And there it is. I walked through the process until the document page and the disclaimer. No gambling apps.
What the heck? It's a massive industry and legalized gambling is growing massively.
So disappointing.
What the heck? It's a massive industry and legalized gambling is growing massively.
So disappointing.
The apparent growth in the market may be real, but I suspect it will be short lived as governments and authorities stem the advertising, and investors turn towards opportunities that are less ethically unpleasant. Here in the UK every other ad on late night commercial TV is for gambling apps or services, while consumer-affairs radio programmes are exposing a rising tide of financial ruin fuelled by debt, low wages, under-employment, with gambling never far away.
If I understand your comment, gambling is explicitly disclaimed by AL's Stack. Surely that's another signal for you to consider. Many organisations are shifting away from unethical investments (for whatever definition of ethics they adopt). Gambling seems to have passed its peak some years ago, both in terms of opportunity and social acceptability.
So I'm genuinely curious. You're at angel/incorporation stage. Why aim for the gambling industry?
In the US, to me, it seems sports gambling is priming for take off. Many states are legalizing it and you see gambling odds/lines on ESPN now. Many NFL stadiums are about to launch in-game gambling operations. It used to never be acceptable in the US to be out front about sports gambling but the worm has turned.
The US has the luxury of being able to look at other countries who are ahead of the curve to see how things may pan out.
My broader question to GP is why get involved in such an industry? It does more harm than good, and the writing is very predictably on the wall.
My first was an education technology platform to replace 4th through 8th grade Textbooks. I found out the hard way that the education publishing business is nearly impossible to disrupt.
My second was a context-search engine, but machine learning killed that idea ... fast.
Mach9Poker is just a simple app that allows anyone to build and test poker strategies against other strategies running automatically in the cloud. Pretty harmless and may even help some poker players make more money and lose less...so all in all, I think a good thing to reduce the downsides of playing poker for money. There is a potential pivot to making it an actual gambling app, but that's only if the initial app makes a TON of headway.
I'm also having fun designing and building it. That's what entrepreneurship is all about.
I'm not sure if you live in the US, but it's only gaining traction here in the States. It's becoming more socially accepted, widespread, and losing its stigma. Whether betting on the spread on sports games, betting on specific players' performances, season outcomes, or especially, fantasy sports.
You can't watch an NFL game for ten minutes these days without seeing an ad for DraftKings, FanDuel, MGM (lots of their ads this year), etc., so if you think gambling has passed its peak, I wonder if you don't watch much sports and it may not be targeted at you.
https://www.lbbonline.com/news/kids-ask-can-we-have-our-ball...
Erm... as I mentioned, UK :)
> It's becoming more socially accepted, widespread, and losing its stigma.
My contention is that this may be short lived. It's an industry which causes harm. These have a habit of receding significantly after growth.
I play poker and of course I see people who are addicted to gambling. I feel bad for them. A non-zero pct of poker players manage a bankroll and play at their skill level and occasionally will play above their level to "see if they can do it," and often they get scared and jump back down to a safe level.
The one thing I will absolutely refute is any kind of "morality" assigned to gambling. It's an entertainment choice. I could play golf every other day and spend _way_ more money. I could travel and spend more money. I could enjoy fine dining weekly and spend more money. I might have a wine collection or car collection.
People have passions and gambling is just one of many. If you and others want to live in a cave and not enjoy whatever it is you enjoy that costs money, then I feel bad for you. You're only in this life once. Embrace it like it's your last....with the caveat that you should still be responsible to your family and community.
And even the first two phases of my plan have no gambling at all. It's an app to teach people how to build a successful poker strategy.
But it is gambling "adjacent", so I'll be bootstrapping the whole why.
1) This is stupid on AngelList's part to not say this upfront.
> It's a massive industry and legalized gambling is growing massively.
2) It also a heavily regulated industry and is at the state level. They offer a bank account so it's no surprise they just outright block it. Have you tried to get a bank account for your business outside of this process? It's not that easy.