Legalizing sports gambling was the biggest unforced error in United States public policy in living memory. I expect that almost nobody reading Hacker News has a gambling problem, but people at the other end of the economic spectrum are being absolutely ripped up by it. Unfortunately, it's probably not going to change soon. Too much money to be made now.
Perhaps selfishly as I'm not much a gambler, I hate it because it ruined sports. You have a barrage of ads and odds that plague every game at every turn. You have a handful of players already caught betting on their own games, which means there are many more who just haven't been caught yet. And now, every single bad call leads fans to "refs must have money on this game", and to be honest, who knows if they do.
It’s not selfish. The worst part for me is the gambling cos infiltrated all of my favorite sports content too. It went from gambling ads to just being the entire damn network. It’s really sad and has effects all over.
The number of ads on any sportsball program is actually sickening unless you are used to it. I don’t care about the commercials, it’s the ones you don’t notice. You might notice The Verizon Center’s instant recap cam brought to you by GoPro, “Go Be A Pro!”… no, it’s everything that appears on the screen at any single moment is branded and paid for you to see it subconsciously. Every helmet, mouthguard, clipboard, every everything everywhere all the time, no letting up.
I’m pretty sure that the level of advertising in sports is super unhealthy. I really don’t care that betting the game is an option or not.
> Legalizing sports gambling was the biggest unforced error in United States public policy in living memory.
That's a tough sell; the US makes a lot of errors. Assuming "public policy" means "domestic"; their industrial policy promoting deindustrialisation seems like a bigger error. After a few moments of thought I'd probably argue the Bush-Obama era establishment of a massive internal surveillance apparatus (including a secret court) is a strong contender for biggest unforced error in living memory. There might be bigger ones but the US citizens lost a remarkable amount there. It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret. And the use of spying and federal harassment of political opponents seems to have been steadily normalising.
Even just background over-regulation on starting and running new businesses is probably going to cause more damage to poor people than legalising sports gambling.
Industrial policy promoting deindustrialization was a migration (the same one all advanced economies make) toward higher value-add tasks.
The surveillance apparatus was created to prevent another 9/11 which quite possibly would have destabilized the state itself.
These may or may not have been mistakes, may or may not have been worth it, may or may not have been illegal, etc. etc., but they both had a pretty coherent rationale for them.
What's the rationale for legalized sports betting? It's such an obscenely indefensible change that any politician advocating for it should be investigated relentlessly (at least journalistically) until the day they die.
> It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret.
That's not true.
> Even just background over-regulation on starting and running new businesses is probably going to cause more damage to poor people than legalising sports gambling.
> What's the rationale for legalized sports betting?
Some people want to bet on sports. It seems obvious enough. It's like asking what the rationale is for letting people do anything. They don't have to clear it with you to make sure you agree that it is a worthwhile activity (or anyone else for that matter). Even if it is clear folly on a whim.
I'll just add that every mistake the US makes is going to have a rationale. Everything the US does has a coherent rationale with the possible exception of the recent Iran war. But sometimes the rationale is stupid.
Okay great: people want to bet. Should we legalize heroin and legalize advertising heroin on TV? I don't really have interest in arguing the point with you. If you think "people want to do it" is sufficient then that's fine, and other readers can be convinced-or-not by that argument. I don't think this argument is even within earshot of the legitimacy of the arguments for the other two "unforced errors" you mention.
Secret law: The Wikipedia section heading being "secret law" does not actually make it a "secret law" in the sense that most Americans would read it. What it's referring to is a set of secret court rulings. Which are, yes, very problematic and not something I'll defend. But the phrase "secret law" would cause most Americans to think of secret legislation, which does not exist.
1) If most Americans haven't reflected that law and legislation are different words then so be it, but I don't intend to hold myself accountable.
2) Bear in mind how the "they're obviously going to be scanning internet traffic" conversations went back in the 90s and 00s (where it went from absurd tinfoil hat talk to common sense assumption basically overnight). If they do turn out to have secret legislation that feeds into the FISA court then I reserve the option of being smug in retrospect. It seems quite reasonable that they would need secret legislation to operate the secret court that produces secret laws likely enforced by secret police. There is pressure to recreate the whole legal system with the word "secret" in front of it to make any individual secret part work.
It's a secret court; I doubt any of us know what is going on in there. This is one of the major problems with secret courts, it is not possible to opine on how they are working without speculation.
It’s not that they’re different words. It’s that the word “law” has multiple distinct meanings. One (the more common meaning) is a synonym for “statute.” That’s not what’s discussed here.
Your second paragraph is actually exemplifying the exact type of misunderstanding of the situation that I was alluding to. You really don’t need secret legislation, or even secret statutes, or even secret rules to produce the “secret law” referred to in the article. All you need is secret decisions.
