If it's so bad for gamblers, why don't they stop?
If gambling orgs do something that you know causes harm, why isn't the a legal sense of responsibility?
If gambling orgs do something that you know causes harm, why isn't the a legal sense of responsibility?
That's not how addiction works.
It's an enlightening read on addiction that will make you more empathetic for addicts of all types: gambling, substances, shopping, whatever.
Definitely worth a look if you find yourself asking "Why don't they just stop?"
https://www.amazon.com/Realm-Hungry-Ghosts-Encounters-Addict...
Lost savings means an impoverished individual and potentially an impoverished family and children. These draw support resources from the state and community, are more likely to turn to crime, and are less likely to develop into contributing members of society.
People are not machines, it’s not as simple as deciding whether to do something or not. You have stronger and weaker days. Temptation makes it harder to do what is in your best interests, even if you’ve decided on another day that you’d rather not partake.
Getting concrete about gambling: lots of people decide not to gamble and just don’t. Lots of people decide they don’t care whether they gamble and they do. But there are also many people in the middle, who would rather not gamble, but find that they sometimes act against their own best interests, and their own past resolutions to not gamble. Bombarding these people with offers of free bets increases the likelihood that they will gamble on their weaker days.
When I hear takes like yours, I feel very jealous. I would love to always act in my own best interests and according to some policy I predetermined. But that’s just not my experience of how life works.
I feel like you’re trying to force some sort of binary here, but I’m trying to say that you may choose not to gamble in general, on day X, but find that you do gamble later.
In fact I would say that many gambling addicts have _chosen_ _not_ to gamble in some sense, but in another moment they do find that they choose to. There’s a temporal aspect to this.
Advertising gambling to those people makes it less likely that they will follow through on their choices.
Do you always do literally everything you choose with a clear head? Never procrastinate, get angry, feel sad, whatever? It’s really hard for me to see your perspective on this.
The same way sober alcoholics would disagree with a similar statement about alcohol addiction.
I'd like to know the difference between the characterization of being "powerless over alcohol" for example and not having the capacity of choice.
"I want to eat this bucket of ice cream... But I also really want to not want to."
This means you can say people voluntarily got into their addiction, but you cannot say they voluntarily stay in their addiction.
Cigarettes are a good example. It is easier to wean off from cigarettes and switch to vaping and then quit vaping, than to quit smoking directly.
This is because the transition cost from smoking to vaping is much lower.
Exhibit A: Tobacco. Prior to regulation, it was advertised widely and thought to be not that bad.
Once we regulated knowledge and consent, use plummeted.
For knowledge, we display pictures on the pack and carton of people in agony dying of lung cancer. We tell them the odds. For consent, we mitigate by saying "WARNING: nicotine is an addictive chemical. Nicotine can be more addictive than Heroine".
The fallacy here is that markets are naturally free and government intervention makes markets less free. That's rarely the case. Often, intervention makes the market more free.
| If it's so bad for gamblers, why don't they stop?
If this is serious, lol. "Why are you addicted to X. Just stop, it's easy!"
Because harm does not guarantee control.
When it becomes compulsive, it’s not a simple cost-benefit choice anymore. People can know it’s hurting them and still feel driven to keep doing it.
The dopamine rush of gambling means the brain can get stuck chasing relief, hope, or reward, despite also knowing that it is destructive.
> If gambling orgs do something that you know causes harm, why isn't the a legal sense of responsibility?
Because it’s not that easy to prove responsibility in the face of powerful money lobbying and victim-blaming. Shame and stigma around addiction means people don’t come forward. Freedom argument comes in that not everyone who gambles is an addict, so restricting it takes freedom away. The same argument is used to push the personal responsibility angle.
Ultimately I think the way the gambling orgs cover their ass is by advertising gambling addiction helplines and adding small disclaimers to call those lines if you have a problem: “that’s it, legislators, we are clearly giving them the tools to help themselves, and that shows us exercising responsibility. Bombarding gamblers with offers is simply marketing and creating engagement for our business, you can’t make that illegal.”
Do they have moral responsibility to not exploit addicted gamblers? I would argue, yes, they do. But unless you prohibit all gambling marketing, how would you accomplish this moral responsibility even if the gambling company agreed it had it? It’s not like addicts identify themselves or that you can filter your marketing easily to people without problems. This is why the solutions have been on outlawing the whole thing, because it’s really hard to operate as a business without the societal cost.
Because they're stupid. Gamblers are idiots, gambling companies prey on the dumb. Anyone who understands the very basic math behind the games understands that it's pointless to play, you'll just lose more the more you play. That's the whole point. It's not even a secret, you can find the exact odds for each game.
Poker is different as you're playing other players rather than the house but it's still a negative sum game as the house takes a cut so you have to be better than the others to play. And if you're a reasonably intelligent person you'll just bet a little and accept your losses and move on. Or not play at all. Idiots will do dumb stuff like bet way more than they can afford, then they won't have money to pay their mortgage, rent etc and so on. People call it an addiction but I'm pretty sure it's mostly just being really really stupid. Can't be addicted to gambling if you aren't dumb as a rock.