Atlantic City Is Really Going Down This Time | Hacker News Reader

Atlantic City Is Really Going Down This Time

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78 pointsacjohnson5567 comments

The whole gambling industry is a really a utility black hole. Human risk-taking impulses evolved so that we could decide to look around that corner, explore that dense underbrush, see what happens if we rub some sticks together. Instead of directing those impulses toward making our lives better (eg. through scientific research, or making a better product more efficiently) people are having them exploited by the world’s most expensive video games.

Please, if you’re going to make bets, stick to those that might have a positive expected value!

I hate this "fun is inefficient" mentality that permiates HN. You're perhaps not wrong that most entertainment isn't optimally generating utility (for some definitions of "utility"), but this position is really hard for anyone the HN workaholic culture to empathize with.

the vast majority of revenues from gambling comes from problematic gamblers. Nobody is saying we should make it illegal to go to the casino for a night every few months but the gambling industry doesn't really make money off those people except as a gateway drug. I doubt you could gain insight into the lives of a problem gambler and tell me it's even "fun".

I think gambling is like booze in that respect. There is hardly any tail at all in the distribution. 5% of the drinkers are consuming 95% of the booze.

Edit: Prostitution is probably also like that.

Basically the three things that underpin Atlantic City right there.

Source?

I didn’t get that read from the OP. Gambling is a tax on ignorance. There are lots of ways to have fun, even thrill seeking fun, that don’t have such horrible downsides.

I disagree that "gambling is a tax on ignorance". You're gonna find very, very few people who don't realize that they're virtually guaranteed to lose money over the long term.

Yes, there are compulsive gamblers who lose a lot of money that they really can't afford losing, and that's bad, but that's far from the majority of people who go to casinos.

The airport in Las Vegas is one of the most depressing places I have ever been. There are slot machines in the waiting rooms, placed there so that people who have just gambled away big money over the weekend get one final chance to throw a bit more down the drain before boarding a plane home.

The last time I was there (a decade ago), I watched a mother compulsively dump quarters into the gaping maw while her young child literally sobbed and begged her to stop.

* * *

Casinos are pits of human suffering and exploitation. You can walk into pretty much any one of them at any time of day, head over to the slot machine section, and watch sad hypnotized people hand over their savings bit by bit to machines carefully designed by highly trained psychologists to take their money as efficiently as possible.

* * *

The big money-making gambling in modern casinos is not a “tax” on “ignorance”. It is a large-scale fraud perpetrated against the impulsive and weak willed by some very rich people and their unethical professional employees.

(I’m not talking about college students betting their next round of beers on a poker game here, or whatever. Not all gambling is inherently problematical.)

But those few people who don't realize it (or whose acknowledgement and behavior are not aligned) are the ones who spend the lion's share of the money on it.

Saying that gambling isn't predatory because only a few people become prey is just nonsense. As long as gambling is eating entire lives, it's predatory. Everyone else who walks past the trap without falling in just wasn't their target market.

There is a big difference between a gambling addiction and "having some fun".

In the same way that it is not healthy or productive to sit around all day masturbating, it is not healthy or productive to gamble in a casino. This does not require a "workaholic mentality" (which is itself a strange assertion -- can you not enjoy work? If you enjoy it, is it not fun?) to understand. At least with masturbation you're not literally throwing money down the hole.

Yes, there's a big difference between a gambling addiction and "having some fun". But most people who gamble aren't addicted. Just like how some people might be alcoholics, but the vast majority of people in a bar are just going to be people who go there for fun from time to time.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the ratio of addicts to people "just having fun" is much, much higher in an Atlantic City casino than the average bar.

Well, Atlantic City has a reputation as a kind of degenerate low-rent Vegas, so it's self-selecting.

Fun is emotional and emotions are inherently rational. Healthy and productive are subjective judgements on how someone should live their life and have nothing To do with fun.

The fact that someone enjoys work is happy coincidence for them.

There’s many more people doing that exact same job who don’t have fun doing it- the vast majority of humanity does fun things to make their life worth living.

A small percent of humanity enjoys its work; and a far smaller percent both enjoys their work and makes good Money while doing it.

There’s no substantive foundation on which to discuss “fun” while also tacking on “healthy and productive.”

Fun is essentially irrational.

Please don't refer to gambling as an industry.

Industries produce things - all gambling produces is misery and social fallout.

This is from someone who grew up near Vegas. Example: I was taking a college friend through a casino to get to the (at that time) cheap food and he paused and asked me what the big wheel was. I explained it was a paycheck cashing wheel - you cash your paycheck in the casino and they spin the wheel for a prize. He immediately saw it for the evil it was (with cash in hand impulse would likely win out and the casino get's your paycheck eventually); I was jaded and of course would never think of doing such a thing so I didn't think it any further. I felt rather stupid.