I hate semantic and pedant arguments on the Internet but this is worth it:
We don't legalize things in America, we illegalize things.
The constitution doesn't give us rights, it actually takes them away so our government can operate.
We give freedom lip service in this country but if you truly believe in it this is what we must drill into people in civics class and in discourse.
This is in fact what happened with sports betting. They wrote a law making it illegal. That law got struck down, so we are back to the default which is it is legal.
We can make it illegal again to address the court ruling, but it's an uphill battle.
I don’t know what you think was gained by this argument.
Sports betting was effectively illegal, and a number of people lobbied aggressively and pursued lawsuits to overturn the status quo (de facto federal ban) then a huge number of efforts to permit it at the state level in a bunch of states.
All of these efforts are completely adequately described as “legalization” efforts.
Yes, we can change the new status quo again. And we should.
> What's the rationale for legalized sports betting?
People are acting like sports betting is new. The Romans bet on the gladiators. I'm not a history buff, but I'd imagine older civilizations bet on some form of sport as well.
What's the rationale? To make money of course. To be confused on this seems like a bit of deliberate obtuseness. The fact it hasn't been legal for so long was because the puritanical start to the country. It would be nice to have specific leagues that were pure sport for sport's sake, but once one league allows betting and the money starts to flow, all of the other leagues will follow or wither
In true HN fashion, I suppose I must be FULLY explicit.
“What’s the rationale for legalized sports betting [that mirrors the rationales for these other two decisions that you are placing in the same category]?”
“Just make money” or “the Romans did it” are unlikely to fit the bill.
Sounds more like you're wanting to ask a more generic question on why addict gambles, but if you want to understand the rational of an addict, then get in line. The only thing to understand is trying chase the high in whatever form it takes. Ask an addict and they will tell you there's no explaining it.
To me, the "HN fasion" is not accepting that there are things that exist that are not rational and no matter how much you want to logic your way to an answer, it will never happen.
Not so fast. Puritanical is the easy thing to say. Folks just found new ways (tech) to make money from it. It’s never been ethical or legitimate. Still isn’t.
> I'd probably argue the Bush-Obama era establishment of a massive internal surveillance apparatus (including a secret court) is a strong contender for biggest unforced error in living memory.
Yeah, that one's huge. Another huge one was when the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 provided retroactive immunity to the telephone companies who all willingly, blatantly, and -undoubtedly- knowingly violated Federal law controlling domestic surveillance.
This is tangentially related, but I suspect that the major LLM Manufacturers are hoping that they can frighten Congress into doing something like that again. Getting all active lawsuits about your illegal behavior erased all at once is a huge gift to scumbag businesses.
Being higher on the socioeconomic ladder doesn't protect you from addiction. I believe it makes it easier for some to get their fill and remain high-functioning; ie not becoming destitute.
But for others their "fill" is so high their addictions will wreck them entirely regardless of means.
But perhaps to your point, if I'm give it charity, people with less means are more likely to get entirely wrecked by certain addictions.
Yea, many people I know who had any pre-existing interest in any of the various Sportsball games are now all neck deep in sports betting apps, from investment bankers to shelf stockers at Home Depot. I don't know which of them are suffering financially from it, but all they do when we get together anymore is talk about sports betting.
Cautionary note (and a serious one, not to be snarky): Being well off financially is not a protection against gambling addiction (which can also take the form of day trading, for example); which is a pretty efficient way to ruin ones financial wealth, amongst other things.
As with many other psychological phenomenona, finances and education only protect to a certain degree or not at all, depending on what one is talking about in detail.
This is not a comment about correlation or causation of wealth with mental health, but rather a warning to keep in the back of ones head; success and a sharp mind don't make one immune against mental health issues in general and gambling addiction in particular.
To me, the difference is a form of classism. Addiction to drugs is for the lower class. Addiction to gambling from making money from investing is something only upper class people can have.
Here's how I see what's going on, turning subtext to text...
* Person 1: "$THING is a problem for a significant chunk of people. My audience here probably doesn't experience it subjectively, but it's still objectively true."
* Person 2: "But what if we are feeling it!? Ah-hah! I found an error! You goofed!"
* (Me): "That's really not their point, stop nitpicking the disclaimer."
A surprising number of people unfortunately seem to believe that bad things happen to people that deserve it, especially when it comes to addictions. This has been a prevalent problem with drugs, and it makes addicts ashamed, resulting in them not getting the help they need. For a long time, opioid addiction was a problem for weak, godless, poor people shooting heroin in flip houses that couldn’t possibly affect pill-popping suburbanites.
