[HN Gopher] Online sports betting: As you do well, they cut you off
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Online sports betting: As you do well, they cut you off
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 87 points
       Date   : 2025-06-06 20:21 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (doc.searls.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (doc.searls.com)
        
       | arrosenberg wrote:
       | If a casino or sportsbook allow unlimited losers, they shouldn't
       | be able to cut off winners. Conversely, if they cut off winners,
       | they should be required to reimburse loses above a statutory
       | limit.
       | 
       | In a healthy economy "Tails I win, heads you lose" businesses
       | should not be allowed to succeed.
        
         | rightbyte wrote:
         | Ye well there is room for improvements.
         | 
         | I have done sports betting like three times, when I realized
         | the odds were bonkers, and retrieving the money after winning
         | was an extreme hazzle that took weeks with photocopies of
         | passports and gas bills and what not. Paying the bets took a
         | minute.
         | 
         | I mean, online betting is a shady business. Physical casinos at
         | least have some sort of brick wall to bang your head against.
        
           | dist-epoch wrote:
           | > retrieving the money after winning was an extreme hazzle
           | that took weeks
           | 
           | that has nothing to do with sports betting. it's the same
           | with trading stocks/forex/..., it's KYC/AML
        
             | paxys wrote:
             | Yup I have used these apps, and it takes 10 seconds to
             | deposit and withdraw money. They have every incentive to
             | make it as seamless as possible, otherwise they aren't
             | going to get repeat customers.
        
           | PaulHoule wrote:
           | Was watching the Kentucky Derby at a party, thought it might
           | be a hoot to bet the favorite to show [1] on my phone but I
           | didn't quite do it. I would have won but it could have been a
           | hassle to get paid.
           | 
           | [1] A heuristic to minimize your losses, because favorites
           | are underbet, if you have minimal information
        
         | david422 wrote:
         | I don't disagree - but also realize that the other option is
         | not to play.
        
           | mlinhares wrote:
           | That doesn't work for vices in general, there has to be an
           | externally imposed limit.
        
           | gaze wrote:
           | This is such an old moral argument. Do you think society
           | should protect people from the nearly unlimited downside
           | inherent to having bugs in human behavior exploited or do you
           | think that doing this is wrong and that it's in fact immoral
           | to stop people from being punished by their own bad
           | decisions, because that's what they deserve.
        
             | personjerry wrote:
             | To play devil's advocate, why do you get to decide what's a
             | "bug in human behavior"? If they're happy about it... ?
        
               | aquariusDue wrote:
               | Is water addicting? /s
               | 
               | We can endlessly debate morality, ethics and all that
               | regarding lots of things, but in my humble opinion
               | gambling could be reduced to:
               | 
               | "Would people still engage in those games of chance if
               | there was no monetary aspect to it?"
               | 
               | And then how many of those people who would still engage
               | with them are "notorious" gamblers on whom those games
               | had a clear negative impact (in most people's eyes).
        
               | Teever wrote:
               | This sounds like a productive path to take the
               | conversation but it isn't.
               | 
               | Let's demonstrate that by just jumping to the end of this
               | reasoning -- severely mentally retarded adults -- can
               | they consent to sex? Why or why not?
        
             | singleshot_ wrote:
             | I think society should protect me (degree in mathematics,
             | non-gambler) from harm caused by betting companies in the
             | form of increased bankruptcy filings for problem gamblers.
             | 
             | I think it's immoral to allow their bad decisions to raise
             | costs for those of us who do not care who wins the Big
             | Game.
        
             | JKCalhoun wrote:
             | If someone goes into it eyes wide open, sure let them hand
             | over the paycheck meant to buy new clothes for their kids.
             | (Or not?)
             | 
             | When, as has been pointed out in this thread, people are
             | instead being deceived and told the playing field is level,
             | yeah, no we should not allow that.
        
         | 1970-01-01 wrote:
         | We're just doing it wrong with all-cash betting. We need to
         | change the game to include goods. Don't like your shirt? Go bet
         | it at the casino. If you lose, the casino takes it and goes to
         | sell it at auction. If you win, you get some cash to go buy and
         | own a new shirt.
        
