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I work in a in person gambling shop and honestly 100% in favour of banning online gambling. In person we can at least make sure those who are black out drunk cant gamble & at least try to mitigate the harms. Online gambling would fail countless safeguards we have to abide by.
I hate it when people compare gambling to drugs. Drugs are so much cooler. No one ever made a genre-defining psychedelic rock album after spending a weekend gambling
Gambling songs are usually depressing or a lesson to be careful gambling. Gotta know when to hold em and all that.
Counterpoint: Poker face Lady GaGa
Lmao well played. 10/10 would hire you for my Gaga cult.
Some of these gambling apps let you bet on military and election outcomes, legislation, etc. People in the U.S. government have been caught doing this shit. Clearly illustrating a direct pathway for corruption and/or sabotage, clearly a national threat. That’s aside from the high rate of suicide and bankruptcy that will probably create a systemic crisis. Look at the car loan and credit card debt for Christ sake.
The “gambling apps” you speak of - Kalshi and Polymarkets - are the direct result of prohibition. They exist because the US prohibited gaming for so long (thanks to PASPA etc.), but the demand was still there, so providers came up with alternatives like fantasy betting and “it’s not betting, honest, it’s financial derivatives”.
That sort of bullshit is illegal in markets like the UK precisely because they regulate gambling rather than trying to prohibit it.
Won’t the gamblers just use a VPN? Why not tax it, instead?
it is already taxxed, in facf it has been the fastest growing income source for goverment, if we don’t do something we gonna start depending on it on a state level
Very few will indeed. They will also use crypto currency too in order to circumvent the banking system. But ads will disappear and the majority won’t circumvent this.
That is not the evidence of every other market that has tried prohibition (or unduly burdensome regulation.)
The most vulnerable are the most likely to circumvent. Except now it’s criminals they are dealing with, and they have no recourse and no support for their problems.
But hey, you’ll feel better, so that’s what’s important right?
Hey but at least you had a good round of poker with Tony Bolsonaro. Gambling online doesnt vive you that leg-chilling feel
Gambling apps are a big sourge in Australia including incessant advertising. Banning gambling is probably like banning alcohol or drugs. Won’t work but you can regulate it and at least ban apps and advertising.
Yeah regulation would help. There’s records of gamblers trying to quit, but then given free credit to gamble with. That, and kids growing up with the ads that make them think that having a flutter is a normal tradition while you watch your team
It’s a scourge everywhere where it is allowed.
A complete ban is probably not viable for the same reason why harm reduction is better than absolutism for drugs, but I think it would make very good sense to regulate the hell out of it (strict limits on session length, delays between fund transfers, absolutely no advertising, all proceeds to charity et.c.).
Gambling is fundamentally rigged. It’s a mathematical tax on society and should be banned all together.
The only sound argument in favor of gambling I ever heard is the prediction market one where gambling inputs generate data on public census. I’m not particularly sold on that but other types of gambling like sports don’t event have this leg to stand on.
Insurance is gambling. You pay more in premiums than you get back in repayments after crashing. The house always wins.
Yet without Insurance business doesn’t function. Loss of expensive cargo or equipment wipes out the company.
You are correct, because literally every choice we make is a gamble. Even crossing the street is “gambling” on getting hit by a drunk driver. But of course most insurance companies add a level of scammery and greed that is completely beyond any necessary price to protect farmers from a bad crop year etc. so ppl will rain hatred on your comment.
No insurance is risk distribution. We all pay 5$ so none of us needs to pay 5,000,000$ which is not economically sustainable. What insurance companies get is administrative overhead fee. This has nothing to do with gambling.
The price of an insurance product is divided in 4 parts, the risk, the actuarial adjustment, administrative and distribution costs, and return of capital.
Aren’t the risk and the actuarial adjustment the same thing?
No, the risk is the probability of a claim times the value of a claim. If you just charge that is mathematically proven that the insurance pool is going to fail. The actuarial adjustment is there to create a surplus that guarantee the survival of the pool.
Nah nah nah; Insurance is like preem gammbling.
For example insurance companies couldn’t pay everyone back after Hurrican Katrina. First come first serve I guess. :P
To my understanding insurance companies isolate areas so if that area gets hit hard. The insurance company just files bankruptcy in the area and moves on..
You gamble with which bookie (insurance company) you choose. You gamble when you choose where to live. You gamble how fast you can make your insurance claim. This shit is gambling through and through. And we (“The Common Person”) are getting fleeced.
Sounds like a protection racket, like the mafia used to do. Does that still count as gambling?
If you pay, you lose money and might not be able to stay in business. If you don’t pay, they might rob you and burn down your store. Yes, life is a gamble.
Just because there is a statistical aspect to it doesn’t make it gambling. By your definition literally everything is gambling which is a very small brained take.
