[HN Gopher] America's Bad Bet on Sports Gambling
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America's Bad Bet on Sports Gambling
Author : sharkweek
Score : 28 points
Date : 2022-09-02 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (compactmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (compactmag.com)
| ren_engineer wrote:
| bread and circus, same reason they are legalizing or
| decriminalizing drugs after resisting for decades. They want the
| masses sedated and distracted. 100K+ people die from opioids
| every year and that number is rising rapidly, yet no national
| emergency declaration or real action to try and stop it
| MrGazzo wrote:
| > no national emergency declaration
|
| The former President of the United States declared it a
| national health emergency:
| https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-declares-opioid-crisis...
| jmclnx wrote:
| But nothing was really done to stop it. But seems every US
| President will declare something and all it does is blow hot
| air to help warm the earth even faster :)
| coding123 wrote:
| Biden did nothing except appoint a czar that did nothing.
| [deleted]
| tqi wrote:
| It's weird to me that media outlets like the NYT will criticize
| apps like Robinhood or Duolingo for being addictive then turn
| around and happily take advertising money from BetMGM or
| FanDuel...
|
| 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/technology/robinhood-
| risk... 2. https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/why-breaking-a-streak-
| feels-s...
| frebord wrote:
| Just replace gambling with alcohol. The small minority of addicts
| shouldn't fuck it up for the rest of us.
|
| I dove deeply into it this past year to extract some value out of
| promotions the books are running, and have continued to bet
| because it is fun trying to find lines that have positive
| expected value and it's been a nice stream of extra income.
| [deleted]
| strombofulous wrote:
| > it is fun trying to find lines that have positive expected
| value
|
| I've never gambled before, does this happen often? I would have
| assumed gambling companies wouldn't offer any bets like this,
| since it implies their EV is negative.
| dottrap wrote:
| Look up Edward Thorp, the famous mathematician who was the
| first to use probability theory to beat blackjack and write a
| book about it (Beat the Dealer). Basically, as a deck uses up
| cards, the remaining in the deck may present a positive
| expected value. By counting cards and knowing expected
| values, you can adjust your bets to capitalize.
|
| Since Thorp, Casinos have made it harder to beat them (e.g.
| larger decks), but they still tease the possibility you can
| beat them to entice people to try (and lose).
|
| Edward Thorp later went on to write Beat the Market, where he
| tried to apply similar probability principles to the stock
| market. He independently invented the options formula, before
| Black-Scholes (which the latter won a Nobel Prize).
| le-mark wrote:
| In sports positive EV can happen a lot based on real world
| circumstances. Hot streaks are real, injuries and line ups
| change before and even during games, players get arrested,
| etc. Often times opening lines move drastically because the
| books just don't know the true odds. In practice the books
| move the line so they make a profit. Example everyone would
| bet on chiefs over lions by a touchdown all day long; a line
| might start there but move quickly. It's quite amazing that
| final line is almost always 50/50 win probability.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| Is this true if they are not the counter-party, but the
| facilitator?
| whartung wrote:
| Sports (parimutuel) gambling is different from casino
| gambling. There's no "house margin", rather they simply
| impose a fee (percentage) on the bet.
|
| It's why on a 1:1 bet, you'd lose money, as the sportsbook
| tend to take something like 10%. Even though the odds are
| 1:1, your $1 bet would net $0.90. ($1.90, you'd get your
| dollar back.)
| throwaway_4ever wrote:
| The only exception is Blackjack, where you could learn
| positive EV play in a week, by "counting cards". That's why
| casino's kick people playing too well. They make a little
| money off 99% of players playing bad and try to kick the 1%
| that make money off the casino.
| nine_k wrote:
| Health and behavioral implications of alcohol addiction can be
| more expensive to the families and the society at large.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Seems peat and repeat for the US these days in all environments.
|
| People forgot why Sports Betting was first outlawed (Black Soxs).
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal This will nor end
| well.
|
| In the 1930's, Finance Law were passed to reel in abuses, since
| the late 90s, these laws were whittled down and we had 2008. New,
| weaker laws passed and as of now most are gone.
|
| So seems to prove, if people do not read and understand history,
| they are dommed to repeat the past mistakes.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Maybe the cure was worse than the disease. Just because
| something was previously banned, doesn't mean it was the right
| call.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| The dueling commercials for California propositions about sports
| gambling are such a farce. Neither prop 26 nor 27, actually talk
| about sports betting all, and unless you pay attention to who is
| paying for them, or actually read the text you wouldn't know.
|
| For example, https://yestoprop27.com/ does not mention online
| sports betting at all. It's so deceptive.
| baron816 wrote:
| I've thought it would be a good idea for states to issue
| "licenses" for many vices. Want to buy alcohol or go to a casino?
| You need to take a short course on the dangers of it and how to
| be safe. If you act irresponsibly by over drinking or driving
| drunk, then you can get your drinking license suspended.
|
| For gambling, you could limit how long a person stays inside a
| casino over a period of time, limit how many bets they place over
| a period of time, or how much money they lose. Yeah, it's a
| little nanny state-ish in the case of gambling, but there's
| clearly some social harm going on there that states recognize by
| already controlling gambling.
| bergenty wrote:
| It's not going to work for everything. Most (not an
| exaggeration) men have wanted to sleep with 13-14 year olds in
| pretty much every society in history. How do you propose we
| satisfy that need?
