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Comment by schwank | Hacker News Reader

The proliferation of gambling is driving me away from sporting events. I won't take my child to an event where gambling is repeatedly promoted front and center. Ditto for broadcasts and the excessive ads for FanDuel and whatever. Recently visiting family in Michigan I was appalled at the nonstop gambling ads during sports broadcasts. I had to leave the room. Combined with escalating ticket costs I have completely tuned out of things I used to watch regularly. Its sad that everything is monetized to the point of ruining it.

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Of course you do you. Specially when it comes to raising your kid. But I think a better approach would be to teach them about statistics and odds and why gambling is bad instead of trying to shield them from it. Reinforce the idea that casinos and betting apps and even video games are businesses that make a lot of money, and they don't make that money by giving it away. The house always wins. Always.

I live in Reno, and even though gambling is everywhere 99% of the locals I know, don't do it.

You can, you should teach your kid about the dangers of drugs and addiction. Still you wouldn't bring him in a crack house...

> Still you wouldn't bring him in a crack house

For reasons of physical safety, surely? A trip to a crack house will probably end any notions of drugs being cool.

If you don't have any crack houses handy, Requiem for a Dream is also pretty effective.

> For reasons of physical safety, surely?

but then bringing them to a casino or a place of gambling (physically, or allowing to play gambling games) would also have mental safety issues right?

In the USA at least minors aren’t allowed in casinos and in my experience the staff are quite zealous when it comes to enforcement.

> You can, you should teach your kid about the dangers of drugs and addiction. Still you wouldn't bring him in a crack house...

I know this is a little tongue-in-cheek, but I have a 15 year-old and we lived downtown in a major city until 5th grade. Mom and Dad definitely talked about the dangers of drugs, but I don't think any of those talks made anywhere near the impression of coming across someone passed out in the entrance to a subway station with a needle stuck in there arm. Our trip was delayed while I made sure the person was still breathing and then summoned medical help.

Learning gambling at least has some real educational merit. Risk management, understanding probabilities, statistics, and how to quickly estimate under pressure are all generally useful skills. I recall hearing that the science of probability was basically discovered by one of the Bernoullis who had a gambling patron.

I suppose someone with enough gumption could learn useful skills like sales, marketing, loss prevention, and customer retention from drug dealers too, but that’s a whole level of seedy past legal gambling.

A casino is needed for none of that. Quick or slow estimation always shows that betting at a casino is a bad bet, unless you are an extremely gifted "hacker".

The problem with gambling isn't a lack of education. Gambling preys on people when they're vulnerable and gamifies their desperation into a death spiral of suck. I would also keep children away from it, since they're at a disadvantage even when educated as their brains are so underdeveloped.

We all know sugar and processed food is bad for us but obesity is rocketing. We have to get away from "personal education and responsibility is the answer", because while correct to actually a pretty decent extent it's plainly not sufficient at a societal level and across domains such as diet, investing, gambling, smoking, drinking, etc.

"Place limits on availability of toxic stuff" is a better answer IMO, albeit again not perfect (see abuse of illegal drugs).

But yeah, unchecked promotion of gambling is really not good and should absolutely be curbed.

I grew up low-stakes gambling; euchre, dice, outcomes of various events. I had a lot of fun and never shielded my kids from it. My view is basically if the house isn't involved, and you can exercise self-restraint, it's ok in my book.

But dear Lord, the incessant ads and the flashing lights in bars and rest stops. I always took a moment to express my disapproval of people that prey on others addictions.

> Its sad that everything is monetized to the point of ruining it.

I'm with you on this. I stopped watching television, following sports, and listening to the radio many years ago.

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