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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

This is something I'm debating myself right now. We have a proposition on the California ballot in November to legalize online gambling. On the one hand, if adults want to gamble, why should the government stop them? Sure, tax the hell out of it to account for the externalities of it, like increased crime and an increased need for social services when people bankrupt themselves, but don't outright ban it.

On the other hand, is it worth the externalities? We ban drunk driving because of the extreme harm you can cause others. We ban smoking in a lot of places for the same reason.

Is the harm to society of easily accessible online gambling worth allowing consenting adults to consent?

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As a side note, in California it’s much harder to get rid of a bad proposition once it’s enacted than a bad law. Vote against propositions unless you’re certain that you support them forever.

My default on all propositions is always No for this exact reason. It's a change to the constitution of the State. I feel like that should have a higher threshold than "eh, sounds good".

Absolutely. And I do still vote for some propositions if I think they’re a great idea, but with a much higher bar than for other decisions:

If a proposition is a good idea and the people turn it down, they can try again next year.

If a proposition is a bad idea and the people vote it in, we’re stuck with it.

The cost for saying “no” and being wrong is much smaller.

Can a new proposition override (or cancel out) an older one? Are they similar to Constitutional amendments (such as 21's canceling out 18'th) or are California props more sticky?

Yeah they can override old ones. That's pretty much the only way to change the old ones -- pass a new one that overrides it. The legislature can't override constitutional amendments.

In case anyone is curious, there are multiple different kinds of California ballot propositions. Some are constitutional amendments; some are statutes; some (like the subject[s] of this particular comment thread) are a combination of both. There are also bond measures and veto referendums, which for the purposes of this classification are probably more like statutes than amendments. (Furthermore, the ballot propositions can be citizen-initiated, legislatively-referred, or mandatory.)

On the ballot for 2022 in California is 1 constitutional amendment, 2 combined amendments/statutes, 3 statutes, and 1 veto referendum.

The problem with casinos is that it's easy to make one that is not fair (fraudulent odds). To prevent that, you need some sort of auditing system. And to do that you need to issue limited licenses. What this causes is that in most of the world, those licenses end up in the hands of really trustworthy characters that would never hurt a fly.

If it wasn't for that problem, I'd just be pro making casinos as straightforward to operate as opening an e-commerce shop. I have no qualms with adults gambling their money away, my problem is with mafiosos getting it all.

No reason to have limited licenses. A state run clearing house for all money going in and money going out. Then publish the results of this, so people can see how bad a deal gambling is, the state can get their cut, and people can know which places are legit. In the meantime, this will prompt illegal casinos to offer either better deal (better odds) or worse deal (extended credit) than can be had at legal casinos.

The situation right now is there is no reason for an illegal book to offer a better deal, and the worse deal is already illegal, so nothing would change by making it legal.

> No reason to have limited licenses. A state run clearing house for all money going in and money going out. Then publish the results of this, so people can see how bad a deal gambling is

In many countries loteries advertise how much money was spent in tickets, and obviously they advertise the prize pool and the odds. As you can tell people still play, publishing the results does nothing. But that doesn't mean you should allow a free for all of fraudulent games. You see, most gamblers want to lose their money fairly.

>Then publish the results of this, so people can see how bad a deal gambling is, the state can get their cut, and people can know which places are legit.

Trivially exploited. The cool dude 85 casino will lie about all of its odds and make up the money-in, money-out difference when big whale cool dude 86 comes into town and soaks the casino for a few tens of millions on a private game of go fish.

It's impossible for a casino to be "fair" over the long term, because it has deeper pockets than individual gamblers. Even a gambler with a positive expectation (which is not something that is easy, fun or usually even possible to do in a casino game), over time will have increasingly wider swings of fate (i.e. the most they've ever lost or won will always increase), and one will bankrupt them.

Fair in this context does not mean the customer can get a positive outcome over time unless they are very lucky and never return. Fair just means you get what is advertised. If a willing adult knows the casino is a losing proposition most of the time but feels "they are lucky", by all means.

This is what intuition tells me as well, but it is not true. If a gambler has positive expectation of wining, even if you have gamblers playing until either broke or dead, the expectation is for the casino to lose money.

>The problem with casinos is that it's easy to make one that is not fair (fraudulent odds). To prevent that, you need some sort of auditing system.

Does somebody want to tell him?

I don't see gambling as having the same kind of direct harms to others as drunk driving or second hand smoke.

If I gamble and I lose all my money and go bankrupt, that still doesn't necessarily harm others or even massively increase their risk of harm. Can't say the same for the other two actions.

It harms those who are dependent on your income, such as your family.

That's reasonable. But it's also reasonable to ask what the government's responsibility is in protecting those people.

As a society we've already decided it is the job of the government to at least care for children and other adults who aren't capable through both direct aid and forcing adults to take care of them (child support being the most obvious example).

I'd say it falls into a similar realm -- protecting those who can't protect themselves.

Not everyone has people dependent on their income. Is it without harm? No, but it's not the same as putting random innocent people at risk. Even with that, the harm you're talking about is not direct - they lose income, but with drunk driving and smoking people directly die.

