The battle to stop clever people betting
economist.com
economist.com
Why make assertions that even a cursory search can disprove?
Women are still more of indirect ones - harmed more by having relationship with gambler and ending responsible for debt due to marriage.
Nobody can claim with a straight face that the "Christian Right" movement in the US can be classified as wholesome love-thy-neighbour Christianity. Because from where I'm standing, it's far from it.
From my own experience of someone who practices regularly, there is a minority of people who really follow it. They show up to the daily Mass, perform Works of Mercy, do charitable work, etc. The truth is that Christianity demands _a lot_ from you, including saying no to greed, lust and gluttony.
How many people are willing to say no to an extra 200k so that someone less fortunate might benefit? Or open their homes to strangers, so that they may not freeze in the cold?
I think that one of the worst thing that has happened to our faith is its hijacking by the government for political gain (some lower Churches like Evangelicals are currently _heavily_ suffering due to this).
I'm a Catholic but when I speak to my Protestant friends, they feel the same about their communities. Luckily, we still have each other and Christ to help guide us.
The problem with gambling is that the house never loses, and when they are losing, they can kick you out and call you a cheater. At the very least, there needs to be severe restrictions on what casinos can do to people who are winning, and rein them in so that they don't use their money, power, influence, and heavy-handed security, in ways that are grossly unfair to the consumer. The power is too much in the hands of the casino, and really needs to swing back towards the consumer, otherwise people get taken for a ride, literally and figuratively.
Which is why the optimal play is usually to bet it all on the first play. Then walk away, win or lose.
There are much bigger fish to fry at the moment. Gambling does wreck families, though.
We do not have any fish to fry. We want to live free from opression from the ones that beieve they should turn others to the Truth.
Maybe think about it, see if there are some fish you could pick up.
Helping in these areas is what makes us human. If you need to invoque a deity to explain the action, good for you. The most important part is that help is provided.
Now, unexpected pregnancies is not the strong part of Christianity. When you start to promote teaching about sex and birth control we can talk.
About the sex ed., the clinic I volunteer at offers pregnancy related information, including pamphlets that explain pros and cons of things like the ‘day after’ pill. Of course the preferred option is always ensuring good parenting for the newborn child. Clients can take video classes on parenting skills to earn reward points good for diapers, baby food and clothing. It’s really a good program, provided free to the people who need it.
> About the sex ed., the clinic I volunteer at offers pregnancy related information, including pamphlets that explain pros and cons of things like the ‘day after’ pill. Of course the preferred option is always ensuring good parenting for the newborn child. Clients can take video classes on parenting skills to earn reward points good for diapers, baby food and clothing. It’s really a good program, provided free to the people who need it.
I volounteered for a long time at an organization that provided the same services. We provided information about abortion, pills, medical facts. Everything was on the table, from an abortion to raising your child.
Do your pamphlets address abortion as one of the solutions, making it at par with giving birth? I unfortunately know about "help centers" for pregnant women who were in fact driving them away from some solutions (mostly abortion). They were fortunately made illegal in France because everyone should have a neutral, unbiased access to information and help (including abortion).
For reference, Total Fertility Rate in France is 1.66 vs 1.60 in the US.
Teen pregnancy is four times lower in France - because we do serious sex ed and people have sex knowing what to expect.
What made you stop volunteering at the clinic?
... when in public view. Vanity and all this. Non-religious people are happy to keep their generosity to themselves.
> What made you stop volunteering at the clinic?
I started to travel the world. This was also a time where I experienced first hand how religion impacts people. So far in France we were shielded from that.
I’m glad to hear you’re getting to see the world. I hope your journeys are enjoyable.
No, the point is that they mostly do this publicly. The others do the same, but without the need for an audience to witness their gesture.
There are people who need help. They need food, clothing, counseling.
The people getting help don’t care about why somebody gives. They just need things and are glad when they get them.
The studies ( and they are many ) show that religious people give more.
You were trying to argue about why religious people give more, now you abruptly switch course to saying they don’t.
I will respond no more, it makes no sense to continue this discussion.
I provided you a meta research covering several thousand cases. Feel free to provide yours.