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| We don't satisfy it. Lots of people want to kill their
| enemies, too. They seem to find the criminal penalties
| sufficiently deterring.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| This is actually not a terrible idea, but enforcing it might
| prove hard. I don't think your average casino right now keeps a
| young parent from gambling away the rent money. On the other
| hand, bars can and do refuse to give you any more alcohol.
| baron816 wrote:
| I don't think it would be that hard to enforce with pretty
| basic software. Casinos have to get a license to operate as
| is. They would scan people as they place bets. Casinos might
| even get behind it since they would get access to the data--
| they'd immediately know who the high rollers are, who the
| cheaters are, what games people like, etc.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| We can replace the X in "X should be legal because criminalizing
| it will just drive X underground" with (heroin / crack / glue
| sniffing / child porn / whatever).
|
| Not all of those substitutions work. It seems to be a difficult
| thing to process, for some people, that outlawing things does
| reduce their usage, and some of those things are _really_
| harmful.
|
| Conversely, at least some of the people who are now gambling on
| sports really would _not_ have done so, when they still had to
| know a bookie. No, they wouldn 't fuel the Mafia instead; they
| just wouldn't gamble.
| aaplok wrote:
| Legalisation is a very broad notion. What to legalise?
| Usage/consumption? Small business re-selling? Large private
| industry?
|
| Arguments for it cover an equally large range. The argument
| about legalising _consumption_ for public health reasons
| probably focuses more on reducing harmful consumption rather
| than all consumption. The article cites several strategies used
| by the sports gambling industry (eg QR codes) that encourage
| addiction, and harm. You don 't need to make all gambling
| illegal to crack down on that kind of stuff.
|
| Ultimately the question is one of control. Complete market
| deregulation is arguably the worse possibility here. With
| illegal activity the government can control through repression,
| and via a public monopoly they control the quality of the
| product and the chain of distribution.
| [deleted]
| ilaksh wrote:
| It's weird to me how sports gambling just seemed to start being
| accepted as a normal part of everyone's life, apparently, based
| on how common the ads are.
|
| Gambling addiction is real. It affected my family.
|
| It's like a tax on society, except that it often most negatively
| affects the people who can least afford to be taxed, and then it
| usually just goes to greedy people rather than funding public
| works. At least lotteries supposedly go towards public projects.
| But again, you are taking proportionately more from the most
| desperate and poor people in that case which is the opposite of
| how a tax should work.
| code_duck wrote:
| I'm still perplexed at how casinos are all over the US now.
| Growing up in the 80s, the story was 'gambling is bad and thus
| illegal everywhere, except horse tracks and for some reason
| Nevada'. Then of course casinos on reservations started opening
| all over, close to and even in the middle cities (Fond-du-Luth
| in Minnesota, for instance, is directly in downtown Duluth).
| coding123 wrote:
| Welcome to the end of times. Same here, I remember a society
| that was fair, hard working and not filled with crazies.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Growing up in the Midwest, we got riverboat gambling, and
| watched the slide inevitable slide to just casinos.
|
| For those that aren't aware, this was the basic history.
|
| Casinos are bad. Ban them.
|
| Casinos are bad, but maybe profitable. Let's have a few, but
| we'll put them on 19th century style paddlewheel riverboats,
| and make the boat go out into the river for an hour long
| cruise to limit access.
|
| Okay, the boat can remained docked, but it will still
| "cruise" for an hour before people are allowed on and off.
|
| Okay, so maybe the boat can actually be in an artificial
| pond, that's only about a foot bigger than the boat, as long
| as that "boat in a moat" is within some small number of miles
| from an approved gambling river. These boats will also "go
| cruising", and since they are boats, they will be regulated
| by the US Coast Guard, and be required to have enough life
| jackets for the maximum occupancy number of the boat, even
| though if the boat were to "sink" it would only fall 12
| inches to the bottom of the of the moat.
|
| Okay, so maybe the boats don't have to "cruise" and people
| can just come and go from the gambling floor whenever they
| want.
|
| Okay. Let's just have a regular casino in a regular building,
| nowhere near a river.
