I find it difficult to watch any sports these days because you are just constantly bombarded with sports betting ads and tie-ins. I have absolutely no interest in throwing my money away on sports bets and yet even I find myself wondering if I should try it out or maybe I could just open a trial account. It's dangerous and disappointing that this is the direction that all the major sports leagues are heading.
I agree. I don't have a moral problem with sports betting but it's not only commercial breaks, it's completely invaded the content itself. Sports commentary has become inseparable from betting and though I have no temptation, every minute of the content feels like predatory advertising. It's not fun anymore.
I sometimes listen to sport's radio and sometimes - too often - it's unlistenable. Too much focus on betting and no enough on the actual sports. I cringe when the shows' hosts talking about their personal betting.
I'm rather surprised at the return on spending on inline ads by gambling houses considering how much paperwork/fructuib there is setting up a DraftKings account on the spot.
Tangential comment, I'm a passionate follower of formula one and have realised that basically anything advertised on F1 cars is "bad". Cigarettes are the obvious historical example, FTX is the more recent one.
There's many that are socially acceptable at the moment but only with the caveat of either "in moderation" or "for responsible adults": energy drinks, crypto, etc.
Google Chrome is one that a decent debate could be had about.
Microsoft Dynamics might be the exception that proves the rule... But I've never worked out what the hell the product actually is.
Dynamics is Microsoft (somewhat poorly) making a Salesforce for people who are all-in on the Microsoft ecosystem. In terms of collective human suffering caused per year of existence I would say it's on par with the rest of the stuff you've mentioned.
I made this comment purely from my impressions of the team's major sponsors and the ones that I've noticed. Realising that I'm rather advertising blind these days (like all of us, I figure), I thought I should actually dig up a list and have more of a think about this idea.
I don't know how we went from "you have to travel to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to gamble" to "You can gamble 24/7 on a device that's always with you." Anti-gambling laws were put in place for very well understood reasons.
Relentless petitions, one state at a time. I'll never forget the door to door and being approached in parking lots to sign petitions to get legal gambling on the ballot.
As far as I've read, it's psychologically identical. The scary thing about financial gambling like options-, day-, or forex-trading is that they seem respectable. Laypeople don't usually know that the person is gambling, and some people even think of it as a legitimate job.
There is also an argument to be made that actual gambling has less of a negative social impact.
Having been bored during the pandemic and gotten myself some gambling tokens at a brokerage site it turned out that i almost kinda funded some pretty severe human rights violations. Drones dropping grenades and mortar shells on indigenous people with bow and arrow type of stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSf3268tAbg
Maybe check your portfolio for Freeport-McMoRan
Funnily enough, the youtuber that made the video also had his house fire bombed by organized crime for reporting on Australias gambling industry.
Cryptocurrency trading & high risk stocks was part of the dataset of the study[1]. They also compare it to other gambling activities and risk groups further down.
There are similarities, but figuring out options trading on Robinhood is significantly more difficult. And I’m not bombarded with ads for options trading dozens of times per football game.
Only slightly related: can anyone speak to the syntax of headlines like this where the 'author' of statement is appended to the end? e.g. Statment: author. It seems to go against what seems to me more natural and common, which is 'author: statement', or even 'statement - author'. Just curious is all.
> “You can be gambling away your house on your mobile phone sitting at the dinner table, and not a single person will know until the devastation of your whole family is complete”
That sounds like a reasonable means of control then. These services could be locked to networks at locations with some kind of gaming license (something like a Keno license).
I don't understand. There's obviously a market for it. Can't folks decide that the price is too high? Are we really willing to accept that agents aren't rational? Wouldn't that have severe implications for other markets?
If you look at drug addicts as a group, the answer is often a direct and emphatic “no, they can’t” - the drug alters the way they perform that price calculus such that many of them will spend their last dollar, go deeply in debt, and do terrible things to continually chase a high. Drug policy has had many failures in the US, but there does seem to be a correct nugget of recognition that “some drugs seem to be fundamentally destructive to those that get addicted, and to the broader society that has to deal with the consequences of those who are addicted”.
Gambling in many people seems to have the same effect on altering price calculus in a way similar to addictive drugs, which at leasts motivates a reasonable discussion whether benefits of allowing it exceed the harms it causes those individuals and society.
That simplification seems counterproductive. There is obviously a spectrum of rationality that gets compromised by addiction. Be it heroin, alcohol, sugar or gambling.
There was a social engineering talk a while back that i cant find anyone where some sysadmin explained that just informing users they wanted to do something stupid was far more beneficial then just blocking their attempts.
Most of these addiction industries are profitable through addicts, the amount of cheap hard liquor bought by non-addicts is neglect able. Maybe just communicating with these people is far more sensible then banning something that people can also consume reasonably. Maybe somebody that spend his last 3 months rent on gambling wants to talk about how to not do that. While the notice on every visit is quite annoying.
Even if you cant let go of the demand for judicial intrusion altogether, maybe start with something like a one week detox after x months of behavior typical for an addict that lost control. It would likely get a lot of people over the diet hump they have been battling for years and sobering up long enough to reevaluate your life choices might not be the worst thing to do.
There is absolutely no reason to be unregulated free-market absolutists about addictive behaviors, other than blind ideology. Regulations on gambling and gambling advertisements have been around for a long time because we know that people do not act rationally when it comes to this activity. This is not dissimilar to how legalized drugs like tobacco are treated.
