Reasonable overview here and it's only gotten worse since 2024. https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-online-sports-gambling-exp...
Right, because that’s a recent occurrence.
The number of ads on any sportsball program is actually sickening unless you are used to it. I don’t care about the commercials, it’s the ones you don’t notice. You might notice The Verizon Center’s instant recap cam brought to you by GoPro, “Go Be A Pro!”… no, it’s everything that appears on the screen at any single moment is branded and paid for you to see it subconsciously. Every helmet, mouthguard, clipboard, every everything everywhere all the time, no letting up.
I’m pretty sure that the level of advertising in sports is super unhealthy. I really don’t care that betting the game is an option or not.
That's a tough sell; the US makes a lot of errors. Assuming "public policy" means "domestic"; their industrial policy promoting deindustrialisation seems like a bigger error. After a few moments of thought I'd probably argue the Bush-Obama era establishment of a massive internal surveillance apparatus (including a secret court) is a strong contender for biggest unforced error in living memory. There might be bigger ones but the US citizens lost a remarkable amount there. It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret. And the use of spying and federal harassment of political opponents seems to have been steadily normalising.
Even just background over-regulation on starting and running new businesses is probably going to cause more damage to poor people than legalising sports gambling.
The surveillance apparatus was created to prevent another 9/11 which quite possibly would have destabilized the state itself.
These may or may not have been mistakes, may or may not have been worth it, may or may not have been illegal, etc. etc., but they both had a pretty coherent rationale for them.
What's the rationale for legalized sports betting? It's such an obscenely indefensible change that any politician advocating for it should be investigated relentlessly (at least journalistically) until the day they die.
> It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret.
That's not true.
> Even just background over-regulation on starting and running new businesses is probably going to cause more damage to poor people than legalising sports gambling.
Absurd statement.
Some people want to bet on sports. It seems obvious enough. It's like asking what the rationale is for letting people do anything. They don't have to clear it with you to make sure you agree that it is a worthwhile activity (or anyone else for that matter). Even if it is clear folly on a whim.
I'll just add that every mistake the US makes is going to have a rationale. Everything the US does has a coherent rationale with the possible exception of the recent Iran war. But sometimes the rationale is stupid.
> That's not true.
It is true. They had a big thing about clamping down on whistleblowers under the Obama administration because people kept trying to leak information on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
> Absurd statement.
The world is an absurd place. My mind usually goes to https://www.grumpy-economist.com/p/the-cost-of-regulation when I bring that point up.
Secret law: The Wikipedia section heading being "secret law" does not actually make it a "secret law" in the sense that most Americans would read it. What it's referring to is a set of secret court rulings. Which are, yes, very problematic and not something I'll defend. But the phrase "secret law" would cause most Americans to think of secret legislation, which does not exist.
2) Bear in mind how the "they're obviously going to be scanning internet traffic" conversations went back in the 90s and 00s (where it went from absurd tinfoil hat talk to common sense assumption basically overnight). If they do turn out to have secret legislation that feeds into the FISA court then I reserve the option of being smug in retrospect. It seems quite reasonable that they would need secret legislation to operate the secret court that produces secret laws likely enforced by secret police. There is pressure to recreate the whole legal system with the word "secret" in front of it to make any individual secret part work.
It's a secret court; I doubt any of us know what is going on in there. This is one of the major problems with secret courts, it is not possible to opine on how they are working without speculation.
Your second paragraph is actually exemplifying the exact type of misunderstanding of the situation that I was alluding to. You really don’t need secret legislation, or even secret statutes, or even secret rules to produce the “secret law” referred to in the article. All you need is secret decisions.
We don't legalize things in America, we illegalize things.
The constitution doesn't give us rights, it actually takes them away so our government can operate.
We give freedom lip service in this country but if you truly believe in it this is what we must drill into people in civics class and in discourse.
This is in fact what happened with sports betting. They wrote a law making it illegal. That law got struck down, so we are back to the default which is it is legal.
We can make it illegal again to address the court ruling, but it's an uphill battle.
Sports betting was effectively illegal, and a number of people lobbied aggressively and pursued lawsuits to overturn the status quo (de facto federal ban) then a huge number of efforts to permit it at the state level in a bunch of states.
All of these efforts are completely adequately described as “legalization” efforts.
Yes, we can change the new status quo again. And we should.
Im always amused by this line of thought, should we make alcohol illegal then and ban advertising it on tv? What about soda with too much sugar? Should we, perhaps, ban everything which is addictive and causes any harm?
But note I didn’t present the “people want to do it” argument. My view is things should be balanced between their antisocial risks and their prosocial value.
IMO yes there should be extremely high taxes on high-sugar concentration foods and beverages, and probably additional impediments to their advertising. We have alternative sweeteners that do not destroy the financial viability of our healthcare system, and we should tilt the tables in their favor. High antisocial risks, low prosocial benefits compared to readily available alternatives.
