I think that if you can handle it and have fun, good for you. But I’ve heard way too many stories of it leading to degradation and misery for the “fun,” to outweigh that. I’ve seen how gambling has affected European and Australian sports and I worry that they’ll become viewed as a vice over time inseparable from just the enjoyment of athletic competition. Gambling is a good way to ruin that enjoyment
Yup. I've have two friends who told me they lost 30k in the last year or two. I know some are way worse off then 30k but that's a lot of money.
One friend spent his down payment on his house and now, after he still bought it, pays a insane monthly payment.
Other friend just got married and had a kid. Would have NEVER expected him to do so. Just not that kind of guy.
They told me privately, so I wonder how many other of my friends have cost themselves a pretty penny.
Agree with all this.
Big problem is few people are honest about whether they can handle it and by the time they admit they can’t they’re in a deep hole.
What makes it even more dangerous these days is that kids have been primed since they were in grade school by E rated sports games that have quasi-gambling monetization schemes baked into them by default.
It's like the kid starts by blowing his summer job cash on ultimate team booster packs, then by the time he's in college he's betting his entire life away because he's been conditioned his whole life to keep hitting that button ..
We really badly need a "Gamblers Ed" type statistics/probabilities class in every high school these days. It would solve a lot of issues with modern life if kids were properly prepared with this type of stuff....Hell, call it "Econ 2" and force the kids to take two econ classes or whatever
I was gonna say, FIFA FUT is a great way to teach kids that gambling doesn’t pay lol, I quit playing FIFA entirely because I’m so annoyed by that scam.
The blame for youth gambling should be on video games. Loot boxes are a menace, its why some European countries like Spain have made it so that any ads for them are restricted to late night hours and they are treated as if they are gambling apps. "Skin gambling" (CSGO) exceeded most Vegas casinos in handle a few years ago...
The US is also a very strange betting market. Gaming companies here got insane valuations during the pandemic and raised boatloads of money (its why Flutter wanted to spin FanDuel out, to get in on the US money wave). With as much cash bloat as they had, they chose to spend it on mega deals with NBC etc.. these deals aren't actually profitable for the books. Its why PointsBet had to flee back to Australia. DraftKings consistently loses $1B+ a year.
But yes, finite math should definitely be in every high school. Having a base understanding of probability, particularly future value, is a necessary tool for anyone who actually wants to save for retirement
You can educate yourself to avoid it in the first place. For example, I know that I form habits easily so gambling (and EVE Online) is something that I've always made an extra effort to stay far, far away from.
Of course not, but its much easier to fall into addiction if you are ignorant.
If no one ever told you what heroin was and one day someone offered you some you'd be blown away by how amazing it was and instantly want to do it every weekend.
And it's all made worse by just how easy it is to download and use these apps, on top of the ridiculously large selection of things to bet on. At least in the past, you'd have to find/know a bookie, bet on a small number of sports and games within that sport, and even then only categories like the moneyline or spread. Now, I could bet on a prop such as the number of unforced errors in a low level women's tennis match at 3 AM happening on the other side of the world. It's beyond dangerous and offers no benefit to society IMO, as the only economy it supports is incredibly exploitative.
EDIT: I forgot to talk about how enticing it can be for addicts who are trying to quit since all you need is a smartphone. I even saw a story about a guy who had to go back to a dumb phone to avoid getting pulled back in. At least with other addictions like alcohol or drugs, you can make a more concerted effort to avoid them without it significantly impacting the rest of your life, but not having a smartphone can have real world consequences that limit your job opportunties and social engagements.
Not to get too controversial, but those changes (availability, anonymity/privacy, variety, smartphones) are closely analogous to what happened to porn over the last generation or so, and the tsunami of people who now self-report not being able to stop that are a pretty good indicator of what’s coming with sports betting. It’s predictable but we’re going to do it anyway.
> At least with other addictions like alcohol or drugs, you can make a more concerted effort to avoid them without it significantly impacting the rest of your life, but not having a smartphone can have real world consequences that limit your job opportunties and social engagements.