           | parpfish wrote:
           | If you bet your shirt, you should only be allowed to win
           | other shirts. Or maybe a matching pair of pants.
        
             | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
             | I feel like you've just invented extremely unwieldy chips.
        
         | jplrssn wrote:
         | Insurance companies are supposed to operate in this way, but
         | some are happy to take your money as long as they believe they
         | can profit and only start enforcing policy violations etc once
         | you've become a net liability.
        
         | skippyboxedhero wrote:
         | That isn't what is happening.
         | 
         | Earlier this year, sportsbooks lost a lot due to punter-
         | friendly outcomes (a series of favourites winning), and they
         | didn't cut people off. Doing this is extremely bad for business
         | because: people won't come back, and you aren't giving
         | customers the opportunity to lose that money back to you.
         | 
         | So what you are seeing when people are limited is not this but
         | arbing line moves between bookmakers, people bearding for
         | someone else, etc.
         | 
         | One of the articles mentions stuff relating to player behaviour
         | - for example, if you bet on Australian Rules Football, you bet
         | every game for multiple weeks then it doesn't matter if you win
         | or lose, there is going to be a limit - there is a grey area,
         | but the majority of people being limited don't fall into this
         | category. They are just people doing stupid stuff (I have done
         | this, I used to arb line moves 20 years ago in the UK, I have
         | been banned everywhere, it is stupid and I should have been
         | banned).
        
       | sharkweek wrote:
       | It has taken over the lexicon of most major sports to the point I
       | can barely stand watching most of them now...
       | 
       | NFL broadcasts lean so heavily into betting odds, parlays, prop
       | bets, everything... it's so obnoxious hearing about X player
       | hitting the over, only to go to a commercial offering some free
       | money if you place a certain sized bet.
       | 
       | I really hope (but am not holding my breath given how much money
       | is involved at this point) they ban sports betting advertising in
       | the future.
        
         | gffrd wrote:
         | I'll go further: I hope they ban sports betting altogether.
         | 
         | It was a mistake, and we should accept that.
        
           | lenerdenator wrote:
           | You can't ever truly ban it; there's always a guy who's
           | willing to operate a racket. The question is, can you reduce
           | the harms?
           | 
           | We went wayyyyy too permissive with sports betting by
           | allowing it online. It should be something that you can do at
           | a casino, but on your phone, at home, alone? That's just
           | begging for serious harm to the addicted.
        
             | triceratops wrote:
             | They were talking about banning gambling advertisements,
             | not gambling itself. Banning gambling is a terrible idea.
        
         | parpfish wrote:
         | It feels like gambling talk has largely replaced fantasy team
         | talk on most broadcasts, and I wonder what role fantasy sports*
         | played in all of this.
         | 
         | Did fantasy sports have a causal role as a gateway that slowly
         | normalized gambling, or were they just reflecting that there
         | has always been a latent thirst for gambling and fantasy sports
         | were the only socially acceptable way to scratch that itch?
         | 
         | * not talking about "daily fantasy" stuff which was just
         | blatant gambling pretending to be fantasy sports to exploit a
         | loophole
        
       | bartread wrote:
       | I would guess this is not true for betting exchanges where
       | backers and layers are directly connected to eachother and the
       | exchange takes a small cut of every transaction regardless of
       | which side wins or loses. I wouldn't have thought it would matter
       | to them if you were a consistent winner because your repeat
       | business helps to provide liquidity to the exchange.
        
         | dist-epoch wrote:
         | This might come as a surprise to you, but the more volume you
         | trade, the higher commission you pay (in percentage terms) on
         | sports betting exchanges.
         | 
         | BetFair calls it the Expert Fee :))
         | 
         | If you make more than $100k profit, you pay 40% extra Expert
         | Tax on it :)
         | 
         | https://support.betfair.com/app/answers/detail/expert-fee-fa...
        
           | tough wrote:
           | lol how is that legal
        
         | joezydeco wrote:
         | I thought the same thing, and that's typically how pari-mutuel
         | betting works (horsetracks, Jai-Alai, etc).
         | 
         | But if some whale comes in and wants to drop a large bet, I
         | suppose the house doesn't want to sit around and wait for the
         | same amount of action on the other side before they take the
         | bet or the game starts. And now they're exposed if the whale
         | wins.
        