“Gambling is a problem for poor people, but not the smart, educated folks on this here forum” smacks exactly of that. So while that detail might be orthogonal to the original point, I’d agree that it’s not just a nitpick but a very real problem as a statement that is worthy of being called out.
But it's not not the point. Assuming any group is immune is just folly at best. I guarantee that there > 0 addicts reading this forum. I'll even guarantee that it is > 1.
Addictions are irrational and anyone can fall prey to them, people here are no exception. The only difference between a poor, uneducated gambler and a well-off, educated gambler is how they talk about it, how much they can afford to bet, and which games of chance they lose at.
Beyond that however I agree that turning this loose on the American public is an incredibly short-sighted act, but it's part of a pattern rather than an outlier.
Are they? If in Australia you walk into one of those gambling places, you'll quickly see those people have no real economic future, with or without gambling. They're not part of a large family either. They don't have or have lost their spouse and are just looking for some fun. They will live at or just above the level that social assistance can let them live until they die, and a bankruptcy due to gambling will make surprisingly little difference (hell, it may allow them not to work for a decade).
So rationality? You're assuming there's good options available for these people. But if they don't own a home ... they won't lose much, and their careers provide them with little to gain month to month.
Isn't it rational under those circumstances to try to get quick large reward ... or fail entirely? When you have no real other options and even arguably little to lose?
The time when being a non-educated worker in a big city would get you a house, a family, and pretty good comfort, enabling ordering 5 beers most evenings in a pub, have a hobby, ... has long ended, at least in Australia.
Tradies make good money in Australia, far better than most Western countries, without a college education. If anything it's the educated middle class (teachers, nurses, etc) that's getting squeezed.
The stereotypical problem gambler in Australia is a lonely retiree blowing their pension at the pokies (slots), and clubs and casinos go all out to cater to this demographic with free taxi services etc.
You'll find the wealthier gamblers in nicer places, doing it online, in socially acceptable forums like private games, and most of all by traveling to very nice destinations that make the experience properly "luxurious" for their standards... i.e. Macao, Hong Kong, etc.
The fact that you can go into any neighborhood dive bar and see a bunch of nearly indigent drunks doesn't mean that people aren't drinking themselves to death in mansions, private clubs, or $1000 a meal restaurants.
As for rational risk, most people consider the line between having enough for daily expenses, making debt payments, and having a place to rent is a massive upgrade over a shelter or the streets. Or working a second job, or a third.
So weird they allow advertising something so harmful at events with so many children is considered ok. It’s like the bad old days where cigarette companies targeted youth.
If tobacco taught us anything it's that people are slow to get wise and slower to make change. Spend enough money on advertising, and you can slow it down even further.
Unfunnily ironically, Kalshi is one of, if not _the_ worst because it's not limited to one type of betting. It also seems to have lobbying power behind it that has shielded it from the kind of (laughably minimal) regulation that sports betting companies have to, because their lobbyists use weasel words like 'markets' in order to make it sound sophisticated rather than what it actually is: entirely degenerate.
Even worse because rigging professional sports is illegal, but similar manipulation in any other betting category is perfectly fine. Kalshi and co. are being used pretty openly by insiders. Trump's own family are major stakeholders and advisors of both Kalshi and Polymarket.
How is investing not a form of betting in and of itself? At this point, getting out of bed in the morning is a form of gambling. Driving your car or even just getting in a car is gambling. Everything can be given odds, and once you tell someone the odds, it's gambling.
I would laugh harder, except we hear arguments exactly like this posted regularly to HN as someone's seriously held belief. It's hard to tell satire anymore.
I wonder why they don't allow betting if the Kalshi offices are going to be fire bombed? It seems like they are missing out on important wisdom of the crowd information!
You lucky guys. My country generates probably the same amount. And we have 1/50th of your population. Everywhere is casinos ads and gambling and payday loans and pawnshops.
Human hacking appears to be completely understood and is the most successfully profitable capitalist pursuit. Find addictive weakness, pour all resources into a single point directed at said weakness.
AI is doing this with remarkable success by directing itself at the 'business management' weakness of hatred of employees.
I'm glad I read this, but I wish the HN title included the subtitle too--it would be nice to be able to know know what the article was about before clicking it.
I went on a cruise ship a few weeks ago. I decided I was going to try the martingale strategy in roulette.
I played the game for a grand total of like fifteen minutes, and even in that short time I ended up chatting with the fellow gamblers and ended up feeling a bit depressed. One guy there said he was down $700 because of the current long streak of red, and we were “due” for a black any time now.
He seemed like a nice enough guy and I tried to explain that each throw is basically an isolated event, so you’re never “due” for anything and the red streak can keep going for a very long time, well after you run out of money. I then realized he was not interested in a lecture from me about statistics and let it go.