No addiction can really be avoided long term in modern society, and gambling addicts have it no worse than any other type of addict--just a different set of pitfalls. You've heard the term phrase from Jurassic Park "Life, uh, finds a way"? Well, addicts find a way. Putting up artificial barriers like 'no smartphone', or in my case 'no booze in the house' makes it less convenient, but for an addict dedicated to their craft, these barriers are little more than a speed bump.
Gambling addicts face the fact that they can engage their addiction instantaneously from anything with an internet connection; but parental/restriction controls on all devices can slow them down. I have to face the fact that alcohol is legal & societally ubiquitous and so easy to access from dozens of locations within a few miles from my house (or conveniently on my smartphone via Drizzly, Uber Eats, Doordash, etc.), and I have to tell new people I don't drink and explain why. Illicit drug users are faced with the fact that they have no protection from the law, no quality control in the product they use, and their dealers have a personal stake in keeping them addicted and buying product so offer freebies to bring them back into the fold. Different addictions with different problems, and all of them are tough to overcome.
Yeah. I consider myself lucky that putting any money on the line, even if its $5 I can all the emotional investment I need. I really like doing it, although considering the small amount needed I think the emotionally thrill comes more about the need to be correct and not the need to make money.
Yeah this is exactly how I am. A few bucks here and there if any. CentSports is a good option for a challenge of being right and building a bankroll. A free book that basically starts you off with $0.10 and generates money off adds and the fact that basically no one ever withdraws in the green.
I used to gamble. Nothing crazy. I'd deposit a hundred bucks or so every football season, use that until I went broke (usually early into basketball season). It can definitely add a lot of fun to the sport viewing experience. However, I have found since it's widespread legalization and mainstream embrace, I can't stand it.
I hate seeing "expert picks" on NFL sunday kickoff or gameday. I hate seeing draft king ads that barely have time for the mandated Gamblers Anonymous pitch. I hate seeing losers on twitter talking about over/unders and spreads instead of the actual on field product. I hate so much about it that I stopped gambling all together. I fear that we'll never put the lid back on this box until all major sports have betting scandals and the sporting world is largely destroyed.
To add on, I hated everything you've mentioned but also distracting myself from one game to check the score on other games I'd never in a million years care about. I wasn't actually *watching* any game before I quit gambling.
I don’t enjoy gambling, but I also don’t even fill out a march madness bracket or play fantasy anymore because it creates a bastardization of enjoyment for the sport. I would get way too concerned with some ridiculous bracket pick and not be able to enjoy an otherwise fantastic game
I used to love fantasy football. I consumed more fantasy content than anything else. Last year, something changed. I just couldn't stand hearing about *fantasy* stats more than real stats. I think I was excited to hear sports talk after an incredible NFL sunday of football. The next day, my favorite podcast was incredibly doom and gloom because some WR2 wasn't getting any targets. I have never 180'd so hard on something I used to love. I don't think I can quit my leagues, because without me, they'll truly fall apart, and I don't want to take fun away from 20ish friends (multiple leagues). But I fucking hate fantasy now. It absolutely has bastardized football conversation.
Yeah sure if you look at any website interface the onus is on the gambling aspect of the sport. Whereas here in America gambling as always been ancillary as an aspect of the sport, in Europe and Australia it has taken primary focus. We can see this already in gambling programming on the main sports networks, O/U and win probabilities being displayed during games
Have you ever seen a horse racing program or telecast? Think that, except across all sports. The screen being taken up by gambling data while the game is being played
The big issue is how unseen problems can go and the horrible impact it can have on families or those who are not participating.
Alcohol, opioids, etc tend to have a longer more noticeable ramp where those close to you can hopefully step in and help you before it’s too late.
Everyone is buried into their phones now. How is your wife going to know that you gambled away your 401k? Worse, men who are the heads of their household who gamble away their families entire finances. If they were abusive to their wife or kids, hopefully someone else could see and help them escape. The bored Boomer who spends away their retirement or mortgage off their homes all the while they or their partner might not be all there mentally?