| thebigjewbowski wrote:
| The state taxes casinos and sports books an insane amount on
| top of regular federal taxes and whatnot.
|
| It's not totally extractive but they are obviously still
| profitable.
|
| The thing is, everyone gambled before legalization. You didn't
| even need a bookie, every online casino has taken bets from US
| citizens and then pay no taxes to the state or country.
|
| Bookies are even worse than online casinos because they offer a
| line of credit and later coerce you to give up your business,
| sell drugs, etc.
|
| All in all it's very similar to drugs. People are going to do
| it anyway, might as well make it legal.
|
| You can contact any casino and request to be excluded from play
| indefinitely. You can set deposit limits and cannot lift them
| for a month at a time. There's some "harm reduction" required
| by law.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| No, "everyone" did not gamble. Some people did, but others
| didn't want to enough to find a bookie or try an online
| casino.
|
| "People are going to do it anyway" -- wrong, _some_ people
| are going to do it. Many will not if it 's illegal.
| jollyllama wrote:
| I think the anti-gambling proponents who said gambling
| legalization would degrade society have to some extent been
| proven correct.
|
| TV, billboard, and other ads for gambling are rampant around
| here. I find it exploitative.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Better to have the demand served open and legally than forcing
| people underground. Alcohol prohibition should have made it
| _abundantly_ clear decades ago that attempting to ban vices
| will only leas to criminal empires, and it 's just the same
| with gambling, prostitution, porn and marijuana.
|
| Regarding advertising you're spot on, although I'd go a step
| further and call for sweeping regulations in the _entire_
| advertising industry. Unless you move to a 21 souls settlement
| in Alaska and leave a hermit life, you literally can 't spend
| five minutes without being bombarded by one or another ad.
| jonah wrote:
| My area has banned billboards on the highway and otherwise.
| They also have strict rules about signage in general.
|
| It's really wonderful and when I go somewhere else and am
| bombarded by those ads I am reminded again how assaulting
| they are.
| majormajor wrote:
| > Better to have the demand served open and legally than
| forcing people underground. Alcohol prohibition should have
| made it abundantly clear decades ago that attempting to ban
| vices will only leas to criminal empires, and it's just the
| same with gambling, prostitution, porn and marijuana.
|
| It's not obvious to me that all vices are created equal here.
| If forcing gambling underground creates a criminal empire or
| two but results in, say, 80% fewer gambling addicts who end
| up damaging their lives and those of their families, which is
| the larger harm? Fake numbers, obviously the benefits/harms
| would depend on several different factors, but I don't think
| a one size fits all approach makes sense because "illegal
| gambling gangs" didn't seem to cause the same sort of larger
| societal problems the last several decades that "illegal drug
| gangs" or prohibition-era alcohol gangs have. I would assume
| this is because the lack of a need for the same sort of
| supply chain that you could attempt to monopolize and
| dominate.
| mynameishere wrote:
| Isn't the whole "prohibition was bad" pretty much a just-so
| story? Being the drinker I am, I don't want it to come back,
| of course. But does having a few seedy speakeasies run by the
| mob really amount to much compared to this sort of thing:
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088683/death-rate-
| rate-...
|
| That's one disease. Booze causes all kinds of problems, and I
| wouldn't be surprised if (as another example) wife-beating
| sharply declined during prohibition.
|
| (ED: Looking again at that graph, there's something a little
| dubious about it--but it was the first data I could find.)
| microtherion wrote:
| That graph is indeed quite dubious, considering how long it
| takes for liver cirrhosis to develop. Furthermore, it shows
| a steep drop _preceding_ prohibition, so, if anything, it
| suggests that prohibition came about because society 's
| attitudes toward alcohol had already changed.
| Karellen wrote:
| If pervasive garish ads are criminalised, only criminals will
| see pervasive garish advertisements.
|
| ...and I'm fine with that.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| It would be nice if they added to the relevant legislation that
| no bet can be more than negative 1% EV. There is some nuance to
| figuring that (and perhaps you'd have to regulate the total
| winnings / total wagered instead) but a decent part of the
| problem is that folks are making _really_ crappy bets in most
| cases. Making a lot of $20 bets at -1% EV is very different than
| the same thing at -15% EV.
| morcheeba wrote:
| My best friend's husband is always bringing home winning $20 or
| $50 lotto tickets. His family can't afford the $75 a week he
| spends on those, but every gas station sells them. Even not-out-
| of-control cases are harmful.
| bergenty wrote:
| Cardboard crack
| [deleted]
| tomohawk wrote:
| People have forgotten how harmful gambling is. It was once widely
| legal, but then made illegal in most places. During the time it
| was illegal in most places, Nevada led the nation in many
| categories such as: school drop outs, divorces, domestic abuse,
| ...
|
| Government involvement in such activities really just shows where
| the priorities are.
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