My strategy worked, I won back the initial bet of $10, cashed out my chips, and left. I was happy to be $10 richer but it makes me sad how this guy might genuinely leave this vacation in severe debt because he doesn’t understand basic stats.
Oh I know. Actually it's even worse than not having "infinite money reserves"; the tables almost always have max bets meaning you can get to a situation where a single win will not recover your gambling, even if you had a money printer right next to you.
I almost never gamble, the last time being ~2012. I figured it might be fun to set aside like $100 and try the strategy regardless, content with walking away if I won the minimum bet. I actually won on my first bet and cashed out immediately.
It just made me sad. He didn't seem like a bad person.
I know he's an adult and he's allowed to make his own decisions and he's allowed to throw his money away if he wants. I'm not his dad and I can't make decisions for him, but it seems really gross that there's an institution that exists seemingly purely to extract money from people who don't understand math.
People excoriate Meta for its practices but they don't even touch the pure evil in psychological manipulation that seems to be openly tolerated with sports gambling.
More people are able to understand the effects of gambling. Psychology is still quack medicine to a large percentage of people, so blaming mood swings of teenagers on an algorithm sounds like nonsense to a lot of people. Gambling is understood. Psychological tuning of an algorithm is just mumbo jumbo in how it's understood.
I hope she goes to Pablo Torres podcast. I bet she is referring to that in her interview. He's fantastic and deserved to win the Pulitzer for his reporting on Kawhi Leonard and Steve Ballmer of the Clippers. They make me excited about sports again because they clearly are fans. I used to be a fan but the gambling is so disgusting.
I also really enjoyed Michael Lewis' podcast on sports betting. Fascinating people in that world. He did this series to try to teach his 16 year old son not to gamble and it didn't work out perfectly. Terrific storytelling.
I've stopped watching all sports because of this. You can't even talk about sports online now without some dull punter whining that their parlay didn't hit. It's nauseating. The gambling industry produces no value.
Sports gambling is the perfect counter to everyone who says "people are going to do xyz anyways so it's better to legalize and tax it". Yes some people will gamble regardless of the legality, but putting the experience in an app in your hand, gamifying it to maximize addiction, blasting ads 24x7, including in the broadcast itself, having all your favorite athletes and celebrities endorse it, getting VC/PE and big corporate involved and giving it wide social acceptance increases the problem 100000x. It's perfectly fine for such vices to be left in society's underbelly rather than shoved in everyone's faces.
I agree, although I think it goes beyond that in a way. What you said also shows that it's not just a matter of whether the base activity is legal, but what kind of apparatus grows up around it. The tricks you mention (gamifying, ads, endorsements, VC, etc.) have also been applied to all kinds of other markets (food, cosmetics, music, cars, "wellness", etc.), and they are all worse for it. It's true that when you combine something inherently destructive like gambling with these amplifying factors, you get a particularly toxic result. But I think that, for instance, we would be a lot better off if 90% of current ads, VC, and big corporations were themselves banned.
Are there safe ways to regulate gambling? If we capped everyone's yearly gambling budget to some % of tax they paid, (with some floor), does that solve anything?
I'm honestly curious if it's better to have some outlet for people who love gambling, and just have some cap, vs trying to ban it altogether.
The UK has been trying forms of regulation for a while, including deposit limits - if you try and deposit more than about £150 a month into an account, the bookmaker may ask for proof you can afford it (payslips, bank statements, things most people don’t want to hand over).
In general, it’s been a disaster: it’s just moved betting to (illegal), offshore bookmakers. It’s pretty easy to get on via WhatsApp if you need to, these days.
I’d suggest most territories should be OK with sports bets on singles, not parlays, and block online casinos and slots. That latter category is very problematic for addicts. I get why it’s problematic for fans watching the game, which is why UK leagues have started to push it out a bit (no shirt front sponsors in EPL for example). I’d definitely push more down that route.
I’d also legally force platforms to move away from RFQs and parlays because they create an unfair asymmetry that harms the backer and creates huge profits to the layers (bookmakers, or market makers on prediction markets).
Disclosure: I write software that trades on exchanges in the UK. I have skin in the game, the above is based on what I track over here.
I know you’re probably looking for a serious response, which I don’t have, but my half serious one is: this is why I spend $100 at Round One or Dave & Busters about twice a year. Between coin pushers, crane games, and ticket games, it scratches that gambling itch for me without turning into a full-blown addiction.
There were plenty of gambling addicts who lost everything through old-school betting shops back in the day too.
My view is that there should be limits imposed on how much people can lose across all forms of gambling annually, with a high-friction process if you want to raise your limit above say, $5,000 per year.