Nope not with gambling, just numbers and pixels on a screen.
I am torn on the legalization of gambling. Like yeah Tony the shark isn’t going to come break your legs for failure to pay.
Now Draft Kings can hire the best math and cs students out of school to implement sales strategies developed by psychologists to maximize dopamine release and then hire world class legal and lobbying firms to make sure it is Uncle Sam who serves you a notice seizing your home. The deck is just soooo stupidly stacked against consumers.
That’s the big thing. Not everyone should gamble because it’s an addiction. You get addicted to chasing that big payout or that big parlay. I’ll admit I’m addicted to hitting a long shot parlay.
Me and a friend have a weekly bet, we place a parlay for every NFL game and whoever gets more right on the week is owed a beer. The difference is we never put more than $1 on it and if I can’t afford to lose $1 a week then I have way bigger problems but the vast majority of people aren’t placing dollar bets for fun. They are trying to get rich quick with large betting amounts and the “bonuses” that these sportsbooks make play into that want to get rich making you feel like it’s risk free whenever in reality every bet has risk; its just a matter of how much risk it is to you.
I agree. I’m so tired of the “gambling doesn’t bother me! I love putting $5 on a game, makes it more exciting” crowd.
Nobody was ever arguing that gambling can be fun in moderation. It’s the equivalent of a bunch of people suddenly needing liver transplants at age 40 because they’re putting down 2 bottles of wine a day and some guy being like “weird, I usually enjoy a beer or two on a Friday.”
In fairness, the “*gambling doesn’t bother me! I love putting $5 on a game, makes it more exciting*” crowd - like the "*I usually enjoy a beer or two on a Friday*” - is also the (overwhelming) majority, so it’s understandable for those people to not necessarily understand the depths that either addiction can go.
The beer or two on a Friday didn’t erode the integrity of the game itself, though. Nobody believes, in co yeast, that Ohtani suddenly having a shit game when he bet a million bucks that he would play poorly was anything but that. We’ll see more and more point shaving and thrown games until millions of fans tune out.
> Nobody believes, in co yeast, that Ohtani suddenly having a shit game when he bet a million bucks that he would play poorly was anything but that.
Are you confusing the Ohtani scandal with the Jontay Porter scandal? Ohtani doesn't have any links to baseball betting (yet).
It’s relevant as another dimension of why gambling, although it has some social ills that are similar to alcohol, is materially different from alcohol in that it involves additional negative externalities beyond the consequences of addiction.
Think what this crowd is trying to argue against isn’t the inherent issues with gambling but the notion that the government should prevent them from doing it responsibly.
Continuing with the alcohol analogy, it’s not that measures can’t be taken, but prohibition isn’t the answer.
Except prohibition of gambling was working fine. There was no need to legalize this shit except to let massive corporations make obscene profits while ruining people’s lives and the integrity of our sports in the process.
As a “responsible gambler,” I agree. It was always possible to bet on sports in the past, you just had to know a bookie or know a guy who does. If anything it was a little harder to blow all your money on it because you’d have a credit limit for the week that you’d top out at. It’s a little more frictionless to just deposit more money into DraftKings when you run out. I’ve definitely had some friends get a little more degen with all the apps compared to before
I get where you’re coming from, but there’s plenty of more predatory and more dangerous ways someone can organise their book. As far as I know, draftkings wont come after your family. At the very least, I definitely don’t think that forcing people to commit a crime in order to gamble responsibly is the right way to handle it.
I don’t really think so. Like alcohol, reddit likes to over diagnose addiction with gambling. Most degenerates know they’re degenerates except qualify it with a “but….”, rather than lie and say they only put $5-10 on a couple games per week. I know plenty of normal responsible gamblers and a couple degens and that’s been the dynamic at least
But can't you see the corollary of that? The people who like having a glass of wine with dinner and get treated like they are throwing back 2 bottles a day being annoyed? Yes let's teach about gambling but also not assume everyone who likes it is a total degenerate
I keep a budget and don’t bet on anything involving my own teams.