Sometimes having an outsiders perspective is important. Sadly with the spread and legitimizing of gambling, the social costs are going to be pretty significant.

It's still amazing to me to see the rush of people in the casinos at the first of the month after getting their social security checks.

Evil and vile are too good of descriptors to be wasted on this "industry".

I don't think that casino games should be illegal, but I certainly think they should be required to advertise the odds of each bet in a comprehensible manner: "For every $1 you spend at this machine, you should expect to win .95¢."

I'd like to see the odds written that way under every craps bet, and see how many people keep playing.

Most non-novice craps players I know know the odds fairly well. (The odds on a craps table are actually not that terrible for the player, among casino pit games.) And a "hot" craps table is a tremendously enjoyable place to spend an hour or two.

(It's Roulette, particularly American Roulette, that has some of the most dreadful odds for the player.)

"Hot" meaning the players are [temporarily] on a winning streak.

Craps is a strange game in that at 5x odds the house advantage is 0.3%, then there's other bets on the table where it's over 15%. I'm guessing without those other bets and naive punters the tables really aren't worth it to the casino.

It's also quite fun. Paying 30c for every $100 bet really doesn't seem like a bad deal for what you get.

”For every $1 you spend at this machine, you should expect to win .95¢."

Psychologically, I think that’s a very bad way to phrase it. It tells you what will happen is for you to win, and even can easily be interpreted incorrectly.

I would use something like “On average, if you bet a dollar 20 times, you’ll lose it”.

I wouldn’t expect it to help much, either. Does this strategy really work for cigarettes, where they use photos of lung cancers?

> Does this strategy really work for cigarettes, where they use photos of lung cancers?

From my understanding these have a measurable impact reducing cigarette purchases and motivating smokers to try to quit.

A web search turns up https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/09-069575/en/

Are they not already? I actually happen to like roulette, and it seems straight forward to me. There's a bunch of numbers that pay out 36:1 and there's 38 numbers. It's pretty obvious what's going on without the need to print 0.94736842105 on the mat.

You might need to calibrate your definition of "obvious", unfortunately.

http://thresholdresistance.com/2015/04/16/mcdonalds-new-thir...

Suppose they lied about the odds. How would you prove it?

e.g.

int getRandomNumber() { return 42; }

The Nevada State Gaming Commission has pretty much solved that.

The thing I find ironic -- deploy a voting machine -- Maker: "Oh, no, we can't let you look at our code, it's waaaaay too complicated for you to understand. Trust us." But deploy a slot machine: "Nevada: Show us the code or go fish." Maker: "OK."

And the penalties for lying are severe, most importantly.

I'm curious if there's any effort made to verify the code being reviewed is actually the code being run on the machines.

Yes.

"Provide, as a minimum, a two-stage mechanism for verifying all program components on demand via a communication port and protocol approved by the chairman. The mechanism must employ a hashing algorithm which produces a messages digest output of a least 128 bits and must be designed to accept a user selected authentication key or seed to be used as part of the mechanism (i.e. HMAC SHA-1). The first stage of this mechanism must allow for verification of all control components. The second stage must allow for the verification of all program components, including graphics and data components in a maximum of 20 minutes. The mechanism for extracting the verification information must be stored on a Conventional ROM Device."[1]

[1] https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=2...

Do we have anything like this for voting machines, in any states? If we do, how does it stack up in terms of security and transparency requirements?

Is this really a solved problem? If so, then wouldn't the solution be applicable to the emissions control scandals recently?

What if the code says "return rand();" but the compiler changes rand() to 42?

Roulette doesn’t have that bad of odds. Blackjack under suboptimal play could be worse. Keno is by far some of the worst games in a casino.

I'm not sure that's a good way to look at it. I know the odds when I play craps or blackjack, I know that any random walk down the number line leads to me losing my bankroll. I also don't care. It's fun, it's stressful, it gets the adrenaline flowing, winning is fun, losing is even more fun. I keep myself to a budget and it's a good time. No more or less expensive/thrilling/entertaining than skydiving, jet skiing or whatever gets you going. I could throw $500 at skydiving or I could spend it on a trip to Vegas.

This community loves startups -- and so do I. Startups fail 90% of the time to raise the next round of funding, every single time. Craps, your pass line odds bet pays even odds meaning your bet pays out exactly proportional to the odds of rolling that number -- there's no house edge.

You don't think you can beat the odds, join a FAANG. That's not why were here though is it? We're all gamblers.

For some,

E[winnings] + entertainment value > cost

even if E[winnings] < cost

Uh, except for some the equation is really

E[winnings] + (entertainment value) + (compulsion) > cost

even if E[winnings] + (entertainment value) < cost

That's true of anything though.