State of sports in America is like this - any athlete can commit any crime whatsoever and there is no issues, you get a few game suspension and all is well. you can punch your wife’s lights out, you can mutilate dogs, anything at all, all crime is cool with US society. But you make a wager on a game - you are DONE - it is, in the eyes of Citizens of US - the highest crime you can commit as an athlete. Tbat’s where we are at…
I always thought the gambling ads were a bit dystopian when watching British sporting events. At the time, I had no thought of the same thing coming to America.
gambling unfortunately is human nature. its much better to regulate vices then prohibition which leads to criminality and an increase in adjacent crime like racketeering and extortion
In general, it really does reduce the prevalence of something to ban it or nearly so. To take examples that both the American left and right hate to think about:
- Banning abortion really does make it harder to get one.
- Banning handgun sales really do make those harder to get as well.
(And yes, I am using the word "ban" as shorthand for "extremely tight/onerous regulations in red and blue states, respectively".)
Those in an acute need of an abortion are most often those in dire circumstances: victims of a rape, those who somehow forgot to use protection (e.g. due to being drunk), or, worse, not educated about protection in order to "save their innocence". Most of the general population is affected much more rarely, so an abortion ban hits the most vulnerable more.
With handguns, it's similar: the people most intent on obtaining a handgun are often people who have an intention to use it as an attack weapon: violent criminals, or people planning a violent revenge. They care least about breaking (some more) law, and, if handguns are banned, obtain handguns with a much higher probability than an average law-abiding citizen (police officers are below 1% among general population). So the most vulnerable groups have the least chance to protect themselves with a firearm. (Though, truth be told, a pump-action shotgun is a much better defense tool if you defend your house.)
Bans also make the activity more physically dangerous. Banning abortions just means women will do them in some unregulated, dangerous back alley. Banning gun sales just means people have to deal with the black market and gangsters to buy them. As much as I hate sports betting, banning it means the gamblers will go to some shady bookie who will break their fingers if they don't pay up.
Prohibition did reduce alcohol consumption by at least one-third. Didn’t necessarily make it good policy, but it did reduce alcohol consumption and did reduce a lot of the health harms associated with alcohol consumption.
This isn't alcohol with it's obvious deleterious effects. This is gambling, where the activity is hidden like cancer, until it grows into devastation to entire families.
> its much better to regulate vices then prohibition
And applied to gambling, this seems like an conjured argument, so oft repeated it has morphed into a platitude. I'm not aware of research that indicate that having the state safeguard gambling improves society in a quantifiable way - the lowest possible bar of "much better".
The gross proliferation of gambling ads certainly feels far removed from any notion of watching out for society's well being.
My knee jerk reaction was "Okay, let's start regulating with banning advertising of sports betting apps." because according to this article they are essentially targeting kids with it. Valve/Steam certainly contribute their fair share to normalizing and promoting gambling to children.
The whole article's complaint isn't about the legality of sports gambling. It's about the prevalence of advertising. Of course the author doesn't like it, period, but once the billions started rolling in the politicians got out of the way.
I'm sure this will be inflammatory, but's not meant to be. It's like having separate smoking areas in bars/restaurants vs everybody smokes anywhere they want.
But i do not see, what the meta-narrative wrapped around the problem adds to the conversation. What do all these moralin negators add to the conversation? Just step back, be a example and remain virtuous while the rest of the world follows "First comes the feast, then the morals?"
This is such a discourse decay, we used to have analysis, a whole pyramid of needs- and a culture with a dedication to keeping the machine that gives us the luxus of morals at any costs. Now instead of guarding civilizations and the machine that keeps it going, we get https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant, for whom their virtuous self-important abstinence from the decay, makes them blue blooded, nobles even.
> its much better to regulate vices then prohibition
One way to regulate a vice is to completely ban advertising it.
Another is to make it inconvenient to access - offline only, away from schools, places of worship, commercial areas, or other places people congregate.
The advertising is a big part of the problem, and I think that banning it would probably help. The casinos make so much money that — just like the cigarette companies back in the day — they can pay more than other advertisers and plaster their ads absolutely everywhere.
You see it in SEO, too. Online casinos’ budgets for link building are effectively bottomless.
As things are currently going, it’s only a matter of time before a major-league sport sees another Shoeless Joe Jackson or Pete Rose.
Is gambling human nature? I have no urge to gamble, especially since I know the odds nor am not someone willing to take advantage of others on the other side.
Do people who have actually had to earn and deserve what they have gamble?