> You were trying to argue about why religious people give more, now you abruptly switch course to saying they don’t.
Absolutely not - my point was that everybody gives the same, no matter the religiosity (and the research says so). Religious people just make it public. Why this is the case is left to them and their conscience.
If you want to have an informed discussion, you must be ready to face the numbers. But science and logical thinking is exactly the opposite of religion so if you are blinded by it, well that's it.
I have had numerous discussions over the years about religion (including a well-known radio program). Whenever it came to facts, suddenly there was a lot of hand waving and trying to move the discussion elsewhere.
But you are right - we got to a final point. Happy Christmas and New Year (yes, I am happy Christmas is there even though the religious part is irrelevant -- I like the family traditions)
Also, I don't see why caring about the homeless prevents also fighting rampant gambling addictions?
There are limited resources. That’s why you see churches feeding the hungry and clothing the needy, but probably not fighting gambling so much. People are only able or willing to give so much.
- Some people have reported no benefit.
- The effect may be lower than counteracting chemically addictive behavior (e.g. eating, drinking, smoking, drugs).
I think we can speculate with what we know today that there is SOME effect, but more data/studies are needed to see how large effect really is. Particularly as the overall effect is lower, you need more data to separate it from noise/placebo.
It has to be understood by older people that for many young people the only way to afford a lifestyle previously achievable in many cities with a basic job is to win the lottery.
I don't think it's necessarily the worst thing if you waste like $10 a month playing the lottery, that's not why you can't afford a home. But if you're spending like $100+ a month gambling that is absolutely a big part of why you can't afford a home. Sure maybe you'll never afford a home in New York. Live elsewhere then. There does exist more modest housing. If you're working in a city earning too little to live there then you're doing the wrong thing. Move out of the city. Yes it is that simple, and no I don't give a shit if that's where you want to live. If you can't afford it you can't afford it. Gambling won't help.
Anyhow, this is why a better should stick to platforms that are unbiased.
Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though
I like betting myself, but I don't think abstaining from betting is maladaptive at all. Most of the bets we encounter in the real world are negative EV.
> Most of the bets we encounter in the real world are negative EV.
Yeah that's why I don't like betting. It feels not smart, for me especially. But people who make the right bets can make very large otherwise unrealizable gains.
I do think there are positive EV bets to be had on prediction markets though, they are mosty not efficient.
There are many ways to obtain such an edge, and the casinos are highly motivated to prevent that from happening.
That topic had over a 10% “yes” chance in January. Betting no on that is better taking out a CD.
Not because he doesn't do insane things, obviously, the market is just not at all good at pricing it.
To be fair, we don't need to find little green men in a UFO. It's sufficient to e.g. find fossils of extinct microorganisms on Mars, which is a slim possibility that's a goal of the Mars Sample Return mission.
These markets also have low volume at reasonable prices. If you bought $10K of "no" right now for next year, you would only get an 8% return, not 10%. You could execute better trades to get better prices, but the odds also become more sane over the year. The S&P 500 is also up 18% YTD (13% YoY for the last 5) and you can buy as much of that as you want.
To your last point, I'd argue that the S&P 500 has way more risk. Bets for insane stuff like this where a sufficient number of morons are believers in the obviously-not-going-to-happen outcome are the ones that act like CDs.
Contrast that to normal "sports betting" - which aims to block skilled betters, and squeeze suckers for their cash.
That's why Kalshi/Polymarket don't care about winners, they don't lose money to them, others do.
It's all gambling, as most of day trading also is.
Being addicted is not an intelligence criterion because every human is addicted to something -good or bad.
That's actually a basic principle of how we function cognitively.
- https://psychiatryofscottsdale.com/psychiatrists-honest-take...
- https://psychiatryofscottsdale.com/were-all-addicted-to-some...
It isn't to chase a couple of bucks either. Billy Walter has made hundreds of millions. A recent court case leaked that Tony Bloom's syndicate was making £200m in profit per year. This activity helps make these markets more efficient.
There is nothing wrong with gambling. Fast food kills tens of thousands a year in the US, hundreds of billions spent on healthcare and life expectancy is still terrible because of obesity. Should we ban fast food? Why? Many other people don't have a problme. The idea of personal responsibility will always be completely abhorrent to some part of the population.
