The legalization of sports gambling in the US was a mistake | Hacker News Reader

The legalization of sports gambling in the US was a mistake

theguardian.com

41 pointsjbegley32 comments

Opening the article by talking about match-throwing by a pro athlete seems like a misstep--the real problem with legalized gambling, as the article eventually gets to, is the fact that modern sports gambling is a seriously regressive wealth transfer from low-income people with gambling addictions to tech-savvy software companies.

DraftKings ads on busses, billboards, and podcasts should be just as unacceptable as Marlboro ads.

> modern sports gambling is a seriously regressive wealth transfer from low-income people with gambling addictions to tech-savvy software companies

Eh. This is almost certainly overblown. The thing about being poor is that you don't have much to lose, and the distribution has a long upwards tail. Just like Vegas, it's the "whales" that keep the lights on.

You'd have a stronger inequality argument on things like alcohol or marijuana legalization where the majority of revenue does correlate with lower incomes.

> it's the "whales" that keep the lights on.

This is a good point. You can see this in the design of casinos — very little square footage spent on low-cost gambling like slot machines and the vast majority of space spent on high-stakes poker and craps tables.

I know you are trying to be flip to make a point, but people absolutely do come to casinos to drop thousands of dollars into slot machines, and the fraction of the floor devoted to penny slots (now 25c or even 50c) is only a small share of the overall machines.

But places like Wynn and Caesars don't put all of their marketing efforts behind promos to get people into their building who only have $50 to their name.

>places like Wynn and Caesars don't put all of their marketing efforts behind promos to get people into their building who only have $50 to their name.

Exactly! Caesar’s current $10 no-deposit bonus is meant to attract whales, obviously

https://www.sportsbookreview.com/casino/bonuses/caesars-pala...

Vegas is an entirely different business model. They cater the "whales" with comps and special treatment. Sports betting is just another app on your phone. They make their money at scale through millions of micro transactions. Sports betting has virtually no infrastructure cost. You don't need to build restaurants or fancy casinos to attract people. It's money extraction stripped to its bare essentials.

> low-income people with gambling addictions

Not to mention the fact that they're now outright _creating_ gambling addicts that wouldn't have been addicts before the legalization of online betting.

The legalization of sports gambling ADVERTISING was a mistake. Allow it, but ban ads for it.

Strong disagree. The biggest problem with today's sports gambling is its ease. Even without advertising, the vast majority of the people who have a vulnerability to a sports gambling problem would get exposed to it. And once exposed, it's not advertising that keeps them gambling. It's the addictive nature.

There needs to be friction in the system. Whether its forcing them to travel to a bookie in the sleazy part of town, or a cooling off period on the online apps, or something else, the problem is not the advertising.

The advertising sucks for us non-gamblers, but it's not the problem.

Getting rid of tobacco ads was very effective.

Everybody switched to cannabis. My jurisdiction doesn't allow cannabis ads, yet has higher rates of cannabis use than jurisdictions that allow them.

I doubt this was popular to begin with but rather a huge lobbying effort from the gambling industry. I have friends spend literally 100% of their disposable income on sports gambling and it’s depressing to watch.

That's a dumb argument. It's like arguing that financial markets should be banned because a couple of people did insider dealing (not that the guardian would find the argument absurd...).

seriously, all of the sports betting, state lottos and other forms of gambling are like little ponds next to the vast ocean that is the financial markets. These little examples of people cheating in their small ways involve 1000X less money than what is moving around Wall St.

The difference is that financial markets, despite all the harm they do, also provide utility. That entire invisible hand resource allocation thing. Opinions might differ about the amount of value relative to the harm, but very few would consider it zero or negative. Sports betting and lotteries don't, all the downside without any upside.

Before RobinHood though, it was hard to find "innocent" victims in the markets. Most fraud was between traders. Even if you were logging in via Schwab or eTrade to pick stocks and investments, you knew you were assuming some sort of risk.

So I think it's at least a fair argument to say gambling is a different beast when it comes to consumers being naïve.

That's not the thrust of the argument. It's just the opener.

The thrust of the argument is that gambling is addictive, destructive, and we don't need to encourage more of it.

Here's a radical idea: Ban all gambling advertisement.

All of it.

If people desperately want to gamble, they can find a bookkeeper. The optimal amount of legalized gambling in society is probably not zero, but the optimal amount of gambling advertisement probably is.

