[shipman05]

It feels like banning advertising for gambling would be a sweet spot between harm reduction and maintaining individual liberty.

Sports gambling ads have ruined sports media. State lottery ads are even worse. The government should not spend money to encourage its own citizens to partake in harmful activities.

[ACCount37]

"Make it legal but very annoying" is an underrated policy option. And banning advertisement is the first resort in this line of regulation.

If there are no ads to tell you, you have to, first, be informed that sports gambling is a thing people do, then decide that it's a thing you want participate in, and then obtain information on how it's done. This adds friction. Friction reduces participation. But if you really want to gamble? You still can.

[dredmorbius]

Taxing they daylights out of the advertising is another option.

That should push the shadier operators out of the limelight, though it would likely leave large-pot gaming (sports, Powerball, etc.) standing, at least for a while.

(I'd very much like to hear criticisms of this approach.)

[maxerickson]

So this is sort of a gotcha question, but I don't mean it that way.

Is it advertising when the announcer for a game talks about gambling? There's statements that obviously would be advertising, so the interesting thing is where and how to draw the line.

[xnx]

Agree. Gambling, smoking, drugs, and possibly weed should be legal, but just barely more preferable to obtain legally than illegally.

[photon_garden]

Norway does a great job of this with the government-owned alcohol monopoly. The stores are always just a little bit out of the way, with slightly inconvenient hours. You can still get a beer if you want, but it takes a little bit of doing.

[InMice]

Interesting, didn't know they do that. USA (mostly) doesn't do any to of that and alcohol consumption and its related social costs are declining.

[kgwgk]

> You can still get a beer if you want, but it takes a little bit of doing.

It takes a little bit of money but you can get a beer at the supermarket.

[the__alchemist]

It's like this for liquor (But not beer or wine) in some US states.

[bongodongobob]

Why is that good

[banannaise]

Alternatively: ban the instant-gratification bets. No bets on the outcomes of partial games: one pitch, one at-bat, one inning or quarter or half. If you want to get extreme with it, scorelines only (points, moneyline, over/under).

[ryanjshaw]

Nah the sweet spot is to make the gambling companies pay for the treatment and recovery of the people addicted to their products, up to whatever amount they gave the gambling company.

[mlrtime]

Talk through it, how does that play out exactly?

Do they addicts have to self report to get treatment? Do we force them?

[Ekaros]

I wonder could this be expanded to other areas. Say you run a ski-resort. Any broken bones and other issues are fully on you. To unlimited liability, piercing any corporate setup. Could really work for any sports too.

Food, tobacco, alcohol get more interesting... As there is bit harder time to assign blame of each meal. Maybe in those cases the claimants should be able to fully list everything they have ingested over say past 10 years. So that liability can be fairly and exactly distributed.

[parthdesai]

Should we also make sugar companies, coca cola/pepsi pay for people that become obese?

[wombatpm]

Tax advertising for gambling? Require all advertising for gambling to go through a state agency? There is lots a state can do besides banning.

[cael450]

Yeah but banning them is the right thing to do. Why would you have a state agency review gambling ads?

[TeMPOraL]

> Tax advertising

That move alone would make a big dent in many of the major problems of modern living.

[slumberlust]

I'd argue sports ruined their own product with ad insertion at every available opportunity (and even creating new opportunities to shove ads at you). If gambling ads were banned, it'd just be something else crammed down our faces.

[aleph_minus_one]

> I'd argue sports ruined their own product with ad insertion at every available opportunity (and even creating new opportunities to shove ads at you).

Side remark: I love to ridicule that of all things producers of very unhealthy food and beverages (or to put it more directly: producers of foods and drinks that make you fat and thus unathletic) love to sponsor sports events. :-)

[mlrtime]

I'm fairly pro-market, but I agree with this. I think people should do what they want if they don't harm themselves or others. Advertising these things are different...

I don't have a problem with people smoking or drinking, but I agree we shouldn't allow advertising. However, they should be able to advertise in adult only outlets.

ex: Does Playboy still have Cigarette and Liqour advertisements?

[hamasho]

  > I'm fairly pro-market, but I agree with this. I think people should do what they want if they don't harm themselves or others.

Is this still pro-market though? I have the same opinion and I often labeled as "anti-market" when I call regulations for gambling, social media, AI, etc.

[tomjen3]

May I suggest just requiring people to register what how much they want to gamble and then be locked into that. If you want to gamble for 100 usd per month, then you can't bet more than that. You should be able to set your own amount, but any changes should only be active from the next month.

This has minimum impact on personal liberty, and will almost eliminate problem gambling.

[bitmasher9]

Problem gamblers will find ways around this regulation. It’ll reduce by adding friction but problem gambling existed before gambling was legalized.

[TimByte]

Banning or heavily restricting gambling ads feels like the bare minimum, honestly

[gloosx]

Banning anything is the opposite of liberty. There is no sweet spot, either banning, or liberty

> The government should not spend money to encourage its own citizens to partake in harmful activities.

That's what goverment ever do.

[rufus_foreman]

>> It feels like banning advertising for gambling would be a sweet spot between harm reduction and maintaining individual liberty

No.

If you want restrictions on gambling, on advertising it, on participating in it, on making money from it, you want to restrict individual liberty.

I want to restrict individual liberty, I have voted against gambling when it has come up for a vote in my state over and over.

You want to appear to be the type of person who wants to maintain individual liberty, but you in fact are not. You want to restrict individual liberty in the area of gambling.

I would also like to appear to be the type of person who wants to maintain individual liberty, and I will vote against gambling every single time it comes up.

No gambling.

[shipman05]

"If you want restrictions on gambling, on advertising it, on participating in it, on making money from it, you want to restrict individual liberty."

I grant that, but I never claimed the contrary. I never suggested that banning advertising reduces ALL harm or preserves ALL individual liberty. I just believe an ad ban is a good compromise position.

I'm a former smoker. I would have been outraged had the government tried to ban cigarettes while I was addicted to nicotine. But there's a difference between allowing people to have their vices and allowing people to spend hundreds of millions in multi-media advertising campaigns convincing others to pick up a new one.

[derektank]

As with many things, the degree matters. It is both an imposition on your liberty to require identification when boarding an airplane and an imposition on your liberty to ban everyone from flying altogether. But one clearly restricts your liberty more than another. I think when choosing between different solutions to a problem, choosing the one that limits your freedom the least is a reasonable rule of thumb.

[rockskon]

Gambling vs advertising gambling are two different things.

Equating them as exactly the same doesn't serve your argument justice even if you do have a point with respect to the OP's "have their cake and eat it too" rhetorical flourish.

[a123b456c]

> If you want restrictions on gambling, on advertising it, on participating in it, on making money from it, you want to restrict individual liberty.

No.

An organization's liberty to advertise is not individual liberty.

Let individuals gamble. Do not let organizations advertise gambling services. Organizational liberty is not individual liberty.