This isn’t all that different from alcohol.
Most states have self-exclude/no-market lists, most states require links to gambling addiction helplines in adverts and within product, responsible gaming features are required in every state de facto (and providers are going beyond this in reality) so this is deposit/wager/loss/time limits, reality checks have effectively become mandatory, some states have hard limits on total wagers or require ACK over limit, deposit alerts are also moving to mandatory, there are limits on some kind of machines and how they operate (this is a massive difference to casino gambling, IGT designed physical machines that only appealed to addicts, that experience can now be 100% controlled online), etc.
I don't think people are aware that state regulatory bodies exist and are doing a huge amount. If you compare with European countries, I would say that providers are probably more aware of their responsible gaming function (afaik, many providers have responsible gaming goals that impact board-level compensation, so in the past year you had providers blanket limiting customers based on certain categories...which, I will add, is not an ideal approach, no regulator asked them to do this). In addition, there are some aspects of regulation that, afaik, don't happen anywhere else: for example, most state regulators are checking code that providers are deploying to ensure it is compliant.
This change in regulatory approach is largely a function of things moving online. To be blunt, when Adelson died then the old approach of functionally limited regulation was over because no-one was being paid to advocate for it. Online gaming also enables far more controls over the experience i.e. you can enforce hard limits (as opposed to a pit boss telling someone to stop). I can only assume that most people are completely unaware that this is happening though.
The difference with Polymarket and co, which are regulated as financial firms, should be quite obvious too. People are gambling on their site, they are doing none of the above.
The idea of personal responsibility is also way overrated by some part of the population like you, gambling is addictive and a net negative to society. Problem gamblers ruin not only their life but of their families as well, it's an addiction with a very high rate of suicide.
Allowing it to be done through your phone is like supplying opioids at the candy store. Not everyone gets addicted but you certainly increase access to the ones in most danger of becoming one, and for what purpose?
Personal responsibility doesn't ever solve systemic issues, you are defending the increase of a systemic issue and blaming the victims which it's the actual abhorrent thing...
The purpose is that gambling is fun. That is it. Eating fast food is fun. Drinking alcohol is fun. There are people who are addicting to shopping, so we can ban that too? It is a net negative to you (again, the classic contradiction: YOU believe gambling is wrong so you characterise it is a society wide problem...individual agency doesn't exist though? everyone agrees with something because YOU think it) because you don't enjoy it. It is like saying food consumption is a net negative because it is a sunk cost...in reality, people enjoy eating food, they will spend money on food that is more expensive than basic sustenance for enjoyment, and people enjoy gambling because it is entertaining. No crazy theories required, it is fun, people should be allowed to have fun.
Also, they supply very addictive things at the candy store...candy. Not everyone gets addicted, but you think we should also ban them? Eating candy is clearly a systemic issue, right? Nothing to do with personal feelings, it is a systemic issue with insufficient government intervention in the supply of candy. Candy exists, and for what purpose? Lol, it is like talking to a robot.
Because there is no systemic issue. You are saying that people are just mindless drones who have no control over their actions. Again, ban gambling therapy...must be completely pointless? There is nothing that anyone can do?
No victims are being blamed, I just don't have the arrogance to call people who do something I don't like or behave in a way that I wouldn't a "victim". They aren't victims. Gambling addiction will exist no matter how much we ban, there are gambling addicts in your paradise of Saudi Arabia, and they get no help because they live within a system that denies individual agency replacing it with religious agency. Some things are addictive, those things can also be enjoyable to other people without harm, it is okay for people to enjoy things that aren't enjoyed by other people, it is okay to have fun.
"Regulate" fast food...how? So the government is responsible for deciding how someone of normal weight is allowed to eat? Btw, I live somewhere where this has happened...I pay 30-40% more for some types of food, some products have been removed totally, they don't sell them anymore...why? I am healthy, I run, what did I do? The narrative for this was that obesity is a societal problem, that anyone can be obese...which is false. I am just paying more because someone else is obese, that is it (and, obviously, this hasn't changed obesity...the government has just unlocked a new source of revenue to spend on nonsense).
