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Comment by HDThoreaun | Hacker News Reader

Most gamblers are casuals. I spend $5-10 a week during football and usually am down like $10 at the end of the year. It provides a lot of entertainment, sucks that some people can’t control themselves but I shouldn’t be punished for that.

Agree that heavily regulating and perhaps banning advertising needs to be done.

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> Most gamblers are casuals. I spend $5-10 a week during football and usually am down like $10 at the end of the year

An annual cap of $500 on bets per social security number seems reasonable. At the very least, 10% of state's median income (a whopping $4,222 nationally [1]).

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N

I think a proportion of income would work better, because $500 would be a lot for some people.

> a proportion of income would work better, because $500 would be a lot for some people

Sure, if a state is willing to enforce that added complexity. I'd still have a hard cap to remove plausible deniability. Otherwise every trailer-park resident will be a millionaire while FanDuel et al do a Facebook-can't-tell-if-I'm-12-or-52 shrug.

$500 per year? I know people who put a grand on FCS football on Fridays

I don't gamble outside of a few small wagers during March Madness. Having said that, I have a viscerally negative reaction to your proposal. It feels paternalistic to the point of near Puritanism. I don't want a laissez-faire free-for-all out there, I'm not saying "everything is fine as-is", but a government capped limit on how you waste your own money when the terms and odds are clearly communicated (unlike traditional scams, for instance)? I'll pass on that, and I'm confident I'm more of a "big government" proponent than most commenters in this community.

At a minimum I do think the government should limit advertising and crack down on incentives these sites gives to keep people hooked.

They should be subject to KYC just like banks.

Agreed. I've never been into sports and never watched more than a few minutes of any game. But for a few years I was in a small stakes weekly football pool and it made weekends really fun. Suddenly, I wanted to know if the Rams or the Dolphins won, and by how much. I was tracking the pool leader boards. I ended up being ahead about $20. That pool ended, and I never joined another one. But it was a mildly fun time.

That argument can be made for and against anything (substance abuse comes to mind) which has consequences for society at large.

There are two possible outcomes:

1) I, a person who gambles neither casually nor as part of an addiction, will pay for gambling addicts; or 2) You will be punished in the form of your degeneracy becoming illegal.

I’m not sure why you should be the one to get the free pass here.

the government's goal should be to protect the population not to be fair to one person who enjoys the odd $5 bet.

Are we banning cars then? What about unhealthy food? Heart disease is the number one killer in this country so if the gov wanted to protect people it would make sure everyone was skinny.

You're presenting a false dichotomy. Cars are a form of transport which has obvious benefits. Even unhealthy foods are food which is y'know the thing people consume to live.

What are the benefits to keeping gambling? Does the entertainment value offset the societal harms?

> Does the entertainment value offset the societal harms?

yes. Just like the entertainment value of unhealthy food outweighs the social harms it creates.

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