I think its hard to tell who will get into gambling and who will turn it into a problem. I used to be into live Poker (I skipped the whole online thing). It never became a problem because 1. It didn't consume my life, and 2. I wasn't a bad player and probably broke even over 10 years or so. Eventually got kind of bored of it and just play with friends now. I brought a few friends to the poker room after they expressed interest in learning. Unfortunately, one of them went totally bananas on it and it really negatively affected his life and financials. The rest of my friends kept it totally casual and kind of quit when they found other things to do. I think you can never tell who's susceptible and who isn't.
Reasonable overview here and it's only gotten worse since 2024. https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-online-sports-gambling-exp...
Right, because that’s a recent occurrence.
The number of ads on any sportsball program is actually sickening unless you are used to it. I don’t care about the commercials, it’s the ones you don’t notice. You might notice The Verizon Center’s instant recap cam brought to you by GoPro, “Go Be A Pro!”… no, it’s everything that appears on the screen at any single moment is branded and paid for you to see it subconsciously. Every helmet, mouthguard, clipboard, every everything everywhere all the time, no letting up.
I’m pretty sure that the level of advertising in sports is super unhealthy. I really don’t care that betting the game is an option or not.
That's a tough sell; the US makes a lot of errors. Assuming "public policy" means "domestic"; their industrial policy promoting deindustrialisation seems like a bigger error. After a few moments of thought I'd probably argue the Bush-Obama era establishment of a massive internal surveillance apparatus (including a secret court) is a strong contender for biggest unforced error in living memory. There might be bigger ones but the US citizens lost a remarkable amount there. It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret. And the use of spying and federal harassment of political opponents seems to have been steadily normalising.
Even just background over-regulation on starting and running new businesses is probably going to cause more damage to poor people than legalising sports gambling.
The surveillance apparatus was created to prevent another 9/11 which quite possibly would have destabilized the state itself.
These may or may not have been mistakes, may or may not have been worth it, may or may not have been illegal, etc. etc., but they both had a pretty coherent rationale for them.
What's the rationale for legalized sports betting? It's such an obscenely indefensible change that any politician advocating for it should be investigated relentlessly (at least journalistically) until the day they die.
> It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret.
That's not true.
> Even just background over-regulation on starting and running new businesses is probably going to cause more damage to poor people than legalising sports gambling.
Absurd statement.
Some people want to bet on sports. It seems obvious enough. It's like asking what the rationale is for letting people do anything. They don't have to clear it with you to make sure you agree that it is a worthwhile activity (or anyone else for that matter). Even if it is clear folly on a whim.
I'll just add that every mistake the US makes is going to have a rationale. Everything the US does has a coherent rationale with the possible exception of the recent Iran war. But sometimes the rationale is stupid.
> That's not true.
It is true. They had a big thing about clamping down on whistleblowers under the Obama administration because people kept trying to leak information on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
> Absurd statement.
The world is an absurd place. My mind usually goes to https://www.grumpy-economist.com/p/the-cost-of-regulation when I bring that point up.
Secret law: The Wikipedia section heading being "secret law" does not actually make it a "secret law" in the sense that most Americans would read it. What it's referring to is a set of secret court rulings. Which are, yes, very problematic and not something I'll defend. But the phrase "secret law" would cause most Americans to think of secret legislation, which does not exist.
2) Bear in mind how the "they're obviously going to be scanning internet traffic" conversations went back in the 90s and 00s (where it went from absurd tinfoil hat talk to common sense assumption basically overnight). If they do turn out to have secret legislation that feeds into the FISA court then I reserve the option of being smug in retrospect. It seems quite reasonable that they would need secret legislation to operate the secret court that produces secret laws likely enforced by secret police. There is pressure to recreate the whole legal system with the word "secret" in front of it to make any individual secret part work.
It's a secret court; I doubt any of us know what is going on in there. This is one of the major problems with secret courts, it is not possible to opine on how they are working without speculation.
Your second paragraph is actually exemplifying the exact type of misunderstanding of the situation that I was alluding to. You really don’t need secret legislation, or even secret statutes, or even secret rules to produce the “secret law” referred to in the article. All you need is secret decisions.
We don't legalize things in America, we illegalize things.
The constitution doesn't give us rights, it actually takes them away so our government can operate.
We give freedom lip service in this country but if you truly believe in it this is what we must drill into people in civics class and in discourse.
This is in fact what happened with sports betting. They wrote a law making it illegal. That law got struck down, so we are back to the default which is it is legal.
We can make it illegal again to address the court ruling, but it's an uphill battle.
Sports betting was effectively illegal, and a number of people lobbied aggressively and pursued lawsuits to overturn the status quo (de facto federal ban) then a huge number of efforts to permit it at the state level in a bunch of states.