         | skippyboxedhero wrote:
         | This is how Asian books work, they move prices early, and make
         | it back on volume (this is not a wholly geographical
         | designation, Pinnacle Sports is also an Asian book but operates
         | in the Caribbean...iirc).
         | 
         | The problem in the US is that it is a highly competitive market
         | so you have to acquire your customer base every weekend, and
         | these customers don't actually care so much about prices. So
         | having weaker prices is a more effective way to deliver the
         | product. In addition, US gamblers like parlays, parlays are
         | more profitable, have lower volume per bet, and (so far) the
         | economics of the Asian book don't work for this market (i.e.
         | get syndicates to bet your lines early).
        
       | blinded wrote:
       | Hard agree. Would never work for a gambling or gambling adjacent
       | company.
        
         | parpfish wrote:
         | Too many people are willing to do sketchy stuff if you can
         | frame it as solving fun math/ML problems, and I have to admit
         | that a sports gambling company would have a lot of fun data to
         | play with.
         | 
         | But too often the ability to turn everything into a math
         | problem lets you easily abstract away the reality of what
         | you're doing
        
         | jeffbee wrote:
         | But would you invest in one? The VC firm for which this orange
         | site is the public mouthpiece has backed lots of them.
        
       | jaoane wrote:
       | I remember seeing here posted years ago an article written by
       | someone who worked at a casino as a croupier or something
       | similar, talking about how you will lose your money there no
       | matter what... Anybody knows what I'm talking about? I tried
       | looking for it and I came back empty-handed.
        
         | elpocko wrote:
         | Isn't this common knowledge? The statistical odds are always in
         | favor of the casino, otherwise there would be no casinos. You
         | can only win short-term, if you're lucky; long-term, the bank
         | always wins.
        
       | hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
       | In a physical betting space, usually located in casinos, I can
       | also get free drinks. There's also other stuff to do and it
       | requires actual physical effort to be there and bet all the time.
       | 
       | Online sports betting is a mug's game.
       | 
       | I made a few hundred dollars and have quit for a couple of years
       | now once I learnt that they can kick you out for doing too well.
        
       | chasing wrote:
       | I mean, no shit? Casinos aren't in it for fair play and
       | sportsmanship.
        
       | pastor_williams wrote:
       | Another good article about sports betting: "The Online Sports
       | Gambling Experiment Has Failed"
       | https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-online-sports-gambling-exp...
        
         | ChrisArchitect wrote:
         | Some related discussions here:
         | 
         |  _The Online Sports Gambling Experiment Has Failed_
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42110194
         | 
         |  _Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Mistake_
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41659458
         | 
         |  _Should Sports Betting Be Banned?_
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665630
        
       | dismalaf wrote:
       | This is why I never gambled against the house...
       | 
       | If you play poker against other players, the house will never cut
       | you off (they take their rake and are happy). And as long as you
       | give some action and are social, the whales keep playing you too
       | (they're rich enough).
        
       | Apreche wrote:
       | ~~online sports~~ betting is for losers
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | Over the last few years watching sports (in the USA at least) has
       | been unbearable. Every other ad is for gambling apps.
       | Broadcasters show live betting odds on TV alongside the game.
       | Announcers and analysts are constantly talking about their
       | favorite parlays. All athletes have endorsement deals with
       | bookmakers and encourage young fans to participate. Sports
       | leagues themselves have close partnerships with the largest
       | gambling companies.
       | 
       | And who ensures everything is happening above board and there is
       | no fixing? Don't worry, self regulation works.
        
         | zem wrote:
         | the fact that having your game constantly interrupted by ads
         | didn't in and of itself make watching sports unbearable just
         | shows how bad the downward pressure on what is considered
         | acceptable is. gambling ads will probably become the new normal
         | in a couple of years.
        
