Hacker News Reader

Comment by Retr0id | Hacker News Reader

What are the 13yos doing? Is there some fake-money sports betting platform or are they able to burn real money on it?

My son has mentioned friends whose fathers let them place bets. “Hey, who do you like for the wildcard game tonight, I’ll put a tenner ($10) on it for you.” It’s not seen the same way as a parent giving giving their kid alcohol or other age-gated things like that.

Interestingly, considering the role that sports have in day to day social discourse & self-identity with teams (“we” need to win this game), I’ve heard a few acquaintances say basically “placing a bet makes watching it more interesting, it’s too boring otherwise”. And given the social/identity thing you can’t not watch it. “Hey you catch that play last night? ‘We’ fell apart, awful…” gotta be able to keep up with the tribe chants.

When I was 13 my parents would let me have a (small) glass of wine with dinner.

I'm sure many parents place proxy sports bets for their kids. Maybe to teach them how to use betting as a form of entertainment and learning how your money can also just disappear. I can see it being a good thing if done carefully. I can also see it going wrong.

> I can see it being a good thing if done carefully.

My experience with raising three kids is there’s a limit to the amount of messaging that gets through with any fidelity. So, the only financial teaching I did with them, was the stocks, bonds, diversification, risk and prudence schtick. I could see the attempted teachable lesson about gambling losses going sideways and crowding-out the rest.

I was pretty much the same way with my kids, with one more detail: Teaching a reasonable level of skepticism about advertising, marketing, and peer pressure in general.

There is a out zero chance it is done carefully or done to teach them "money disappears". Be serious. It does not even make sense as a lesson.

Give your kid $50. Place bets for him as he wants. When his balance hits zero, discuss.

You could do that, but it seems kind of obvious and condescending? Cause right now you can forbid it and theyll see all their friends lose money and never win anything until your child is of legal age. For everyone else, it seems like some kind of inherited cultural addiction that gets culturally passed down. Just openly mock gambling as evil/a scam/rigged and they'll probably be more likely to pick that up if you back with principals instead of taking the weak, confusing, and contradicting stance of feeding $50 into the evil system.

I think the point is saying something is "evil" is very unlikely to discourage young people from anything and even more likely to make it sound exciting and edgy.

It's like Oscar Wilde's famous quote: "As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar it will cease to be popular."

I don't personally believe in the supernatural or that the act of gambling itself is technically evil, it's the marketing efforts targeting youth and merging of other industries like sports and video games into the gambling industry that are wholy objectively evil (and if the supernatural existed, such industries would definitely be backed by supernaturally evil forces).

I'm fascinated by the prospect of receiving a free $20. I'm not fascinated by the prospect of putting my finger in a mouse trap because I "might get the cheese this time". Putting your hand in the mouse trap in front of your kids is not a smart move. The addiction is top down enforced by both large industrial agendas and the parents giving weak unprincipaled stances against the normalization of gambling, or worse, being culturally addicted themselves in front of their kids.

My parents did something similar for me, and I still remember the lesson a few decades later.

I think the details matter here. If you give your child $10 every month to make one bet, sometimes they win, sometimes they lose; you are doing it wrong. If you give them $50 and let them make a series of bets not exceeding $10, they will learn that the curve sometimes goes up, sometimes goes down, but ultimately ends up at zero. Not because "you were not lucky today, but maybe the next time", but because this is how the system works.

> let's make it interesting

to which I've always responded, "How would that make it interesting?"

One of my biggest complaints with Steam is that it's basically an unlicensed casino with extra steps -- and one of the things you could do at one point was buy a "challenge pass" for a major tournament that was effectively a "pick 'em"-style bet on the outcome. There is no age gating on this, outside of a click-through prompt since the game is rated ESRB M/17+ and its equivalents.

1. You buy an event pass

2. The event pass contains a "coin" that can be upgraded, and grants access to a "pick 'em" interface

3. Based on the outcomes of the matches and your picks, the coin is upgraded

4. The upgraded coin allows access to "souvenir packages"

5. The "souvenir packages" and their contents (rare and/or unique weapon skins) can be traded on Steam's marketplace for store credit or currency

There’s one called Stadiumlive. Several are out there.

At least one kid I know has a Sportsbook app on his phone setup by his parents.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com