The question for society to answer is "is the social costs of gambling addiction (which don't remain localized to the gambler themself) worth what we gain from unrestricted advertising?". I personally would say "hell no". Likewise with drugs, let's not eliminate legal methods. That just forces it underground. But that doesn't mean it should be promoted, or plastered all over billboards, arenas, and stadiums.
It's ridiculous these days watching any sports content, the amount of betting related ads is outrageous. I see no other outcome than droves of new gambling addicts.
In the mid-90s, a local dial-up ISP sent their support calls to me. I once put a local retiree couple online and went on my way. About 6 months later I came back to fix their connection which he promptly tested at a gambling site.
I also did service calls at their friends and neighbors. They said that since getting online he'd gambled away their retirement, maxed out their credit cards, got new cards & maxed those, took out a 2nd mortgage and gambled that off. That they'd lose the house was a certainty. The wife may not have known yet just how bad off they were.
[+] [-] castrodd|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] add-sub-mul-div|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] chiefalchemist|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imbnwa|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xuki|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fuzzwah|2 years ago|reply
There's many that are socially acceptable at the moment but only with the caveat of either "in moderation" or "for responsible adults": energy drinks, crypto, etc.
Google Chrome is one that a decent debate could be had about.
Microsoft Dynamics might be the exception that proves the rule... But I've never worked out what the hell the product actually is.
[+] [-] sianemo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fuzzwah|2 years ago|reply
https://formularapida.net/f1-2023-list-of-partners-sponsors-...
Safe to say, my comment above is hyperbole. Still, I wonder how many of the companies in the linked list will be considered "bad" in 10+ years.
[+] [-] cameldrv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulryanrogers|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WarOnPrivacy|2 years ago|reply
Then one them started firehosing cash into campaigns and budgets. . .
[+] [-] beambot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smt88|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cf1241290841|2 years ago|reply
Having been bored during the pandemic and gotten myself some gambling tokens at a brokerage site it turned out that i almost kinda funded some pretty severe human rights violations. Drones dropping grenades and mortar shells on indigenous people with bow and arrow type of stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSf3268tAbg
Maybe check your portfolio for Freeport-McMoRan
Funnily enough, the youtuber that made the video also had his house fire bombed by organized crime for reporting on Australias gambling industry.
edit: Picture of drone in question https://twitter.com/jmscaronte/status/1426514097617752066
[+] [-] goles|2 years ago|reply
[1](pdf)https://socialwork.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/2023-10/P...
[+] [-] sarchertech|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistrial9|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darth_avocado|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 000ooo000|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teeray|2 years ago|reply
That sounds like a reasonable means of control then. These services could be locked to networks at locations with some kind of gaming license (something like a Keno license).
[+] [-] w-ll|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starwin1159|2 years ago|reply
(In Hong Kong you can only bet on Jockey Club organizations)
He continued to sell ads on Facebook during the epidemic.
He earns over one million dollars every month.
And he is just one of them. There are many people who make more.
It really opened my eyes.
Sorry, my native language is not English.
[+] [-] kelseyfrog|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fardo|2 years ago|reply
If you look at drug addicts as a group, the answer is often a direct and emphatic “no, they can’t” - the drug alters the way they perform that price calculus such that many of them will spend their last dollar, go deeply in debt, and do terrible things to continually chase a high. Drug policy has had many failures in the US, but there does seem to be a correct nugget of recognition that “some drugs seem to be fundamentally destructive to those that get addicted, and to the broader society that has to deal with the consequences of those who are addicted”.
Gambling in many people seems to have the same effect on altering price calculus in a way similar to addictive drugs, which at leasts motivates a reasonable discussion whether benefits of allowing it exceed the harms it causes those individuals and society.
[+] [-] cf1241290841|2 years ago|reply
There was a social engineering talk a while back that i cant find anyone where some sysadmin explained that just informing users they wanted to do something stupid was far more beneficial then just blocking their attempts.
Most of these addiction industries are profitable through addicts, the amount of cheap hard liquor bought by non-addicts is neglect able. Maybe just communicating with these people is far more sensible then banning something that people can also consume reasonably. Maybe somebody that spend his last 3 months rent on gambling wants to talk about how to not do that. While the notice on every visit is quite annoying.
Even if you cant let go of the demand for judicial intrusion altogether, maybe start with something like a one week detox after x months of behavior typical for an addict that lost control. It would likely get a lot of people over the diet hump they have been battling for years and sobering up long enough to reevaluate your life choices might not be the worst thing to do.
[+] [-] sarchertech|2 years ago|reply
Is this a serious question? Of course we are—gambling has historically been regulated or outright illegal in cultures the world over.
[+] [-] contravariant|2 years ago|reply
And indeed any market that relies on people acting rationally suffers the same problem, even if people keep insisting otherwise.
[+] [-] anon291|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SonicScrub|2 years ago|reply
The question for society to answer is "is the social costs of gambling addiction (which don't remain localized to the gambler themself) worth what we gain from unrestricted advertising?". I personally would say "hell no". Likewise with drugs, let's not eliminate legal methods. That just forces it underground. But that doesn't mean it should be promoted, or plastered all over billboards, arenas, and stadiums.
[+] [-] xbar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] totallywrong|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WarOnPrivacy|2 years ago|reply
I also did service calls at their friends and neighbors. They said that since getting online he'd gambled away their retirement, maxed out their credit cards, got new cards & maxed those, took out a 2nd mortgage and gambled that off. That they'd lose the house was a certainty. The wife may not have known yet just how bad off they were.
I don't have a more depressing tech story.
[+] [-] kurtabsolon|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] kurtabsolon|2 years ago|reply
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