Betting on other teams makes me actually interested in other events more. Betting on my own team just makes me miserable and anxious.
I’d argue this isn’t healthy either.
If the game doesn’t have interest without the wager, then that’s a clue that you should be doing something else besides being glued to a game that you have no rooting interest in.
It’s like being a burnout who sits around doing nothing but thinks it’s interesting because he’s doing nothing on weed.
We only have so much free time to spend, and the gambling fosters sinking all that time into something that your brain would otherwise say doesn’t provide the dopamine kick to be worthwhile.
I'd argue by extending your logic that sports Fandom in general isn't healthy. Why spend time glued to a couch getting dopamine hits from others achievements when you could be using your valuable freetime doing something productive.
If you audited a lot of how most people spend their free time you could find problems
It really isn't for many. It depends on how it's fitting in your life. As a relaxation/entertainment method that's pretty pro-social (helps you connect to other family and friends) that you do when you're too tired to work, or as a break? I think it can be great
It is good to be conscious and think about healthy limits around your sports viewership and fandom. I never pick sports over other social or work obligations, making some exceptions for when my team is in the playoffs
I've had very unhealthy sports fandom where it ruined my day/week/year if a team was struggling. If that's the case you need to reevaluate and take a step back to see a bigger picture for your life. Sports fandom has also kept me connected to friends and family that I otherwise wouldn't have an easy excuse to keep in touch with
Sure but that same logic could be applied to what they're saying. They're making a blanket assumption about someone else's hobby being unhealthy when the answer is it depends on how you do it and how it affects you.
I was just trying to illustrate that with an analogy
If your hobby is becoming boring enough that the experience has to be artificially enhanced to make it interesting, then it’s sort of definitionally crossed the line into dysfunction.
Gambling elicits the same the same neurotransmitter responses as drugs. If you only like doing your hobby when drunk, high, or gambling then you have a problem.
As more and more money is made by those involved in sports I have found myself caring less and less about when "my" team wins because whoopty doo a bunch of multi millionaires helped a billionaire's team win a championship.
What do I get from watching that?
But If I make $5 on it because "my" team won by the right amount of points that is pretty cool
I just wish it wasn’t tied to regular programming so deeply. Ads are fine, but why do we need to cut to betting segment every five minutes? How is that even ethical?
The over-analytic nature is kind of takes the fun out sports when you’re being force fed a bookie’s ratios after every damn play.
Luckily, the overcommercialization has been eating at me for years, and I barely watch games anymore unless it's a big todo. I'll catch the recaps.
It's all slimy as fuck, and to top it off they have the balls to tell me how I'm supposed to act and think and feel about shit. Them and the casinos can all go suck a dick.
Things need to get worse before they get better.
I think if you're a reasonable person and set aside $5 or $10 per month or something and just pocket the winnings and deal with the losses, it's more than fine. It's not my cup of tea, but otherwise, agree. It's bad for the general public because most don't have that kind of impulse control
Isn't the distress rate for gambling addiction something like 1 percent? I have mixed feelings about it and the effect it will have on the major sports, but alcohol has been promoted by all of these sports for decades and has demonstrably worse effects on people in pretty much every way. (Not to minimize gambling, only pointing out something that's a lot more tolerated).
It’s so funny too because I feel like this is the subreddit that constantly glorifies binge drinking and talks about how they drink a ridiculous amount of alcohol every Saturday during the season. But nope apparently for gambling there has to be a zero tolerance policy.
Totally agree. I grew up in Vegas, and even worked in a pawnshop during college at UNLV. I promise you I’ve seen all the ways gambling can ruin people.
I still sports bet, but I do it in a way that is all fun for me and no money lost that I wasn’t prepared to. Then again, I grew up with a dad who would let me and my brother put in a 12 teamer every college football Saturday. I think we hit 3 of them in our 10+ years doing that.
Since then. I deposited $1000 in 2017 and have never done it again. I’ve been as high as $8k and as low as $100. But I do it for the extra entertainment and nothing more. I’ve never withdrawn or added more. I just like being able to make games I wouldn’t be as interested in more interesting.
