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Comment by setgree | Hacker News Reader

In a sane society, sports gambling would be legal but with a lot of guardrails:

* If apps detect compulsive behavior, they could go dark on your phone for a day/week/month/year

* All bets could have delayed payoffs (e.g. greater than 10 minutes [0]) to avoid optimizing for a quick dopamine hit

* Apps could be linked to a credit score/measure of financial health and allow larger bets for people with higher credit scores, or they could stop you from placing bets if there's evidence of negative impacts on your overall financial situation.

In general, the question of: how can we let consenting adults take risks that they find pleasurable (drugs, sex work, gambling, free diving, etc.) while also limiting the worst harms and/or protecting the most vulnerable people, is under-discussed relative to its importance, IMO.

[0] https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1822382269669228822

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I've thought that there should people, your family and/or friends, who have to sign on to enable you to gamble - where they will be on the line for any debt or a certain % of the debt the person has, etc.

E.g. Dana White of UFC appears to have a gambling problem, but maybe with how much money he earns it actually isn't a problem - but what if it at some point it gets out of control, and that is hidden from friends or people that care about him - and where that loss of control could be hidden from sight, kept secret until it's perhaps too late - however that looks?

I'll be your friend and enable you to spend all of your money for 1% of any earnings you make.

Sure, if you're taking on risk then that seems like it could be a fair arrangement - and then perhaps there's a requirement of putting some of the potential debt you're promising to cover to be held in escrow.

* Make all bets above a certain threshold public information with the bettor's name and wager amount like political contributions.

I think this would result in some sort of credit score, which would be used by countless institutions. At least people wouldn't be able to hide it from their family. When a person wins the lottery, their name is supposed to be public although there's ways around this.

Obviously, it would create a black market for anonymous gambling, and lots of people would use an intermediary.

I don't think this is a good idea.

Imagine you become an overnight hundred-millionaire through the lottery. Suddenly you need to worry about, e.g., friends treating you differently, strangers begging for money, and kidnapping. Would you really want everyone on earth to know your name instantaneously, with no time to prepare?

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