It is easy to regulate gambling, which the US does btw, because the experience is controlled. So you can remove products, unlike with fast food, that are explicitly designed for addicts (for example, many countries have regulations that rank casino/machine/slots gambling into categories). And in many countries, again like the US, you have government-maintained self-exclude lists, no-market lists, etc. Again, this only impacts addicts. The problem is that people who want regulation want to go further, they have these bizarre notions of economic efficiency with embedded social norms they don't appear to acknowledge, and (ultimately) this will impact people who just enjoy gambling. The premise of the original point was that gambling is inherently addictive...this is not the case, it isn't infallibility...some people find this activity fun, they should be allowed to have fun even if some other people shouldn't do it.
I think the folks who get addicted must have much lower loss aversion and higher thrill-seeking. People like me can’t become even regular recreational gamblers (betting small amounts without ruining their lives) because it’s too frustrating.
Smart people will treat it like any other “trading” or “arbitrage” opportunity, given half a chance.
Seeing the statistics about young American men's betting habits makes me feel old.
If you take $1000 from a few gambling addicts? You spend your own time and effort doing that - while the negative impact of that loss on their livelihood is likely to be larger than positive impact of your gain on your livelihood.
It's why gambling is usually regulated so heavily. Some people must have thought that sports-flavored gambling is going to be different - or were financially incentivized to think so. Turns out it isn't.
What's your point? /s Negative things happening to other people is "0," as long as you are getting something from it. In some cases, it may actually be "good," if you don't like the people suffering negative consequences.
This is not a trait that only applies to gambling. Almost every corporation on Earth takes the same attitude.
That's why unregulated capitalism is very bad.
At least sports gambling is fairly "pure" in that regard.
The market is moving towards a model that is more similar to financial markets with price discovery from informed participants. It enables higher volume, this business model is used by Asian books such as SBOBet...but the market is where it is now, and most places are also using beards to bet at soft books too, and those books will continue to try to protect their business as it is now.
Btw, one of the major issues that explain why books are soft is the use of marketing to fund growth. If that spending wasn't required, it would change the operating model completely to one where gambling companies took a spread. But the marketing spend is the main avenue of competition, not price.
This isn't a smartass remark "stock market is gambling". I literally mean that the financial markets went through all this bullshit 100 years ago, and came up with rules to make them fairer. For example, you won't be blocked from the stock market just because you do really well.
With financial markets you are betting against other users. The ones running the market take fees on each transaction, so they don't care whether you win or lose. Their incentive is just to keep you making transactions.
Learn what a "broker" is.
I don't like picking on definitions, because then we start discussing the definitions instead of the underlying points. But if you're going to make such definitive statements, then I have to reply with "depends on your definition of gambling".
> gambling: the practice or activity of betting : the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet
These, eToro and the like, aren't "brokers" so much as online betting platforms for the stock market.
A typical broker like Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab etc. acts as a gateway to the market, other traders act as counterparties, and is bound by strict regulation
These "neo brokers" as you call them don't. Those "securities" you're buying are offered by the broker, at a price set by the broker, the broker may be the counterparty and they can't be transferred. Just like a casino.
This is all laid out in the terms and conditions for anybody who cares to read them, e.g. [0], sections 7.1 and 17.
If you want to gamble based on stock prices using leverage, at least do it right: use derivatives. They're leveraged but thoroughly regulated and traded on central exchanges.
[0]: https://www.etoro.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/eToro-EU-Te...
It's got an ISIN and all that.
L+S is the exchange where Trade Republic trades: https://support.traderepublic.com/en-nl/705-On-which-trading...
Isn’t the point to let all players have a fairly equal chance? Someone’s going to win the money regardless, so it’s not like you’re saving money.
If the same data savvy people are just going to win most of the time, why would people bother playing? Ultimately you would not have enough players and the industry collapses. I don’t understand why this makes the casinos the bad guys.
Do you genuinely think this is why clever players are banned?
> Someone’s going to win the money regardless, so it’s not like you’re saving money.
What? banning people who have a better edge vs. the house won't save money?