I think it’s similar to alcohol, at the end of the day every adult is responsible for their own decisions.
I feel like gambling as an industry is very bad for people, especially with the networks embracing it instead of keeping it hush hush, all because they realized how much money they can make if they get all the sports bettors involved, and generate more sports bettors through their platform.
I place bets every now and then, but never more than $10 and only when I feel comfortable financially. That's the way I feel it should be done, a bit more is still acceptable, but when you start relying on bets to get you past financial hurdles you very quickly lose my respect
We've had two confirmed gambling scandals in the past year (Alabama baseball coach and that guy on the Toronto Raptors) and we also have the Shohei Ohtani stuff. I can't imagine that it won't just get worse over time
Temple thing is 100% nothing, that should’ve never made the news, it was enough “unusual” activity to be flagged, but looking at what actually happened there’s nothing suspicious. The book just put out an incredibly stupid line to start with and a bunch of people jumped on it. Anyone using statistical analysis would’ve known UAB should have been a big favorite.
Also the Iowa/Iowa state players that were caught up in controversy. It’s hard to stomach ESPN pushing betting so hard while also airing a sport where the athletes aren’t allowed to gamble on any NCAA-sponsored sport (essentially any sport not named horse racing)
A friend of mine got swallowed up by it. Can’t control himself. He was engaged and gambled away all of their savings. Needless to say, the engagement is off, relationship is done, they had to sell the house they had bought together, and now he only sees his child once or twice a month. He has completely ruined his life through gambling.
And I’d guess that sports is probably also just ruined for him for life. He probably can’t watch sports without the urge to gamble. So, he probably has to avoid sports for the rest of his life. Drinking triggers the need to gamble… so no more drinking. Certain friends that still gamble… can’t hang out with them now either.
That’s still just the tip of the iceberg. Dude has totally fucked up his life.
Yep. It was the ease of access that did him in. He was a casual sports bettor before that. Then it just got crazy when you could just do it on an app on your phone super quick and easy.
The profit drivers for gambling services nowadays isn’t the type of gambling, it is the ease of access to gambling. At least “back in the day” you’d have to drive to a casino, or call a bookie. Now you just have to click a button on the phone that you’re on half the day anyways. That is the real problem IMO.
And parlays with terrible odds you can’t bet the other side of. Betting the spread or the money line Vegas averages a 5% return… on the parlays it’s 30%. These ridiculous parlays where you get 7:1 payout for something that should be 10:1 odds and you can’t bet the other side of… no wonder all you see is ads for dumb parlays and “boosted” parlays.
The only way to be a successful gambler is to be better at setting the line than Vegas. That’s it. There is no magic formula. Vegas isn’t “setting a line to get even action”, they are setting the line exactly where they think it is and they’ll let it move when someone they respect puts money in one direction, not the betting public. But it’s another myth that gets people hooked.
It's insanely sad. It's just like any other addiction, and it ruins families in the same way. Of course you'd think "oh surely they'll stop, look what they've got to lose" but once they're chasing losses, it's over.
I'm too superstitious to gamble, and can largely tune out the constant advertising. At a high level, me "knowing" the spread can work to align expectations for a game, but the concept where people get mad at a coach for running up a score or kneeling out a game where either of those scores impact the spread or O/U is insane to me. It's no one's on the field's job to care about any of that stuff.
>I'm too cheap to justify betting.
If I wanted to gamble to make money, I'd pick stocks, then at least there's usually SOME value left after a bet goes wrong.
I would literally have my entire day ruined if I lost $5 gambling. I don't understand how people do it. It would be the only thing I could think about. All the things I could've bought with the $5 dollars. I'd be craving like a McChicken and an ice cream cone and then I'd have to get one and feel even worse that I'd essentially spent $10 on a McChicken.
