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Comment by beloch | Hacker News Reader

>“Although the findings relate to direct marketing, I see no reason why the same or similar adverse effects wouldn’t occur for gambling advertising on TV or social media.”

Controlling/banning advertising for Alcohol and Tobacco results in significant health benefits. Sports gambling used to be illegal in many places or limited to specific places. Now that it's available in your pocket, like a pack of smokes or a flask of whisky, why wouldn't advertising triggers, direct or otherwise, be effective at encouraging susceptible people to partake? This is not a surprising result. It's the inaction of most governments that is surprising.

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I used to work for a (now defunct) wagering operation. From my understanding even internally the marketing and business guys would’ve preferred the advertisements to be banned. It’s such an effective customer acquisition tool that the only way to compete is to spend insane amounts on marketing, because if you don’t, all of your competitors are and you’ll go bust. A ban would drastically level out the playing field and make things more sustainable.

The only ones that don’t want the ban are the ones selling the advertising slots. No way they’re giving up the gravy train.

Are you claiming that advertising doesn't increase the total gambling spend?

No - it clearly does. But I’m saying look at where the advertising money is going to understand why it’s going to be hard to ban it.

And the 2nd level consequence of that levelling the playing field would be more competition, and fewer huge, powerful gambling companies. Fewer, huge companies have the money and skills to buy politicians (exhibit one: "prediction markets"). Banning ads would be a net positive for the addicts, and net negative for politicians, hence it won't happen in our current universe.

The US Supreme Court made it illegal for states to ban gambling ads, as a first amendment issue. I think it was a bad decision.

I wonder if they would overturn that if sufficient evidence of harm were demonstrated. They've been remarkably consistent about permitting violations of constitutional rights where the government can unambiguously demonstrate a pressing need.

The 1A does not have an exception for harm.

And yet SCOTUS has carved out a number of exceptions where they felt it was clearly necessary. Disorderly conduct and noise ordinances are examples. It's not the end of the world but (very approximately) being woken up by someone shouting in the street at 2 am was deemed a larger problem than restricting your individual right to drunkenly shout at your friend in that scenario.

> being woken up by someone shouting in the street at 2 am was deemed a larger problem than restricting your individual right to drunkenly shout at your friend in that scenario.

Because most of the time if you can argue “they won’t do a good job at capitalism [going to work]” then everyone goes “oh no no no we can’t have that.”

Not true. Generally the law must be evaluated by the “strict scrutiny“ standard.

If that were the case than libel and slander would be legal.

Then why was it possible to ban cigarette commercials on TV? Or is it just that they cannot ban the ads in general? You have no right to the airwaves, so television access is easy to restrict.

Correct, broadcast tv is easy

It's everywhere on YouTube, usually as a 'hidden' ad in the alt-right manosphere (e.g. the recent Nick Shirley video he wears a sweatshirt for a gambling site throughout, with constant name drops of it that aren't over ads).

Disgusting behavior, especially coming from those who often claim their content is to improve things. Hypocrites across the board.

I see Kalshi promoted on many sports highlights videos on YouTube.

Makes sense, it’s high in protein.

Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Association, Inc. v. United States (1999) makes it illegal for the government to ban advertising of legal gambling in the US.

That was because they allowed advertising for some forms of (legal) gambling but not others.

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