         | skippyboxedhero wrote:
         | There was match fixing in the US before legalization. In fact,
         | the US is one of the only places where you have had major
         | sports events being fixed due to gambling, despite gambling
         | being legal in many other places.
         | 
         | One of the greatest incentives to stop match fixing comes from
         | having regulated operators who will report unusual betting
         | behaviour. For example, the massive problems with match-fixing
         | in low-ranked tennis has been tackled by bookmakers.
         | 
         | There is an issue with advertising but that is unrelated to the
         | match-fixing one. The latter is one of the absolute oldest
         | lobbying lines the Republicans used when they were getting all
         | their money from Adelson (it was accompanied with some mad
         | intellectual gymnastics about how sports betting at casinos was
         | also magically unaffected by this, same with underage
         | gambling).
        
       | anthomtb wrote:
       | In the pre-online sports betting days, was there a legal way to
       | bet on a game besides going to a casino and visiting the sports
       | book? I remember newspapers publishing odds but still have no
       | idea how people made wagers (other than physically visiting a
       | casino).
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | Yup those odds were for entertainment purposes only _wink wink_
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | UK used to do this via bookmakers, who ran either high street
         | shops or at the race being bet on.
         | 
         | Football betting had "the pools", betting by post across a
         | number of fixtures. Most famous was run by a retailer.
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlewoods
         | 
         | See also https://www.onlinebetting.org.uk/betting-
         | guides/football/his...
        
       | lenerdenator wrote:
       | There's basically no redeeming value to online gambling.
       | 
       | When gambling was legalized in my area in 1990s it brought at
       | least some working-class jobs and tax dollars. Now, those tax
       | dollars were funded by people with an addiction, but they at
       | least went somewhere local. And you can still go gambling
       | occasionally and get a good meal and some drinks and maybe see a
       | show. Worst comes to worst, at least in my state, you can sign an
       | affidavit banning yourself from the casino floor.
       | 
       | Online gambling is just a Skinner box designed to take money out
       | of _severely_ addicted people 's pockets. That's it. You can
       | speed run racking up losses because the games are shorter and can
       | be done faster. The sites operate out of jurisdictions that have
       | loose regulations on the games. For all you know they could be
       | making it not only unlikely, _but impossible_ , to win.
       | 
       | Watch a few YouTube docs on a streamer named BossManJack if you
       | want to see just how consuming it can get.
        
         | skippyboxedhero wrote:
         | There is redeeming value: it is fun and harmless for most of
         | the population.
         | 
         | The same people that I have seen rage against other people
         | gambling will also argue in favour of legalising drugs which
         | are more addictive and can cause psychosis.
         | 
         | In addition, making it illegal does not stop actual addicts
         | gambling. You can go offshore and get completely unregulated
         | services, that comply with no regulators on harm prevention.
         | The US was the largest sports betting market in the world when
         | it was illegal in every state bar Nevada.
         | 
         | Also, online providers maintain lists of self-excluded people
         | with state regulators (to be clear, the state holds the list,
         | people put themselves on the list and are banned everywhere).
         | Casinos are significantly less regulated in this area because,
         | due to the nature of the product, is not possible to put in
         | limitations to the product (for example, reality checks, loss
         | limits, giving you access to data on your usage).
         | 
         | All regulated sites have third-party verification of their
         | games by specialist testers and state regulators. Every change
         | to every line of code that touches a regulated service is
         | reported. It is not possible for operators to lose at casino
         | games because of the scale, and you think they are willing to
         | destroy it all to get your $10 faster?
         | 
         | The issue with online gambling is: some people cannot resist
         | telling what other people (usually people poorer than them)
         | what to do, and some people have not thought the alternatives
         | through.
        
           | epolanski wrote:
           | I don't know, I see your point but I personally know few
           | people addicted to gambling, the damage they do themselves
           | and their families is the worst I've seen of any addiction,
           | including drugs.
           | 
           | If a family father gets addicted to some drugs it's bad, but
           | somewhat limited in impact, if it comes to gambling, those
           | people ruin their families, very quickly.
        
             | skippyboxedhero wrote:
             | Most countries in the West have hordes of homeless people
             | everywhere...is it the gambling?
             | 
             | Saying a drug addiction has a "somewhat limited" impact is
             | delusional. Particularly as addiction is an inherent
             | property of taking drugs, that is not the case for
             | gambling.
        