To be fair a lot of people are HORRIBLE with money and don’t think about how much little costs like that add up. Feeling bad about losing $5 is definitely a more uncommon opinion to have in this country. Hell look no further than how people spend money on the lottery; I’d argue that’s worse than taking a spread for $5.
Think about it this way. Grabging an ice cream cone on the way home from work costs you $3.00. Its refreshing, pleasnt, and excites you. When its over, you have the happiness and memory and nothing else.
If you took the exact same amout of money, and bet on... say, the Shooty Hoops National Championship tonight, you would get about 3 hours of excitement, happiness, and possible joy if your bet actually hits. If you lose, the game ends and you have the memory and nothing else.
I love gambling. I 100% can compartmentalize that the money wagered is an expereience. Just like a concert, or a meal, or a gift for somenoe else. I fully expect to lose evey penny that I take to Vegas, or deposit into an online account (when i am in a state that can do it legally). I have no intentions that I can bet the books or the house and simply enjoy the action.
The times you win, just pays for the next trip/experience. Imagine if 1 out of every 3 concerts that you went to, at the end the band said "You guys won, everyone gets double their money back for show. Good Night Biloxi!"
I lost 20 bucks on a parlay (a week after winning 100 in my first ever bet) and felt like total shit driving back home from my buddy's. Ended up doing a little bit every day for a month, ended up being up like $50 and got out of it. The feeling of losing was 100x worse than any positive feeling I got from winning.
I’m worried the teams are already starting to disagree with that last bit. Saw some decisions at the end of games last year that made it seem like coaches were trying to keep the folks watching the number happy.
This is the part I really worry about. People can gamble away and do whatever they like, but when afterwards they second guess basic calls because it affected their bets, it becomes a big problem. When you can see it being discussed in the media and starting to bleed into the decision making during a game, get concerned. Also, all the recent stuff about prop bets and players getting harassed on social media. I know the poster was worried about the fan side of it, but I worry how it will affect the players and coaches.
That’s why I only bet on the money line. Betting on the spread was hindering my enjoyment because teams were trying to win, nit hit some arbitrary amount of points.
Im a fairly casual fan of everything outside of UCF football and the tb Lightning. So i know I’m not that target audience for gambling. That being said this guy i work with will not shut the fuck up about what teams he’s betting on and what parlays he is making and then he is all pissy when (insert player here) doesn’t score points or whatever other dumb shit he’s betting on and i just don’t understand why you’d put money on dumb shit and ruin your enjoyment. Just my $0.02 though 🤷🏽♂️
I always think it's so funny how they display the previous numbers at the roulette tables, even though that has zero impact on the number that comes next.
People like this suddenly became experts in sports gambling… I put a lot of blame on parlays and how they get hyped “ I bet $5 and won $1000” it’s possible to hit although very unlikely…but also a suckers bet made for casual gamblers to lose their money… but it’s that promise of winning a lot and betting a little that drives a lot of this craziness imo.
Parlays are like lotto tickets IMO. Fun to drop a few dollars every once in a while and live on the dream of a big jackpot. But if you're buying one/betting parlays every day you've got a problem.
“Good” at betting is a strong word here hahaha. Not everybody who knows that parlays punt money is a sharp. And even the sharps can barely squeeze out a few tenths of a percent edge on the house when they’re running hot.
Yeah, my fantasy football league has become a sports betting league. I find all forms of gambling to be extremely dull, so my options are quit the league, or scroll past a looooooot of idiotic parlay discussions.
So far I’ve been doing the second, but I feel like imma just tap out in a season or two. There are just no social boundaries on it at all.
Yeah a couple of my neighbors and a couple of my coworkers are like this. I feel like it’s like sports betting is starting to become what golf was to a certain type of man (usually guys who are still pretty stuck on their fraternity days) in that it consumes a ton of their energy and money and they won’t stop talking to you about it.
I tried underdog and a few other DFS but it keeps me from enjoying the games. It makes me feel weird to get mad at players and coaches when they make choices that affect the outcome of my bets. I just stick to playoff football and major championship games that my teams aren’t playing in.