Then replace insider dealing by day traders. Same point. You can even argue that of most food.

Financial markets for their participants are at worst, a zero-sum game, and at best, a positive sum game. (Blah, blah, efficient allocation of capital, blah, blah, hedging, blah, blah, futures, blah, blah, interest rate swaps, and so on and so forth - they all serve a useful purpose. [1])

Gambling is a negative-sum game.

We don't need more negative-sum games.

---

[1] You can argue over whether those industries are too big, have too much fraud in them, etc, but it's completely disingenuous to say that the stock market's the same thing as betting on whether the quarterback of the Maple Leafs is going to stop three goals this week.

> Gambling is a negative-sum game

Depends on what kind of gambling we are talking about. Sports betting is pretty much zero sum.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant by "find a bookkeeper", but gambling should not be zero-friction. Gambling with a single click is pernicious and dangerous.

Perhaps you don't have to ban online gambling, but there has to be significant friction like a cooling off period or something.

The majority of age 35 and under sports watching people I know now place bets on the game. I know two younger people who dug themselves into deep financial holes.

I agree with SCOTUS decision but we need to take a look at restricting ads and consider adding warnings such as "You'll probably end up a loser." with some stats. And not just for sports gambling but all online gambling.

To make a fortune, target bored young men who want to make a fortune

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40051597

I've wondered if this type of backlash will ever result in re-regulating the gambling industry. With how much money is involved, I suspect that it would be met with a lot of resistance.

If you could short some of these sports betting companies (DraftKings/ MGM/ etc) at the right time with respect to theoretical regulations, I feel like you could make a nice return.

> If you could short some of these sports betting companies (DraftKings/ MGM/ etc) at the right time with respect to theoretical regulations, I feel like you could make a nice return.

Sounds like a gamble

Too late. Sporting competitions would have to massively downsize without gambling industry money coming in.

It’s no surprise that young people are suffering the most from legalization. According to a St Bonaventure/Siena Research survey, 39% of men and 20% of women aged 18 to 49 years old bet on sporting events. Among young men, 38% say they’re betting more than they should, 19% have lied about the extent of their betting, and 18% have bet and lost money meant for meeting their financial obligations.

I am sorry but I do not accept this argument. Sports betting is different than gambling in a casino. Casinos are engineers to make people become addicted and bet everything they have. With sports, there are so many random variables at play that it turns the responsibility squarely onto the shoulders of the person placing the bet. The chance is greater, and the chance of winning is greater.

All gambling should have tight regulatory control, but sports betting is better than casinos, or even the lottery.

Sports betting is much worse than casinos. They employ exactly the same "addictive engineering" that casinos do, but there's no physical infrastructure, thus lower costs. We already know this because of the strategies employed by on-line non-gambling gaming. Loot boxes, special deals on tokens, ... Just watch the ads on TV there is always a hook, "$150 in free play".

Online Gambling Is Changing Sports for the Worse

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39863298

No putting the toothpaste back in the tube on this one.

That being said, I absolutely cannot stand what the business of sports betting has done to my viewing experience.

The advertisements are one thing, but the firehose of betting-specific talking points throughout games, sports highlights, sports radio, etc has gotten out of control.

Even my beloved commercial-free RedZone now has host Chris Hanson talking about overs hitting and shit while naming a specific gambling app. It's nonsense.

And that even goes without saying the damage it's going to do to people's wallets and an almost guaranteed increase in addiction.

I used to be staunchly in favor of adults being able to ruin their lives however they wanted, but the more life I live the less I believe this is best for everyone.

The author is taking a very weird stance by flexing about their own gambling exploits before it was legal. And is weirdly defensive of bookies? Not sure what their point is anymore - it should be illegal except for the class of smart and clever people who know how to circumvent the rules?

> Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, founding editor of Jacobin, and author of The Socialist Manifesto

Ah, got it. The proletariat need to be protected from themselves by a different set of rules.

Listen, as someone who has actually never sports gambled, I can clutch my pearls as much as the next person about the glut of legalized gambling, but I will also admit that you could make the same case of ending any prohibition. And in this brave new world people are not being murdered over gambling losses, addicts can seek help without fear of repercussions, and leagues are being incentivized to fervently protect their integrity. It's an "anti-fragile" equilibrium and it's not going away anytime soon.

yep

so was legalizing advertising of prescription drugs

So was legalization of drugs in oregon

"experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com