From the buyers point of view it reduces risk, so it is not gambling for them.
However it is gambling from the point of view of the underwriters.
(I am assuming both sides play fair and pay out when they should)
Insurance may be its own type of evil, but it’s not gambling. It serves me a financial purpose. It protects me from certain enormous and unexpected expenses which would otherwise cripple me financially for the rest of my life.
How aggressively insurance deny claims may be a symptom of the same problem to the ubiquity of online gambling apps and ads, unchecked greed, but they’re not the same.
From the buyers point of view I agree it is risk reduction. But it is gambling from the sellers point of view.
IMHO we need peer to peer prediction markets, in which the insurance company is not the same party deciding who won the bet. Then your risk of denial would be more clear up front.
I don’t even know that I should refuse jobs that offer insurance through UnitedHealthcare until Luigi.
The sound argument in favour of gambling is simple: it’s fun, and people enjoy it.
It’s not “rigged”, everyone involved understands the game. I hand over money, the house takes some, in return I get an enjoyable experience.
Personally online casino is a bit of a mystery to me, but I enjoy a visit to a real casino once or twice a year; it’s fun to sit at the roulette table pretending to be James Bond for an evening. An afternoon at a racecourse is a great day out, and betting on sports makes watching the event more fun. Hell, even Bingo can be fun with the right company.
I am capable of doing all those things without bankrupting myself because I am a perfectly normal person. That a few inadequates are not capable of that is not an argument for banning it for everyone, it’s an argument for having a properly regulated industry that protects idiots from themselves while allowing the vast majority to make their own decisions.
I love doing heroin, it’s actually a wonderful and very safe drug if used responsibly. I like doing heroin once or twice per year and it’s actually way cheaper than a night at the bar, it’s definitely more enjoyable and it’s healthier too!
I don’t know why I, a responsible heroin user, should have to suffer just because a few loser degenerates can’t handle the needle.
You’re being snarky but this is pretty much why drugs should legalized. Except without the Christian fundie judgy “loser degenerates” thing.
I think that your comment tracks unsarcastically. I could do without the name calling, but otherwise, do dope all you want and mind your own business.
I wasn’t being sarcastic. I am in favor of drug legalization, but with heavy regulation. My problem with drugs being illegal is that it then cannot be regulated.
I mean, many would say that treating people with heroine addiction is indeed better accomplished by giving them safe spaces to wean them off rather than criminalising them, yes.
But the American War on Drugs has been an unvarnished success, of course, so that’s obviously the best approach.
I do actually think that harm reduction is a better strategy than criminalization, so I’m not advocating for banning gambling outright. But I think that its dubious value as entertainment needs to be weighed against the harm that it causes, and that regulation should be put in place to address those harms efficiently.
Then we are in violent agreement. (I mean, I genuinely think gambling is fun, in moderation - so I probably wouldn’t say “dubious value”, but otherwise I agree 100%. Some people cannot enjoy it safely, and they should totally be protected by regulation.)
Yeah and I recognize that I’m the weird one who doesn’t enjoy gambling at all. I realize that lots of people, if not most, do find the lottery or some gambling to be fun, and I know that most people that do so are doing it responsibly and understand that on average, they’re losing money. Even if I don’t see the entertainment value for myself I have to accept that everyone is not like me.
A lot Christian fundies in here downvoting you. If we scratch a little more we might see how they actually feel about gay people and Dungeons & Dragons.
Lemmy has a deeply fucking weird vibe tbh. It’s like Karl Marx just stepped off the Mayflower. And I love the fact that it’s A Truth Universally Acknowledged that children should be allowed to use social media unimpeded (because Age Verification Is The State Surveilling You And Stealing Your Precious Bodily Fluids), and teens should be allowed to change their gender and take permanently life-altering drugs or surgery to do it (Because They Know Their Choices And Anyone Suggesting Otherwise Is An Oppressive Bourgeois Traitor Probably Trying To Steal Their Precious Bodily Fluids) but grown-ass adults can’t put a few quid on their team to win because They Are Vulnerable And Cannot Make Their Own Decisions Lest Their Precious Bodily Fluids Go To Waste Instead of the Collective. And God Forbid you suggest anyone with an entirely imagined Neurodivergent Condition (“OMG does anyone else go to sleep when they’re tired? I only understood this when I self diagnosed as autistic, normies could never understand”) be told what THEY are allowed to do because you’re just Oppressing Them FFS.
It really is through the looking glass.
Gambling is addictive and exploitative. A lot of effort goes into keeping players engaged, exploiting the pleasure response centers of the brain. It’s not just refined folk betting on horses, but gacha games, loot boxes, slot machines, prediction markets. Gritty and sleazy.