               | epolanski wrote:
               | Maybe I wasn't clear, and please understand both my
               | parents suffered of addictions.
               | 
               | If my father or mother got high or drunk every evening I
               | did not. Terrible, pitiful, psychological nightmare,
               | sure.
               | 
               | But I was not intoxicated.
               | 
               | On the other hand, I've seen the impacts of ludomania.
               | When parents go broke or accumulate unpayable debts
               | that's something you cannot recover with rehab and that
               | will have insane implications for the whole family for
               | decades.
               | 
               | I hope you understand now what I mean.
               | 
               | One of my best friends SO suffers of ludomania, a court
               | has ordered his salary to be paid to her, and she gives
               | him an 80EURs monthly allowance. They got lucky, another
               | family I know got completely ruined in the course of few
               | weeks.
               | 
               | By the way, I'm polish/Italian, and we don't have hordes
               | of homeless people, I don't think I've ever seen a single
               | homeless person in my life in Poland.
        
               | sokoloff wrote:
               | > debts that will last generations
               | 
               | That's something that should be banned.
               | 
               | Debts should die as part of settling the decedent's
               | estate. (The US got this right, and I thought most of the
               | world did as well.)
        
               | skippyboxedhero wrote:
               | Okay...but they are still alive? Poland has tens of
               | thousands drug and alcohol-induced deaths, you can lose
               | your money doing anything: gambling, women, bad business,
               | job loss, etc. Many, many more people will have lost all
               | their money because of alcohol in Poland than
               | gambling...you only care about one of these things. The
               | only explanation is that you care about people losing
               | money in ways you don't approve of.
        
               | epolanski wrote:
               | > The only explanation is that you care about people
               | losing money in ways you don't approve of.
               | 
               | I don't see a way for this discussion to find a middle
               | ground.
               | 
               | Ludomania is classified as a mental disorder and a very
               | real illness.
               | 
               | I've seen it's effects along the effects of other
               | addictions and my two cents is that it can be more
               | devastating to people surrounding the addict than others.
               | 
               | Misery is misery regardless of the disorder, addiction or
               | illness, we don't need to have a competition between it.
               | 
               | But it is very important to underline that gambling is
               | not only increasingly legal but increasingly deregulated
               | too.
        
           | EnPissant wrote:
           | If you knew for a fact that gambling was a significant net
           | negative to society (ie, even when you take into account
           | illicit gambling etc), would you support its ban?
        
             | skippyboxedhero wrote:
             | That is like saying if you knew heroin was good then would
             | you support giving it to children?
             | 
             | Asking this question is a sign that you aren't interested
             | in the answer.
        
             | sokoloff wrote:
             | I believe that alcohol and tobacco are significant net
             | negatives to society.
             | 
             | Yet, I do not support a ban on alcohol and I suspect that
             | an outright ban on tobacco would be worse than simply
             | having high taxes on it.
             | 
             | Sports betting is probably closest to alcohol in this
             | regard: lots of people get moderate enjoyment from it from
             | time to time and some people have their lives significantly
             | harmed or even ended, meaning the overall net is negative,
             | even though many people experience a small positive.
             | 
             | I wouldn't ban sports betting for the same reason I
             | wouldn't take away your glass of red wine with dinner.
        
             | coolestguy wrote:
             | There are a lot of things that are a net negative to
             | society but since we're not slaves, we're allowed to do
             | things that can be fun but -ev if we choose to
        
               | EnPissant wrote:
               | Are you opposed to any or all of the following things?
               | 
               | - Seat belt laws
               | 
               | - Prescription requirements for drugs (whether that be
               | Oxytocin or blood pressure medication)
               | 
               | - Building codes
               | 
               | - Minimum wage
        
           | rectang wrote:
           | Do you support any regulation of anything, or any laws for
           | that matter?
        
           | ryoshoe wrote:
           | >Also, online providers maintain lists of self-excluded
           | people with state regulators (to be clear, the state holds
           | the list, people put themselves on the list and are banned
           | everywhere).
           | 
           | There's and ongoing lawsuit alleging sports betting platforms
           | sent promotions targeted to users on the exclusion list to
           | encourage a relapse in their gambling addiction.
           | 
           | https://www.espn.com/espn/betting/story/_/id/44520842/baltim.
           | ..
        