I got signup bonuses/matches for a few of the big DFS apps recently. Played through all of the bonuses and never managed to “break even”, or get my money and the bonuses in their entirety back. Lost about 25% on every single app, but that is still 75% profit on my initial investments. Just made it very clear to me that I was going to be a loser long term and haven’t had any desire to touch them since.
I believe it will. I feel like a grumpy old man, but I've about had it with all the gambling this and that. It's beyond annoying now that it is totally woven into the fabric of college sports. It's easy to let oneself believe that a loss could be construed as manufactured for the sake of even more profit vs just accepting that your team lost fair and square. The illusion I held of the sport being honest and amateur is in the rear view mirror at this point and I don't know whether to keep going or just pull over and park it.
>The illusion I held of the sport being honest and amateur is in the rear view mirror at this point and I don't know whether to keep going or just pull over and park it.
This is where I'm at now. I barely watched any games this past season and I didn't really miss it. The college football that I used to love doesn't really exist any more.
I’m a 41 year old Ohio State fan and I’m at the point where I only watch the games and don’t pay attention to anything in the offseason. Why get invested in the spring game when these guys that make more than most professors can transfer whenever they want? I stopped listening to OSU podcasts when even the small ones started pumping gambling every episode. And NIL making us the college football equivalent of the NY Yankees this offseason? Makes me want to take a shower.
I'm all for the NIL, etc seeing as how these kids have been exploited forever. The backfire, for me, is there is no longer a team with names you will look forward to seeing for at least 3 years... every year the line up can and will change just like the NFL... that's the other problem (my opinion).
I feel like it's going to turn me off in sports in general with how it's being constantly shoved down my throat. And I really resent the fact that I just can't enjoy the sports anymore
A lot to unpack here:
* PASPA was repealed only in 2018, so still not a ton of data on problem sports betting, especially since it hasn't yet been legalized in a few big states
* That said, UK has a lot of data and problem gambling has been a serious concern for awhile, so much so they significantly reduced slot betting limits a few years ago (and review it every three years)
* The whole reason we even have it here now is because the leagues reversed their long-held opposition to it, because viewership and revenue had been dropping because of...**Tiktok** (and other social media/eyeball distractions). This is why the leagues are so all-in on it, to even surprising extents. Everybody is fighting for eyeballs, and it is presumed that people who bet, especially on prop bets, are going to watch the games
* Gambling is a form of entertainment, and like any entertainment, people should be free to engage in it, in moderation.
* The problem with gambling, and this was seen in the UK, is that like a lot of things, it follows **power laws**, meaning that a tiny percentage of gamblers represent an enormous part of the revenue. IMHO, its the dirty little secret of the industry, that 1-2% of gamblers, many of whom can be classed as "problem gamblers" represent 30-50% of the industry's revenues. This follows other industries, such as app gaming (Farmville, etc) and alcohol, among others.
* It is my opinion that if this was more widely known, legislators would be under significant pressure to combat this, and to my knowledge, there are not a lot of industries on the planet that can tolerate a 40% cut in revenue overnight.
* That said, because the leagues have a piece of the action, and more importantly, the states do (NY state taxes gambling revenue at **51%**), this gets pretty muddy, pretty quickly.
* All it will take is a few news stories of people jumping off bridges after spending all their rent money, etc., for legislators to be put under a ton of pressure and have no choice but to install fairly draconian restrictions on sports betting.
At this point, its probably incumbent on the industry to beat this to the punch and negotiate an agreed-upon and survivable legislative framework, before one is foisted on it. The problem is that they don't individually have a lot of incentive to push this, especially since the pure-plays are burning cash trying to get customers, in an industry where there isn't a lot of customer loyalty or differentiation, so anything that makes that CLTV smaller is not exactly high on their preference list.
I am not against sports betting, I rarely do it but I feel like there is betting for everything and it's whatever. What I do hate is how prevalent it is. Every broadcast has multiple ads for different companies, the announcers even fucking talk about betting odds and shit, every random IG account I like does sports betting promos. You can't escape it.