All of these efforts are completely adequately described as “legalization” efforts.
Yes, we can change the new status quo again. And we should.
People are acting like sports betting is new. The Romans bet on the gladiators. I'm not a history buff, but I'd imagine older civilizations bet on some form of sport as well.
What's the rationale? To make money of course. To be confused on this seems like a bit of deliberate obtuseness. The fact it hasn't been legal for so long was because the puritanical start to the country. It would be nice to have specific leagues that were pure sport for sport's sake, but once one league allows betting and the money starts to flow, all of the other leagues will follow or wither
“What’s the rationale for legalized sports betting [that mirrors the rationales for these other two decisions that you are placing in the same category]?”
“Just make money” or “the Romans did it” are unlikely to fit the bill.
Sounds more like you're wanting to ask a more generic question on why addict gambles, but if you want to understand the rational of an addict, then get in line. The only thing to understand is trying chase the high in whatever form it takes. Ask an addict and they will tell you there's no explaining it.
To me, the "HN fasion" is not accepting that there are things that exist that are not rational and no matter how much you want to logic your way to an answer, it will never happen.
This is about policy errors and the degree to which those errors are unforced.
The question is whether sports gambling was just as “forced” as the surveillance state or as deindustrialization.
Yeah, that one's huge. Another huge one was when the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 provided retroactive immunity to the telephone companies who all willingly, blatantly, and -undoubtedly- knowingly violated Federal law controlling domestic surveillance.
This is tangentially related, but I suspect that the major LLM Manufacturers are hoping that they can frighten Congress into doing something like that again. Getting all active lawsuits about your illegal behavior erased all at once is a huge gift to scumbag businesses.
But for others their "fill" is so high their addictions will wreck them entirely regardless of means.
But perhaps to your point, if I'm give it charity, people with less means are more likely to get entirely wrecked by certain addictions.
Sports gambling isn't a good thing, but 2025-2026 has shown us many far worse errors in public policy every single day.
As with many other psychological phenomenona, finances and education only protect to a certain degree or not at all, depending on what one is talking about in detail.
This is not a comment about correlation or causation of wealth with mental health, but rather a warning to keep in the back of ones head; success and a sharp mind don't make one immune against mental health issues in general and gambling addiction in particular.
I'm eating just ramen here ...
Here's an unforced error.
* Person 1: "$THING is a problem for a significant chunk of people. My audience here probably doesn't experience it subjectively, but it's still objectively true."
* Person 2: "But what if we are feeling it!? Ah-hah! I found an error! You goofed!"
* (Me): "That's really not their point, stop nitpicking the disclaimer."
“Gambling is a problem for poor people, but not the smart, educated folks on this here forum” smacks exactly of that. So while that detail might be orthogonal to the original point, I’d agree that it’s not just a nitpick but a very real problem as a statement that is worthy of being called out.
Beyond that however I agree that turning this loose on the American public is an incredibly short-sighted act, but it's part of a pattern rather than an outlier.
So rationality? You're assuming there's good options available for these people. But if they don't own a home ... they won't lose much, and their careers provide them with little to gain month to month.
Isn't it rational under those circumstances to try to get quick large reward ... or fail entirely? When you have no real other options and even arguably little to lose?
The time when being a non-educated worker in a big city would get you a house, a family, and pretty good comfort, enabling ordering 5 beers most evenings in a pub, have a hobby, ... has long ended, at least in Australia.
The stereotypical problem gambler in Australia is a lonely retiree blowing their pension at the pokies (slots), and clubs and casinos go all out to cater to this demographic with free taxi services etc.
The fact that you can go into any neighborhood dive bar and see a bunch of nearly indigent drunks doesn't mean that people aren't drinking themselves to death in mansions, private clubs, or $1000 a meal restaurants.
As for rational risk, most people consider the line between having enough for daily expenses, making debt payments, and having a place to rent is a massive upgrade over a shelter or the streets. Or working a second job, or a third.
They're truly just caught up in a pissing match with their peers.
I'm going with the rollout of LED headlights on that one, but reasonable people can disagree.
No reference - no comparison.
Betting of any type is bad for humanity
Shameful.
You should allow people to bet sums on whether you're gonna get shot tomorrow, so you can have the best possible information!
Of course there's no incentives for acting badly against you, and if there are it's again, just price discovery.
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/29332/gross-gaming-revenue-fr...
AI is doing this with remarkable success by directing itself at the 'business management' weakness of hatred of employees.
I played the game for a grand total of like fifteen minutes, and even in that short time I ended up chatting with the fellow gamblers and ended up feeling a bit depressed. One guy there said he was down $700 because of the current long streak of red, and we were “due” for a black any time now.