             | gruez wrote:
             | >There's and ongoing lawsuit alleging sports betting
             | platforms sent promotions targeted to users on the
             | exclusion list to encourage a relapse in their gambling
             | addiction.
             | 
             | >https://www.espn.com/espn/betting/story/_/id/44520842/balt
             | im...
             | 
             | Your linked article doesn't say anything about that claim?
        
             | skippyboxedhero wrote:
             | No, that lawsuit doesn't allege that, as the article
             | explains. Self-exclusion lists are not maintained by
             | gambling companies, so there is no way to market to them
             | (and also, the lawsuit is being brought by a city...not an
             | authority responsible for regulation). Just generally,
             | there is no upside to doing this either. It makes literally
             | zero sense if you apply rational thought.
             | 
             | What the lawsuit alleges is that at-risk users with
             | promotions. This is undoubtedly true because people who
             | have gambling addictions use gambling products and there is
             | no way to identify someone with a gambling addiction prior
             | to them using the product (contrary to what the article
             | says, there is no way for companies to identify these users
             | either, there are multiple third-party vendors in the
             | industry who claim to have developed ML models to identify
             | at-risk behaviour...none of them work).
             | 
             | The lawsuit does not identify whether these users opted-out
             | of promotions (every regulated provider has this
             | option...if you don't want these promos, just turn them
             | off). And does not identify what aspect of existing
             | regulation is insufficient (as I just explained, if you are
             | a gambling addict, you have the option of being unable to
             | open an account at any regulated provider).
             | 
             | In other words, this is the equivalent of Baltimore suing
             | Budweiser because alcoholics drink their beer. It
             | misunderstands at a very fundamental level how society
             | should operate and tells you everything about US society
             | where companies are expected to have a social role (and
             | btw, what is most odd about this is that MD has a state
             | gambling regulator, Baltimore is complaining about things
             | that government already has the power to fix...I suspect
             | the issue is that this revenue source is not being
             | distributed their way, govt officials need to eat too).
        
         | delichon wrote:
         | It facilitates the flow of capital from less to more
         | intelligent, disciplined and foresighted allocators.
        
         | Der_Einzige wrote:
         | My favorite kind of "brainrot" content is "gamer rage" videos
         | where you watch people destroy their setups (or attack
         | mannequin dummies like Pchooly) after getting wrecked on a
         | video game.
         | 
         | BossManJack and his reactions are still worse - because he's
         | built a whole twitch/discord empire around it with his
         | "juicers". When he was in rehab he'd spend the 1 hr with his
         | phone he was allowed per day streaming and losing money online.
        
         | triceratops wrote:
         | I remain amazed that we managed to ban tobacco advertising but
         | alcohol and gambling, also harmful and addictive vices,
         | continue to be advertised.
         | 
         | Both have very little societal value, other than alcohol's
         | traditional role as a lubricant of social interaction, and
         | there's no reason to actively promote them.
         | 
         | FWIW I love alcohol. I don't gamble because I don't enjoy it,
         | but I have nothing against gambling.
        
           | Wobbles42 wrote:
           | Tobacco because a trendy social cause. Alcohol did once too
           | but that was 100 years ago or so.
        
