The proliferation of gambling is driving me away from sporting events. I won't take my child to an event where gambling is repeatedly promoted front and center. Ditto for broadcasts and the excessive ads for FanDuel and whatever. Recently visiting family in Michigan I was appalled at the nonstop gambling ads during sports broadcasts. I had to leave the room. Combined with escalating ticket costs I have completely tuned out of things I used to watch regularly. Its sad that everything is monetized to the point of ruining it.
Of course you do you. Specially when it comes to raising your kid. But I think a better approach would be to teach them about statistics and odds and why gambling is bad instead of trying to shield them from it. Reinforce the idea that casinos and betting apps and even video games are businesses that make a lot of money, and they don't make that money by giving it away. The house always wins. Always.
I live in Reno, and even though gambling is everywhere 99% of the locals I know, don't do it.
The problem with gambling isn't a lack of education. Gambling preys on people when they're vulnerable and gamifies their desperation into a death spiral of suck. I would also keep children away from it, since they're at a disadvantage even when educated as their brains are so underdeveloped.
> You can, you should teach your kid about the dangers of drugs and addiction. Still you wouldn't bring him in a crack house...
I know this is a little tongue-in-cheek, but I have a 15 year-old and we lived downtown in a major city until 5th grade. Mom and Dad definitely talked about the dangers of drugs, but I don't think any of those talks made anywhere near the impression of coming across someone passed out in the entrance to a subway station with a needle stuck in there arm. Our trip was delayed while I made sure the person was still breathing and then summoned medical help.
Learning gambling at least has some real educational merit. Risk management, understanding probabilities, statistics, and how to quickly estimate under pressure are all generally useful skills. I recall hearing that the science of probability was basically discovered by one of the Bernoullis who had a gambling patron.
I suppose someone with enough gumption could learn useful skills like sales, marketing, loss prevention, and customer retention from drug dealers too, but that’s a whole level of seedy past legal gambling.
A casino is needed for none of that. Quick or slow estimation always shows that betting at a casino is a bad bet, unless you are an extremely gifted "hacker".
We all know sugar and processed food is bad for us but obesity is rocketing. We have to get away from "personal education and responsibility is the answer", because while correct to actually a pretty decent extent it's plainly not sufficient at a societal level and across domains such as diet, investing, gambling, smoking, drinking, etc.
"Place limits on availability of toxic stuff" is a better answer IMO, albeit again not perfect (see abuse of illegal drugs).
But yeah, unchecked promotion of gambling is really not good and should absolutely be curbed.
I grew up low-stakes gambling; euchre, dice, outcomes of various events. I had a lot of fun and never shielded my kids from it. My view is basically if the house isn't involved, and you can exercise self-restraint, it's ok in my book.
But dear Lord, the incessant ads and the flashing lights in bars and rest stops. I always took a moment to express my disapproval of people that prey on others addictions.
> Its sad that everything is monetized to the point of ruining it.
I'm with you on this. I stopped watching television, following sports, and listening to the radio many years ago.
Yeah, tech has really fucked up the whole gambling ecosystem in the US in a way that is going to have ugly consequences in the not too distant future. It use to be that to gamble legally, you had to travel in remote places (native territory, Atlantic City, Las Vegas.) In the last five years RobinHood, FanDuel and the like have totally steamrolled over all the regulations and safeguards. It's on demand, 24/7 wherever you are, on any day of the week. They'll even let you trade on margin. In ten years this is going to be bad, like a social problem on par with drug addiction to opiates.
You think it will take 10 years? We have an entire generation of "investors" who think 20% annual returns are normal. When stonks went down last year they were shocked but rather than reassessing their risk profiles, they doubled down and bought stocks "on sale" as if they can never go down again.
I can't predict the future and I would certainly prefer stocks continue to recover but I think there's a huge group of people who seem to think we are going to immediately return "to the moon". I have my doubts.
> rather than reassessing their risk profiles, they doubled down and bought stocks "on sale" as if they can never go down again.
it's because they found out that they can afford to wait, esp. if they didn't borrow on margin to do it. But this is actually, imho, the correct way to invest (provided that you don't all-in on one stock).
Yes but there’s something about having it available on a phone, together with all the social elements (Twitter, Reddit, etc) that’s adding fuel to the fire. Also the fact that engagement probably correlates to trading activity (which leads to revenue) means they have every interest to make the app use as addicting and easy as possible.
Robinhood's primary business model is to offer free trades, financed by counterparties, because RH's user base is a flow of people taking a nearly guaranteed wrong side of a trade.
Yeah it’s complex. Texas doesn’t have big casinos — your impression was correct about that. But lots of small poker houses and slot machines and lottery ticket billboards.
California has card rooms because poker is legally considered a game of skill and not gambling. Playing chess for money, as is common in organized tournaments as well as parks, also isn’t considered gambling. I wouldn’t be surprised if other states have similar laws.
How is gambling negative sum? The total gains and losses are zero. That casino games tend to favor the house doesn’t change that. And much gambling is just private wagers.
The gambling aspect has become part of NHL hockey broadcasts now in Canada. On HNIC on a Saturday night, I watched Ron Maclean hand over the broadcast to some guy from a gambling company for a ~10 second segment on the current odds of each team winning. It wasn't like cutting to a commercial break where there's a clear separation between the broadcast and the advertiser.
Try to clearly define what is gambling and what isn't so people can reliably avoid gambling. You won't be able to do it because the financialized economy is a big unavoidable casino.
You can define extreme cases of clear gambling like slot machines, but the opposite isn't true. There are no extreme "definitely 100% not gambling" examples. At best you can identify things that are relatively less gambling like.
Even things that were considered canonical not gambling examples have become more like gambling. Ex: Buying a house. When people used to put 20% down, carefully shop for months, and live in a house their whole lives that's not gambling.
But now? People buy houses at 10-20x leverage, waive inspection, and go from tour to offer in 2 days. Job loss for either spouse could mean foreclosure. If the market doesnt appreciate fast they will be upside down and stuck. How is this not gambling?
Gambling in all forms - day trading, crypto, sports betting (in the name of fantasy sports), is becoming all too pervasive. It's everywhere and in your face. And the target are the most vulnerable who can least afford to lose money on it.
Good article, I'm an occasional active trader and I see a lot of pathological behaviors and pretty frequent losses of the magnitudes you read about in /r/WSB...