Alcohol is dicier as there is a real prosocial value to it that’s non-trivial to replace, but it too should probably be taxed more aggressively as we know that small tax increases disproportionately affect the most problematic consumers of alcohol.
Note how this argument isn’t “people want to do it therefore it should be allowed?” Or “people can be harmed by it therefore it should be disallowed?”
Prohibition has costs of its own: black markets, organised crime, unsafe products, enforcement expenses and incarceration.
You acknowledge that alcohol has social benefits, but apparently heroin doesnt. Why? Because alcohol facilitates socialisation? Because its culturally accepted? Who gets to determine the "prosocial value" of an activity? Almost any unhealthy behavior can be framed as a societal cost.
Theres an enormous amount of subjectivity here. Some people genuinely enjoy recreational drug use. Others enjoy gambling, despite knowing they will probably lose money.
You are arguing that the state should determine which activities are permissible based on their net social utility. Im arguing that danger alone should not give the state a right to prohibit consenting adults from engaging in any activity. Individual autonomy has value in itself, including the freedom to make decisions that are objectively bad for oneself.
People are acting like sports betting is new. The Romans bet on the gladiators. I'm not a history buff, but I'd imagine older civilizations bet on some form of sport as well.
What's the rationale? To make money of course. To be confused on this seems like a bit of deliberate obtuseness. The fact it hasn't been legal for so long was because the puritanical start to the country. It would be nice to have specific leagues that were pure sport for sport's sake, but once one league allows betting and the money starts to flow, all of the other leagues will follow or wither
“What’s the rationale for legalized sports betting [that mirrors the rationales for these other two decisions that you are placing in the same category]?”
“Just make money” or “the Romans did it” are unlikely to fit the bill.
Sounds more like you're wanting to ask a more generic question on why addict gambles, but if you want to understand the rational of an addict, then get in line. The only thing to understand is trying chase the high in whatever form it takes. Ask an addict and they will tell you there's no explaining it.
To me, the "HN fasion" is not accepting that there are things that exist that are not rational and no matter how much you want to logic your way to an answer, it will never happen.
This is about policy errors and the degree to which those errors are unforced.
The question is whether sports gambling was just as “forced” as the surveillance state or as deindustrialization.
Yeah, that one's huge. Another huge one was when the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 provided retroactive immunity to the telephone companies who all willingly, blatantly, and -undoubtedly- knowingly violated Federal law controlling domestic surveillance.
This is tangentially related, but I suspect that the major LLM Manufacturers are hoping that they can frighten Congress into doing something like that again. Getting all active lawsuits about your illegal behavior erased all at once is a huge gift to scumbag businesses.
But for others their "fill" is so high their addictions will wreck them entirely regardless of means.
But perhaps to your point, if I'm give it charity, people with less means are more likely to get entirely wrecked by certain addictions.
As with many other psychological phenomenona, finances and education only protect to a certain degree or not at all, depending on what one is talking about in detail.
This is not a comment about correlation or causation of wealth with mental health, but rather a warning to keep in the back of ones head; success and a sharp mind don't make one immune against mental health issues in general and gambling addiction in particular.
Beyond that however I agree that turning this loose on the American public is an incredibly short-sighted act, but it's part of a pattern rather than an outlier.
So rationality? You're assuming there's good options available for these people. But if they don't own a home ... they won't lose much, and their careers provide them with little to gain month to month.
Isn't it rational under those circumstances to try to get quick large reward ... or fail entirely? When you have no real other options and even arguably little to lose?
The time when being a non-educated worker in a big city would get you a house, a family, and pretty good comfort, enabling ordering 5 beers most evenings in a pub, have a hobby, ... has long ended, at least in Australia.
The fact that you can go into any neighborhood dive bar and see a bunch of nearly indigent drunks doesn't mean that people aren't drinking themselves to death in mansions, private clubs, or $1000 a meal restaurants.
As for rational risk, most people consider the line between having enough for daily expenses, making debt payments, and having a place to rent is a massive upgrade over a shelter or the streets. Or working a second job, or a third.
The stereotypical problem gambler in Australia is a lonely retiree blowing their pension at the pokies (slots), and clubs and casinos go all out to cater to this demographic with free taxi services etc.
Sports gambling isn't a good thing, but 2025-2026 has shown us many far worse errors in public policy every single day.
I'm eating just ramen here ...
Here's an unforced error.
* Person 1: "$THING is a problem for a significant chunk of people. My audience here probably doesn't experience it subjectively, but it's still objectively true."
* Person 2: "But what if we are feeling it!? Ah-hah! I found an error! You goofed!"
* (Me): "That's really not their point, stop nitpicking the disclaimer."
“Gambling is a problem for poor people, but not the smart, educated folks on this here forum” smacks exactly of that. So while that detail might be orthogonal to the original point, I’d agree that it’s not just a nitpick but a very real problem as a statement that is worthy of being called out.
They're truly just caught up in a pissing match with their peers.
I'm going with the rollout of LED headlights on that one, but reasonable people can disagree.
No reference - no comparison.