A ton of people I know have a cousin or a brother in law that have been slowing draining bank accounts on DraftKings for years. Their spouses and children only find out once there is no money to pay bills. In one case a set of retired parents went back to work parttime to help support their grandchildren after their adult son wasted all their money and then lost their house.

No its not the gore-splattered event of a drunk driving car accident, but it still tears apart families.

It's more of a cost to society. Once they lose all their money, what happens? They either turn to crime or rely on social services. In both cases society pays more than the would have otherwise.

Being in a state that legalized marijuana, the tangential rise in crime and homeless is significant and was unexpected. The activity of legalizing one small thing (weed) isn't bad but the broader scope of societal degradation makes me wish we had not legalized it. For all intents and purposes it was legal before, just wasn't big business.

I think online gambling is in the same area socially.

How do you know it's correlated?

I'm in a state that is in the process of legalizing it but it's not done yet but the social degradation and rise in crime is also happening here.

> How do you know it's correlated?

I cannot say its the sole thing that has caused the current state of affairs in the state, but it's been roughly 10ish years and the social decline started about at that time. Speaking with many locals (completely unscientific) but many feel like this was also the point in time where it brought it many individuals that did not have a plan in life but came for the green gold rush, or to merely be in a location where it was easier to buy and safe to use without risk of jail. Many believe it was this influx that started to erode society a bit. Homelessness and pan handling went up. Crime slowly went up. Etc....

Clearly there has a multitude of other contributing factors since then (covid, housing crisis, etc...) but this sort of started the ball rolling down the hill and the additional issues helped with momentum.

This might not be an issue with other states that are legalizing now because it's more available in several states but as one of the first few to legalize it, I feel it definitely hurt more than it helped.

This is a topic of actual research, and metro area rental vacancy rates (i.e. how affordable/abundant housing is) are the main determiners of whether someone at risk actually becomes homeless.

> The fundamental conclusion is that the consequences of individual vulnerabilities are far more severe in locations with less accommodating housing markets. [0]

[0] https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housi...

As an easy counterexample, San Francisco had a rising population experiencing homelessness years before marijuana legalization in January 2018 [1].

[1] https://sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-population

I think SF has had significant issues that led to a large homeless population prior to Marijuana becoming legal. That city is a case study in itself it terms of why it's gotten to where it's at (and I'm not remotely the person to argue either way there. I travel for work there a few times and year and it's always bad, unpleasant and I'd argue unsafe and each year is worse but my exposure is limited to infrequent visits and nothing as a resident). Housing availability has always been mentioned as one of the bigger issues there but I cannot speak to it beyond what I read.

People moving to locations without a plan, and avg to high rental rates will naturally lead to more homeless people. We did have an influx of unprepared people due to legalization. And Im not saying legalization is purely to blame. Certainly possible it was all coincidence with timing. Market rebound, in tandem with people in low wage jobs not prepared for market shifts? Veterans coming back from a decade long war without a safety net (medical or financial), PE buying housing. There are plenty of possibilities. But going back to the original post, I believe that allowing online betting for people already in trouble is not going to help towns and cities in any manner. So I would worry about things getting worse before they will get better.

You can't just see two things that happened at around the same time and assume one caused the other

Of course not. And I did not do any sort of study. Mere observation and communication with other locals. I believe it however (just the start of the current problems, not the sole source of them)

So you admit that you're probably wrong, that you have done no research, but because someone else agrees with you you choose to believe it anyway? Well I appreciate the honesty at least

No, this is why I do not get into a lot of discussions on HN, where its an argument about semantics with people who are more or less in tech (which you can behaviorally be generalized into a few groups of people). I merely made a point about discussions Ive had over several years with people who have lived in the area for decades, with observations Ive made after living in the affected area for several decades and responding to the question about if it's a good idea to put a casino into everyone's pocket (the original post). The world runs by peoples experiences and not studies, you're lucky if you get people to see both, but by and large society is dumb, leaders are dumb (in a different manner) and none of it matters as for big ships turn slowly and cash rules the world. Online gaming will pass because it brings in cash to everyone who has a hand on the rudder.

I'm not trying to be glib but it sounds like you agree with everything I said.

You haven't looked at any studies and have based your opinion on conversations you've had with people around you. You haven't had decades to talk about this either because weed was only legalized a couple years ago.

You claim that people are stupid and don't look at studies but that includes you by your own admission. If you're ok with that I guess that's fine but I would think you'd try to do something about it.

For what it's worth I agree with you about casinos, don't agree with you about weed.

> You haven't had decades to talk about this either because weed was only legalized a couple years ago.

Marijuana has been legal for almost a decade. When asking people who have lived here their entire lives when did the thing start to change, many have said when it was legalized things started to change for the worse. Not that it changed overnight, but it was a noticeable difference in the quality of life, and decreased since that point in time.

>I'm not trying to be glib but it sounds like you agree with everything I said. You haven't looked at any studies and have based your opinion on conversations you've had with people around you. > You claim that people are stupid and don't look at studies but that includes you by your own admission. If you're ok with that I guess that's fine but I would think you'd try to do something about it.

I disagree with much of it and you are misunderstanding the point I was trying to make, I feel like I did a poor job explaining it but it's not a big deal. Appreciate the back and forth.

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