If your lucked out with your genes just be happy, and don’t call people with a high risk of addiction inadequate idiots.
“Exploiting the pleasure response centres of the brain” is pseudo-scientific twaddle for “a lot of effort goes into making it fun”.
Yes, yes it does. That’s a good thing.
And I didn’t “luck out” with my genes. They’re perfectly in line with the vast majority of people. That some people are cursed with inadequate faculties is a reason they should be protected (through regulation), not a reason for normal people to have their freedom curtailed.
We don’t ban movies because some people are blind.
Woah ya’ll chill. I’m pretty sure it’s a widely studied topic that gambling (winning a bunch of money) and cocaine cause the same parts of the brain to fire.
Blind people listening to a movie doesn’t destroy their life the way gambling does. Get your head out of the sand.
Okay but the argument isn’t that gambling is bad. It’s that gambling ads and apps are. A gambling addict who gambles at a casino has to physically go to the casino and can only gamble as long as their body will allow them. Sure they can ruin their lives but there are physical unavoidable things that limit their gambling. To say nothing about the responsibility we’ve decided casinos have to address gambling addiction. A casino can kick a player out, sure they can go to another but that’s time they don’t spend gambling.
Gambling ads and apps are everywhere. They’re inescapable. An addict doesn’t have to physically go to a casino anymore. They can gamble wherever, whenever, on anything. If they try to pull themselves away the apps use push notifications to pull them in. Uninstall the apps, the ads are running everywhere all the time. Get banned, just make a new account. It takes minutes. The availability to gamble is just constant now.
If nothing else, ban gambling ads. It won’t stop people but it’ll let them escape the constant push to get back in.
I mean, an argument whose answer is “make all gambling” illegal - which is what we’re talking about here - clearly is founded on “all gambling is bad”.
Personally I’d agree with you about heavily curtailing, or even banning, advertising and sponsorship. And putting in place restrictions on amount wagered, loss limits, mandatory self exclusion registers etc. But all that is regulation, not an outright ban. (I’m not even particularly against a state monopoly tbh.)
Eh literally everything is entertaining so it’s not a very interesting metric to measure anything.
That’s a ridiculous remark even for lemmy.world.
Are your suggesting that entertainment has no value? That the people must be condemned only to Being Productive 24/7?
Guy above is suggesting that gambling is a very harmful entertainment and that there are better ways to entertain yourself
And guy above is wrong.
Gambling is “very harmful” to a tiny minority of people who have a disorder. That is very sad for them, and they should be protected from themselves through proportionate regulation.
I’m quite sure - this being lemmy - that plenty here think the “War on Drugs” is absurd and has failed, and that responsible people who know their limits are being punished and forced into illegal markets because a few people are unable to control themselves. And they’d be right. All prohibition does is force ordinary people into black markets and everybody loses.
As for alcohol - that damages far more people than gambling ever will. Personally, I am sufficiently competent to simply not drink alcohol, but I understand many are not capable of that - but I nevertheless don’t advocate for prohibition.
You’re diminishing the harms of gambling. Entertainment is cheap and one of societal areas where we can afford safety.
The question is how many people are harmed/unharmed by gambling? If say 2% of all bettors develop a gambling addiction, does that warrant a complete ban? What if it was 0,5% ? I don’t know the actual numbers on this but I generally think that you shouldn’t illegalsize for the many what is a problem for a small minority. I watch hours upon hours of sports with betting ads and I have never engaged in betting because I’m self aware enough to know that I might not be able to handle it if I get of “to a good start”.
It’s the same problem with drug prohibition.
The harms of gambling are, by and large, tiny. Significantly less than alcohol or drugs.
We can’t only ban the entertainments you don’t like. You’re either a prohibitionist or not.
Wow… oh my god… online gambling is destroying latin america. Underage and young people spending everything they have or even getting loans to spend on this shit. It’s the first time that i hear of any politician taking it’s hands into the pile of shit. Well done lula.
It was illegal for many years to gamble outside of a casino or a horse racing track, and it should have stayed that way. Legislators knew this would happen and chose to enrich DraftKings et al at the expense of our society’s youth who would inevitably develop gambling addictions.
Huge W. Gambling is a massive cancer
It took me a second to realize this wasn’t a name like John Q. Public.
“Huge W. Gambling” sounds like the name of someone
Gambling is for losers, you are a loser and that’s why they let you return. Congrats.
I think there are different levels of gambling. Slot machines? Addicts and losers. Table games? That’s just spending a bit of money to play some cards or whatever. Still, not for me, but I love card and board games so I can get it. Even slots I could kinda understand when they were mechanical, but now that they’re all digital there just isn’t any theatre.
