and bars; alcohol in Disney World, on planes, and in grocery stores is very problematic.

You probably meant it as a quip but alcohol in every grocery store and definitely on planes is problematic.

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#74

Post by jkubicek »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #69
anonymars wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, well, opinions sure vary here. I'm sure it has nothing to do with that Upton Sinclair quote about "understanding"

No need to be cryptic. What are you trying to say?

> It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#75

Post by jacquesm »

eucyclos wrote: post #46
mc32 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also there’s a bit of a tragedy of the commons. If one entity is scrupulous that doesn’t mean another will. Obviously if they had any morals they’d see the bright line.

I wonder how incentives could be better aligned. Had an interesting case study where a coworker liked to gamble - he was fairly responsible, kept to his budget and treated it like an expensive hobby he enjoyed- but at the same time, he had someone else handle his retirement investments, which is an unpredictable payoff market where you come out ahead on average. I asked a couple times why he didn't replace gambling w…

I think your coworker was quite smart. Investing and gambling are close enough that for many parties they are indistinguishable. I've heard investing described as 'gambling for people with more money'. The biggest difference is that if you have enough money you can legally manipulate the market. If it's your retirement investment that might just be over the horizon far enough to get you into danger. Just having access to that with a habit could already be an issue.

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#76

Post by nickff »

epolanski wrote: post #14
xenadu02 wrote: post #2

Super shocking (sarcasm). Gamblers are the whales of that industry. The industry is well aware of that and well aware of how much harm they can cause. But their paychecks depend on not knowing so they choose not to. Same as pay-to-win freemium games. Find the whales and milk them for all you can. For every high-spender who can afford it they know full well the other 99 cannot. They know they are ruining some people's…

The worst thing is that gambling companies are free to ban you if you win too much. So if you're still there it's just because you're being milked. There's a a giant market for second hand accounts on betting websites for this very reason.

There are many jurisdictions where the companies are not allowed to ban 'winners', but the companies often respond by lowering those users' bet size limits.

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#77

Post by underwater »

abcde666777 wrote: post #10

I've always found the marketing around gambling (and most things really) completely disgusting. As a society I think we're far too tolerant of these things. A lot of the ads basically go along the lines of: 'you could win big and have a great time, awesome! (disclaimer: will probably ruin your life)'. It should be like it is with smoking - photos of lung cancer patients on the package. People will still do it of cour…

Just ban it. The only defense for our lives being flooded with advertising is that it helps markets be more efficient.

But the most efficient gambling provider is the one that extracts the most money from its customers. Helping gambling companies be successful is a net loss to society.

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#78

Post by mrmincent »

beloch wrote: post #8

>“Although the findings relate to direct marketing, I see no reason why the same or similar adverse effects wouldn’t occur for gambling advertising on TV or social media.” Controlling/banning advertising for Alcohol and Tobacco results in significant health benefits. Sports gambling used to be illegal in many places or limited to specific places. Now that it's available in your pocket, like a pack of smokes or a flas…

I used to work for a (now defunct) wagering operation. From my understanding even internally the marketing and business guys would’ve preferred the advertisements to be banned. It’s such an effective customer acquisition tool that the only way to compete is to spend insane amounts on marketing, because if you don’t, all of your competitors are and you’ll go bust. A ban would drastically level out the playing field and make things more sustainable.

The only ones that don’t want the ban are the ones selling the advertising slots. No way they’re giving up the gravy train.

Re: Bombarding gamblers with offers greatly increases betting and gambling harm

#79

Post by AlotOfReading »

Terr_ wrote: post #62
mothballed wrote: post #42

When online sports gambling started in the US they were offering $500-$1000 of free bets to sign up. Very tempting to sign up, even though I don't gamble anymore than about once a decade, but I decided whoever did that offer was probably smarter than me about who would win out in the end. I've been around the block long enough to know you never take an 'easy profit' deal from someone who is in the business of making…

> while in their own domain There's a certain poker quip which I like to use and apply to other contexts, such as active investing: "If you look around the table can't tell which player is the sucker, you're the sucker." In other words, beware entering into a game where the rules ensure somebody will be victimized. This is especially true when many of the existing denizens spend much much more time and effort and fin…

All too often I look over at other tables and see that the suckers are friends and family.
Post reply on HN