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Comment by mrkramer | Hacker News Reader

>And if you are consistently winning they will ban you! They can legally back off (reduce max bet to a tiny amount) or straight up ban people who bet smart.

I'm not from US, I'm from EU but I'm still paranoid of that so I only sports bet at state owned lottery/betting company.

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Gambling debts are unrecoverable by law in Ireland. Casinos are under no obligation whatsoever to pay out under any circumstances

If you happen to be too lucky while placing a bet or gambling, the person can simply say ‘no you’re not entitled to the money’. That is simply the law in Ireland”. https://www.thejournal.ie/court-gamblers-not-paid-d1-casino-...

The hilarious thing is that if a Betting Company allows you to beg on margin/credit, then they can't subsequently sue you for the money either https://www.algoodbody.com/insights-publications/high-court-...

State run bookies charge commission so high you will not win anyway unless you have insider info and then your risk is bigger with a state run bookies.

Big bookies won't have you so easily. Multiple small ones will but you will get your money back. They not paying is a very small risk even if they decide to not do business with you later.

How do you know they would not also ban you if you were exceptionally “good” at betting?

Is there some specific EU regulation guaranteeing the right to place bets even if the house is losing?

Company is owned and run by state and I doubt they would allow themselves to have any shenanigans with their customers. You can always sue them, you can sue private companies too but private ownership is just an extra worry. That's why I also have a bank account at the state owned bank not the private one.

That’s probably a good intuition and definitely smart about the bank — I was dropped by Commerzbank in Germany without explanation — but if I were so good at betting that I worried about a ban, I’d want to double check the actual rules.

I mean state is probably the better custodian of your money and your interests than the private investors unless you live in a rogue state run by criminals.

Leaving aside the question of whether it has to be a rogue state to be run by criminals, I think that operating a gambling syndicate is never in the interest of the citizenry, and that includes the Lottery, which is functionally a tax on the poor. For very gaudy spectacles of that exploitation, turn on the TV at Christmas in Spain.

why not bet till you get banned, then switch to state owned?

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