       | paulbjensen wrote:
       | I recently read about a story in my local newspaper (Colchester
       | UK) about someone who stole PS13,000 from his girlfriend's phone
       | via her banking app so that he could fund his gambling addiction.
       | He was found guilty of theft and sent to prison.
       | 
       | I wonder if there is any merit in building an app that helps
       | gambling addicts by letting them play the same games that they
       | would play on their phones, with a few caveats:
       | 
       | 1 - It's all virtual money, just like a demo account on a stock
       | trading service where you can test it out without real money
       | being involved. You don't use real money, and the app is free to
       | download and play. The goal isn't to make money from the app,
       | it's to help treat gambling addiction.
       | 
       | 2 - Where the games would tempt you to place another bet and say
       | "better luck next time?" or "so close" and tempt the player to
       | make another bet, this game would do something different:
       | 
       | - When a player loses on their go, it would say "if you'd staked
       | real money, that would have cost you PS2 etc". - It would also
       | remind you of the total balance, and say "if you'd played for
       | real, then you would be down PS200 tonight, but because you
       | played this game instead, you've saved yourself PS200." - When a
       | player wins on their go, it would say "congratulations on
       | winning, that was your first win in the previous 6 go's".
       | 
       | The idea is to change the cognitive behaviour of the player so
       | that a) they get to play a game that they enjoy playing and find
       | addictive to play, but crucially b) they don't lose any money,
       | and because they are shown the reality of what gambling is like
       | from an accounting perspective, their cognitive association with
       | gambling is changed.
       | 
       | It's better to play a fun game for free then to play a game that
       | drains you of all your money.
       | 
       | How is that idea. Good, bad?
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | Such things exist, but for the gambler the crucial thing is the
         | possibility of _winning_ real money. Also apps that don 't make
         | money don't pay for advertising themselves.
         | 
         | (Compare vs gatcha, which doesn't allow you to cash out.
         | Predictably there's also gatcha simulators if you just want to
         | roll for things meaninglessly)
        
           | PaulHoule wrote:
           | ... when I got a real smartphone I wanted to try _Fate /Grand
           | Order_ because I was a fan of the fanart but when I saw the
           | summon screen it used the same visual language as slot
           | machines and I lost interest.
        
           | sokoloff wrote:
           | For a while, advertising for-money online poker was not legal
           | in some jurisdictions. So "ParadisePoker.com" (a real money
           | site) couldn't advertise.
           | 
           | Free-to-play/play money site paradisepoker.net however
           | somehow found the money to advertise extensively. It was a
           | real mystery...
        
         | dole wrote:
         | Virtual money doesn't mean anything, gamblers will bet the max
         | knowing they're not losing anything.
        
         | HK-NC wrote:
         | Some people just want to piss their money away. I know people
         | that spend hundreds, thousands even on opening magic boxes in
         | games which have "rare" items in them, the games dont even have
         | a marketplace to make the money back.
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | Plenty of such apps exist. In fact before gambling was legal
         | _all_ apps had to use fake money. And no one used them. Unless
         | you can replicate the rush that comes with winning real cash
         | you aren 't really providing an alternative.
        
       | bdangubic wrote:
       | they cut me off I sign up my Pops, they cut him off I sign up my
       | wife, they cut her off I sign up my Sis... by the time I out of
       | family members I'm sipping Pina Coladas in the Carribean :)
        
       | devonsolomon wrote:
       | I had deep-access to this industry in a past career - the way
       | online sportbooks talk about their customers in private is all
       | you need to know to know that this isn't business, it's
       | predation.
        
         | Akasazh wrote:
         | Care to share stories?
        
       | 1024core wrote:
       | One spring I wanted to checkout the parks near Vegas: Valley of
       | Fire, Hoover Dam, etc. But I stayed in Vegas because the cheapest
       | hotels were there.
       | 
       | Every evening, after a day of hiking, I would walk into a casino,
       | sit down at the gambling machine, insert a $20 bill, and hit
       | "drink service". A few minutes later a free beer emerged, and I
       | promptly hit "cash out", collected my $20 and walked away (after
       | a stop at the free popcorn machine too).
       | 
       | I think I may have come away with more than 80% of their
       | clientele.
        
       | codr7 wrote:
       | After just having tech lead a team for a month at one of the
       | bigger providers of online casinos and sports betting; because I
       | simply couldn't find anything else at that point in time and I
       | had already struggled for quite some time without an income; I
       | can only agree with most in this thread.
       | 
       | I wouldn't mind if we made the whole thing illegal, it's like a
       | giant leech on society.
       | 
       | And I've never before in my career come across a company so
       | stacked with narcissist assholes on the management side.
       | 
       | https://github.com/codr7/yolo
        
       | chistev wrote:
       | Is it possible to be a profitable bettor long term? By long term
       | I mean thousands of bets?
       | 
       | For example, guy like Picks office on Twitter is profitable, but
       | I don't know if that's a large enough sample size.
        
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