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Comment by _heimdall | Hacker News Reader

Do you know of any studies that can accurately show the correlation between gambling and societal costs? On the surface the link makes sense to me and seems like it should be right, though I'm not sure how we could have tested it in a controlled way to really know the link exists.

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There are a bunch of studies out there [0][1] (two I found immediately) showing the risks around problem gambling, but like with most vices people who’ve already picked the pro side tend to react in the same predictable ways (myself included):

1) Dismissal: Feigning or having a profound misunderstanding of how statistics work by poking at the methodology like “N=200? That’s meaningless.”

2) Apathy: “So what if some people get addicted? We can’t babysit everyone.”

3) Rationalization: “Yeah but it helps Native American reservations, so...”

4) Downplaying: "Ok problem gambling is bad, but how prevalent is problem gambling really?"

0: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-05439-001

1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32402593/

There's also a version of rationalization where people project arguments from the war on drugs to illegal gambling, as though the enforcement of illegal gambling was somehow had costs greater than just letting anyone bet any amount of money from their phones.

This is such a weird question, just go outside and interact with humans and the evidence is everywhere

That's anecdotal, I was curious if there were (well designed) studies that showed likely correlation between the two.

I have had family members addicted to drugs and/or alcohol and friends that have been addicted to gambling at various times. I've seen similar reactions anecdotally, but that isn't societal or scientific.

One study showed a significant increase in domestic violence after gamblers lost sports bets (based on the team for a specific city losing or winning and then comparing DV rates to cities before and after legal online sports betting).

I believe it increased it about 10%.

In my country, lot of institutions running out-of-home-campaigns against gambling-addiction etc.; so yes, if public institutions are doing this then there is some evidence there

I don't doubt that the programs are helpful, but how does that equate to evidence?

Creating a campaign doesn't prove in anyway the specific problems caused by gambling, especially at the societal level. It only shows that there is a group willing to fund programs against gambling addictions.

In no way am I questioning the intent or value of such programs, I hope it doesn't read that way. It just isn't necessarily relevant with regards to evidence.

Must be nice to live in a country where you can make that inference.

EU country

Do you know of any studies which show any evidence at all that gambling has no costs?

You would like a study proving a negative? Good luck.

My point absolutely wasn't that gambling has no known negative side effects. I was asking out of curiosity if there were studies someone could link to that actually tried to test it in a controlled way.

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