This entire article made me sick to my stomach, money can be so terribly corrupting and empty.
Except for when it goes to fuelling drug wars in Mexico or providing a market for human trafficking (which always seemed like a too-polite word for what it is - slaving).
I'm not an economist, but... surely near-as-anything 100% of this money is going to other people? Some tiny fraction is paid to the electricity company to keep the lights on at the casino, and some tiny faction of that is the cost of the fuel that is literally burned for that purpose. I think basically the same goes for the various luxury consumables the casinos are comping to these guests. The actual cost of the base raw materials that are consumed is going to be tiny (relative to the huge sums being gambled, anyway).
Sure it would be better if these gamblers gave their money to science/charities instead. If you think you know how to convince them to do so, then go for it.
With gambling, though, there's nothing being broken but the money is still stagnant and it's frustrating for poor folk to watch. If you treat the 0.1% as a single entity, then the transfer of money between those who are extremely wealthy--while nothing is being produced for it--is equivalent to no economic activity happening (effectively the same as a father and daughter handing a million-dollar bill back and forth). The electricity and consumables you mention -- you're right that those are the most broken-windowy of all the expenses, but I'd say the real loss is that the money effectively doesn't move at all. There are billions of dollars changing hands, but the money gets stuck in a small, closed system that it doesn't seem to come out of.
If the rich people who make money from casinos were the type of people to donate to science/charity, then gambling would be an unusual and convoluted way of paying for that science or public well-being. Since they're actually more likely the type of people to hold on to their money or invest in things that only benefit themselves, then giving them more money absolutely is just removing value from society.
Definitions of value in this economy are tautologous.
What has monetary value? Anything that can make more money - the quicker the better.
It's actually rather stupid.
There are other ways they can destroy more value, of course...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Casino dealer pays for kid's college education.
Kid grows up to become scientist.
Eccentric billionaire has now made a charitable contribution to advancing the sciences!
(I'm half joking, but only half. The actual consequences of economic activity are often strange and difficult to predict. Oftentimes, a billionaire giving millions to science means scientists get paid more but no more actual science gets done. Similarly, a billionaire giving millions to charity pays the salary of many grant-writers, but the effect on the ostensible beneficiaries is muted or even negative. Meanwhile, the biggest driver of American scientific dominance post-WW2 was Adolf Hitler, who a.) forced all the good scientists in Europe to emigrate or die b.) convinced America that they really needed an atom bomb before Germany got it, which got all of the best scientists in the world working together in close proximity and c.) setup the Cold War, which was the gift that kept on giving for U.S. government science & technology funding.)
I'm sure that some scientists could and did stay in Germany, like Von Braun.
Their wants and needs sound almost like those you might have seen in a past era lunatic asylum - with the exception that these people have the $$$ to actually get people to acquiesce to their insane demands and normalise them.
That's nice virtue signalling, but how can you be so sure before you really are in that situation ? Wealth and power are known to alter brain chemistry and behaviour. Furthermore, these butlers will be happy to help you take to their absurd end whatever indulgences you find normal.
You mean like a peacock’s tail? An expensive, and therefore hard to fake, action that demonstrates deep commitment to a particular value system?
/s
Paying someone to wear pyjamas and read you a bedtime story seems pretty harmless. There’s a hotel in London that will provide people for you to pillow-fight with, which is a little weirder perhaps but still harmless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p70PsKwv1Cg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19DqyJCk86s
That was my first Valentine's Day weekend date with my eventual wife - we went to the San Jose pillow fight together.
but who are you to judge what somebody else likes to spend their money on?
At least these people are merely indulging their fantasies and desires, and not spending it on acquiring more power or bribery.
It’s fascinating, sure, but I think it’s also kind of useless informationwise, when you take the context into mind. If anything I think it’s more sad than sickening. I doubt those rich bastards are very happy, and no one is helping them find a better path in life. In fact the casino seem to have build an environment that specifically enables their bad behavior because it’s profitable.
edit: and maybe not evil, but just pointless.