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Comment by rafale | Hacker News Reader

Gamblers know the odds are stacked against them yet they end up stuck in a psychological prison within their own brain that they can't escape from even if they realize what they do is harmful.

Maybe a better law: check id, you are not allowed to take from any gambler more than 10 bets a year and no bet can be over 1k.

For big gamblers, we can have "qualified gamblers" rules like we do for qualified investors.

Funny how we don't let average people invest in some stuff but we let them gamble.

For offshore gambling pursue them aggressively if they serve US clients.

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>For big gamblers, we can have "qualified gamblers" rules like we do for qualified investors.

This is actually a take I haven't seen elsewhere. Yes, we do protect investors at least marginally better (lots of people still get fleeced with little recourse, unfortunately) but conceptually, this is a very interesting idea.

The fact that gambling exists on a loophole of being "for entertainment purposes only"[0] isn't a good enough distinction to me.

[0]: This is a brief one sentence summary of it. There's actually a bit of nuance involved depending on a number of factors, but essentially the core presume rests on some version of this.

His take isn't new. It is deployed in part in the UK. Effectively, gambling companies adopt the role of the state conducting a full audit into your personal circumstances, income, assets, bank statement, utility bills to work out whether you can gamble.

I would hope that I don't need to explain why this isn't a good idea. But the one you may not have thought of: gambling companies love this because small companies are unable to audit, margins in the sector collapsed when activity moved online, that has stopped AND they are able to target customers who they don't want to deal with, before these rules it was difficult to identify customers who would take their money, now they have your passport, your address, your bank statements, they know where your money comes from (professional gamblers can still use beards but in the UK, students used to be very popular beards...that has stopped, regulators have also brought in rules to prevent beards being used as part of the changes above...the "neoliberal" US doesn't have rules anywhere close to this, it is complete madness).

There's a difference here between the concept and implementation though.

I agree, giving up that much information to a third party, opens too many risks for me, and I don't want it to be standard.

However, I'm sure there is some middle ground here that isn't so violating to your privacy. Like mentioned before, having a default limit that can only be surpassed if you're willing to go through some form of qualification. The limit can be set in place without any audit required, if its low enough.

Why go through all this effort just to enable an industry that does nothing but take a profit off of random chance?

Just fucking ban it.

Decriminalize low value bets between average people maybe but there's zero reason we need a gambling industry.

It is impossible for this industry to behave. Just kill it.

Your average Fent dealer isn't this predatory FFS

Gamblers know the odds are stacked against them and still gamble...because it is fun.

You realise that people waste their money on things that are significantly less understandable than gambling. Do you see someone driving a Ferrari and seethe with rage because Ferrari doesn't run a "qualified driver" program?

Ferrari cars hold their value pretty well if you buy them slightly used.

Either way, Ferrari is selling cars. Not dreams of riches.

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