The only problem with your inequality is that for many “entertainment value” really means “addictive pull”.

Additionally, most people's budgets are not robust enough where entertainment costs can even be factored in, especially those who are most vulnerable to gambling.

The bulk of my budget goes to rent, car, and food :(

That’s definitely true, but I wonder what the ratio is between people like that and people who don’t have a good grasp of the odds.

I’m always amazed and appalled at just how bad most people I’ve met are with basic probabilities. Now that’s just my anecdote, but I think your ratio would strongly favor the casinos, which I guess explains why the casinos exist and thrive in the first place.

> stick to those that might have a positive expected value!

That would be stocks. Odds are you'll make money.

>utility black hole

What's your definition of utility?

> We were standing at the base of the lighthouse, which he clearly adores. He’s climbed it 71 times this year. “I don’t volunteer here, I just climb the steps,” he said. “It’s a lot more interesting than spending time on a Stairmaster.”

Good on this guy. Stairclimbing is an under-appreciated fitness activity.

Although it's fictionalized, the TV show, Boardwalk Empire, does a pretty good depiction of what AC must of been like in the early 20th century. Of course, the place was completely mobbed up and one had to become enured to the occasional dead body dumped in a vacant lot or washing up on the beach, but, otherwise, the place was relatively free from street crime.

The wikipedia page and linked references for the inspiration for the fictional Nucky Thompson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_L._Johnson

Rather a significant number of characters in that series that based on real people, to the point that many characters use the real person's actual name. The cast section of the Wikipedia page shows the extent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardwalk_Empire#Cast_and_char...

The references beyond that are quite interesting as well. I always felt that the character Nelson Van Alden (also George Mueller) was a reference to Baby Face Nelson, who was known also as George Nelson.

Most of the Chicago mafia depicted were real people.

If you enjoyed Boardwalk, you should also like Peaky Blinders.

Being set in the same era, there are interesting crossovers like when the Peakies get involved in selling whiskey to the US.

Many of these characters are also loosly based on real people like Tom Hardy's Alfie Solomon who steals many a scene much like Stephen Graham's Capone.

The problem with us common folk understanding climate science is the problem seems so daunting how do we even start to tackle the problem and a road map that's easy to digest to get us to where we want to be.

I don't think we should focus on climate change at all. Like you said, it's too daunting of a problem.

What we should focus on is solutions to "now" problems that will help with climate change as well.

I'm talking about things like smog prevention. That's a problem people can see right now, that can be improved within our lifetimes.

Europe is doing ok with higher gas taxes than the US. If other countries converged that would help a little.

People talk about boiling a frog in a pot as a negative thing, but why can't it be used to accomplish something worthwhile?

Except that's exactly what kicked off the Yellow Vests.

Is a gradual increase what caused it, or was the problem that there was a sudden increase?

There’s A LOT more to the yellow wests than fuel taxes.

I seem to remember France burning

If by "okay" you mean "on the verge of revolt".

I agree 100%! We know what type of problems humans in general are mentally equipped to face. An opaque, multigenerational, slow moving problem like climate change is the worst case scenario category for us. We need to translate these hard problems to smaller nearer term tangible problems we can deal with now.

I disagree.

You're right that the effects of our actions on the climate are not directly observable by laypeople. And that the scale of the problem is daunting.

But it is _critical_ that we fix the underlying problem in the next couple of decades. The scale of the problem means we can't fix it without help and motivation from the government, so we need to agitate now, today, for the government to put a price on carbon emissions.

There's even a bill for a carbon fee-and-divident right now. But it will never pass as long as we're all not focusing on climate change.

When it does pass, the incentives will suddenly be right for us to solve the problem.

I think the problem is marketing. Taxing carbon emissions for climate change is unpopular because people can't understand the problem it's trying to solve.

Taxing carbon emissions so they have a clear view on sunny days is a lot more understandable.

We could completely solve smog without making even a tiny dent in our carbon footprint. Why not instead try to get people to understand the real problem?

So, your question is: how do you stop a 7.6 billion person stampede toward the edge of a cliff?

You don't.

You give them a better destination. Or in carbon dioxide terms, a new source of energy.

Everything else is just noise and misanthropy.

You can, today, dig up coal for $30/tonne. That's 3 cents/kilogram.

How do you compete with that? How are you going to come up with a better source of energy - without banning it?

> 3 cents/kilogram

add in the costs of climate change and it would be significantly more

And all that would happen is people would pay it. You've spent money and accomplished nothing.

We need energy. All the noise and machinations don't change that. You either have a new source of energy or you don't.

I don't know how much real science can be done on a barrier island, we already know how these things work. Same reason you don't buy a house in a horseshoe bend on a river.

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