He seemed like a nice enough guy and I tried to explain that each throw is basically an isolated event, so you’re never “due” for anything and the red streak can keep going for a very long time, well after you run out of money. I then realized he was not interested in a lecture from me about statistics and let it go.
My strategy worked, I won back the initial bet of $10, cashed out my chips, and left. I was happy to be $10 richer but it makes me sad how this guy might genuinely leave this vacation in severe debt because he doesn’t understand basic stats.
This only works of course if the game is actually fair, and you have infinite money reserves.
I almost never gamble, the last time being ~2012. I figured it might be fun to set aside like $100 and try the strategy regardless, content with walking away if I won the minimum bet. I actually won on my first bet and cashed out immediately.
I know he's an adult and he's allowed to make his own decisions and he's allowed to throw his money away if he wants. I'm not his dad and I can't make decisions for him, but it seems really gross that there's an institution that exists seemingly purely to extract money from people who don't understand math.
gambling - where the statistical odds are that you lose
investing - where the odds are you win
Casinos and bookies only stay in business because most gamblers lose. So even gamblers who win do so ultimately at the expense of gamblers who lose.
Successful investments are positive sum. They create new value.
A small portion of this complex issue to think about.
I also really enjoyed Michael Lewis' podcast on sports betting. Fascinating people in that world. He did this series to try to teach his 16 year old son not to gamble and it didn't work out perfectly. Terrific storytelling.
Ashley Madison. On that note? You're spot on.
I'm honestly curious if it's better to have some outlet for people who love gambling, and just have some cap, vs trying to ban it altogether.
In general, it’s been a disaster: it’s just moved betting to (illegal), offshore bookmakers. It’s pretty easy to get on via WhatsApp if you need to, these days.
I’d suggest most territories should be OK with sports bets on singles, not parlays, and block online casinos and slots. That latter category is very problematic for addicts. I get why it’s problematic for fans watching the game, which is why UK leagues have started to push it out a bit (no shirt front sponsors in EPL for example). I’d definitely push more down that route.
I’d also legally force platforms to move away from RFQs and parlays because they create an unfair asymmetry that harms the backer and creates huge profits to the layers (bookmakers, or market makers on prediction markets).
Disclosure: I write software that trades on exchanges in the UK. I have skin in the game, the above is based on what I track over here.
Offline-only, no advertising allowed.
My view is that there should be limits imposed on how much people can lose across all forms of gambling annually, with a high-friction process if you want to raise your limit above say, $5,000 per year.
morality is completely out the window
(And yes, I am using the word "ban" as shorthand for "extremely tight/onerous regulations in red and blue states, respectively".)
With handguns, it's similar: the people most intent on obtaining a handgun are often people who have an intention to use it as an attack weapon: violent criminals, or people planning a violent revenge. They care least about breaking (some more) law, and, if handguns are banned, obtain handguns with a much higher probability than an average law-abiding citizen (police officers are below 1% among general population). So the most vulnerable groups have the least chance to protect themselves with a firearm. (Though, truth be told, a pump-action shotgun is a much better defense tool if you defend your house.)
> its much better to regulate vices then prohibition
And applied to gambling, this seems like an conjured argument, so oft repeated it has morphed into a platitude. I'm not aware of research that indicate that having the state safeguard gambling improves society in a quantifiable way - the lowest possible bar of "much better".
The gross proliferation of gambling ads certainly feels far removed from any notion of watching out for society's well being.
The whole article's complaint isn't about the legality of sports gambling. It's about the prevalence of advertising. Of course the author doesn't like it, period, but once the billions started rolling in the politicians got out of the way.
I'm sure this will be inflammatory, but's not meant to be. It's like having separate smoking areas in bars/restaurants vs everybody smokes anywhere they want.
But i do not see, what the meta-narrative wrapped around the problem adds to the conversation. What do all these moralin negators add to the conversation? Just step back, be a example and remain virtuous while the rest of the world follows "First comes the feast, then the morals?"
This is such a discourse decay, we used to have analysis, a whole pyramid of needs- and a culture with a dedication to keeping the machine that gives us the luxus of morals at any costs. Now instead of guarding civilizations and the machine that keeps it going, we get https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant, for whom their virtuous self-important abstinence from the decay, makes them blue blooded, nobles even.
One way to regulate a vice is to completely ban advertising it.
Another is to make it inconvenient to access - offline only, away from schools, places of worship, commercial areas, or other places people congregate.
You see it in SEO, too. Online casinos’ budgets for link building are effectively bottomless.
As things are currently going, it’s only a matter of time before a major-league sport sees another Shoeless Joe Jackson or Pete Rose.
Do people who have actually had to earn and deserve what they have gamble?