I’ve also gambled with friends and family for low stakes and it kinda makes it more fun to watch your jar of quarters (or even just rocks if we’re camping) fill up or empty over the course of a week of playing in the evenings. Also, in those cases, the games aren’t rigged so the house gets any, you’re just as likely to win it back the next day as you were to loose it that night.
if the gambling apps don’t ban you, you are a loser. they literally ban people who win consistently. so yes, you are mathematically a gambling loser if you are not banned by the apps.
Putting up penny’s isn’t risk, therefore it’s not gambling. Putting up your house or bill money, now that’s gambling.
That has to be one of the worst takes I’ve read this week. That’s like saying “I don’t drink alcohol, I just have a few beers sometimes.”
No your take is entire worse you’re missing the point. It’s like saying “I’m not drunk I had a couple beers.” The act is the same but the outcome is very different. Bet over games water see how that feels. To say gamble isn’t relative is actually a brain dead take. That opinion is made by someone who can’t see another PoV.
This entire thread is mostly a salutary reminder that Lemmy really is entirely disconnected from the real world.
Yeah. That’s something I miss from Reddit in it’s hay day. It became so mainstream that you ran into a lot of non-nerds. Lemmy users, myself included to some extent, definitely moreso fit a stereotype. Sometimes that’s neat. Sometimes it is really super not neat.
Where I live, gambling requires or has the following:
- 21+
- Casinos and online sites need to verify your identity trough your actual passport
- No advertising allowed
- Government supplied blacklists for problematic gamblers
- Daily/Weekly limits
- Very strict rules about what is allowed to be gambled on
- Notices about getting help for gambling addiction everywhere
- No weird fake coins. You see your actual money and gamble with your actual money.
- All win rates should be publicly posted and verified ‘fair’ by the government
- … etc
Still a cancer
I thought that’s how it worked where I have the misfortune of residing, in America, but apparently the people in charge are more worried about renaming bodies of water.
I see massive billboards on the highway advertising the casino we have nearby with straight up false claims like “the next win is just around the corner” or something and always wonder how they got away without a “TOBACCO IS CANCEROUS SMOKE AT YOUR OWN RISK” type label on their ads. It makes me so angry to see casinos literally promising wins when that isn’t how casinos fucking work and everybody with two braincells to rub together knows that.
The smartest policy I have seen for gambling was in Singapore. I think it’s S$150 per entry into the casino (or S$3000 annually) for Singaporeans to gamble. Foreign tourists don’t pay this levy. It keeps the locals out who don’t have the disposable income to gamble while bringing in money from foreigners.
Ah yes the class separation - the usual approach to every problem in Singapore
I guess this one makes sense though, if you don’t have the money to pay the entry fee, you should not be gambling anything at all.
Taxes on addictions always disproportionately affect the poor. I suppose addictions and most other societal issues also disproportionately affect the poor.
and can cause dependency on a state level on a problematic sector which can further entrech legal status
better late than never
Oh wow. Literally just quit my job a week ago at an online gambling company, who were planning on a Brazil expansion…
Clearly this was your doing, fonix.
Oh shit, forgot I had Lula on speed dial!
😐 looks like… 😎 your gamble paid off
“Yyyyyyyeeeeeaaaahhhhh!”
Your former company is having a very bad week, indeed.
Fuckers deserve it.
They’ve spent millions on that expansion. Multiple brands were planned, already in the approval phase. Guess my former coworkers not getting a bonus this year 🤷
Why would you work for one in the first place?
Because I do like to have a roof over my head, and the pay package was good.
Plus my job entailed very little on the gambling part, fortunately.
Because existing is expensive?
Fantastic!
Having a predator in your pocket that has been carefully engineered to extract money from people is horrific
Bolsanaro would have probably made it compulsory to have gambling apps on your phone
Bolsanaro would have probably made it compulsory to have gambling apps on your phone
I’d not be surprised if he had some shady businesses behind some gambling businesses
The problem is that he’s now trying to shift the narrative about it and claim that he was against it all the time and lula did it purely for marketing reasons. I’m hoping that our people aren’t that dumb, but I’m unsure. The next elections will be a real gambling. Things are so uncertain…
Lula did mention wanting to do something about the situation long before, but yes we do have a strong tradition in brazil of politicians only ever doing anything near elections, sometimes even delaying campaign promises to attempt to fullfil them right before the election as part of their campaign
Now it makes more sense why the Donald and his asshole kids are so obsessed with Brazil.
brazil is extremely important for the USA strategicly, for raw resources first and fore most, from raw minerals (aluminium, iron, and rare earths) to oil, food, meat and some non raw but still commodities such as ethanol and sugar
one of the main things for the USA, is that simply being able to influence what is china’s most important trade partner for food, and arguebly one of the most important trade partner to china in general as a supplier, is of extreme importance for their anti china efforts
Thus needs to expand globally