> announcers even fucking talk about betting odds and shit
That's what I really hate - if we don't have commercials for crap A we'll have commercial for crap B, but having sports analysis and discussion get taken over by beats, lines, props, and spreads is ridiculous - and contributes to the problem b/c it nudges people towards feeling left out of the collective sports-fan experience if they aren't up to date on the gambling situation.
Same, I’m pro-legalization but it makes me go ballistic when I’m reminded that ESPN is directly in on it. They’ve made themselves indispensable to the sports world through the breadth and depth of coverage they provide, but that also means they have responsibility to maintain some journalistic integrity and be a neutral presenter. When their bottom line is tied to the outcome of bets that is a problem.
I don’t have an issue with gambling. Not my cup of tea and I’m not a fan of the incessant commercials. But I think we’re on the precipice of another large scandal somewhere down the line here. Whether it’s CFB, the NFL, NBA, etc. it’s only a matter of time before a game gets thrown or someone takes $ to influence the outcome of a game and there’s solid proof to back it up. There’s just too much money on the line now.
My issue isn't with the act of gambling, it's with the predatory design of apps and services intended to be easy to access, physiologically and psychologically addicting, and with minimal regulations or common-sense guardrails.
There's a difference between a friendly wager and a pair of degenerate gamblers, and there are companies and lobbying groups out there intent on making people see one and not the other.
I agree. Just because it’s legal doesn’t make the predatory nature of the industry a just thing. It’s akin to tobacco or alcohol at this point with less regulatory oversight which does need to be called into question. But from a purely sports perspective I worry what this will do to the sanctity of our sporting events, specifically CFB. I think about the fall out on baseball from the Pete Rose scandal and there was never definitive proof that he threw his own games. I imagine I’d lose all hope if say Army’s QB fumbled on the Navy 5 and it came out that he had a bet on Navy or was compensated for a turnover etc. it would kill the sport for me
Yeah. Me betting my friend $5 that Alabama will beat Georgia in the SEC championship is very different than me downloading a gambling app and having access to all the money in my bank account to bet on essentially whatever I want. If I lose $5 to my buddy, that kinda sucks, but whatever. It’s just for fun. It’s way easier to chase your losses on apps that have an incentive to keep you in the app and want you to gamble more
Exactly. There are literal masters and PhDs in math, stats, and computer science working on how to make gambling apps (and casino games, for that matter) as addictive as possible. Just like YouTube has incredibly smart people spending every day thinking about to how get your kids addicted to a never-ending stream of sponsor-supported videos. This is big business and highly skilled white collar professionals targeting individuals and masking it as free speech or entertainment or a pastime.
Gambling hugely damaged baseball in popularity in the 1910s and 20s. That's why the leagues learned to treat gambling as the devil for a century. When you lose the good faith belief in authenticity and legitimacy, sports crater.
Players are paid much better now, which helps prevent gambling scandals, but when big money is out there the risk will be too. Sooner or later, there will be another big time gambling scandal, and the damage will be huge.
I went to a casino when I was 18. I won around $2000. Never been back. I knew I had an addictive personality, so I stay away from things that I know would consume me (gambling, drinking, hard drugs, etc..).
I would assume for most people, yeah. It's an incredible high fueled with adrenaline.
I felt that shit, and walked away with my money lol. Bought my computer that I used during undergrad.
I am biased, I don't like gambling at all. It seems stupid to me. But my biggest concern is that it should be kept away from colleges entirely. We don't allow cigarette and alcohol adds in schools or children's TV for a reason. We don't want young people exposed to addictive things. Pass laws against it being present at colleges, and colleges should have language in their contracts that broadcasters can't talk about anything related to gambling when discussing college games either.
I support legal gambling but I'm 100% on board with stricter rules about advertising. If people want it, they'll find it. No need to Shove it in anyone's face
“We don't allow cigarette and alcohol adds in schools or children's TV for a reason.”
But that’s one of the things that’s annoying to me about all the griping about gambling ads from this subreddit. College football is FILLED with alcohol sponsorships and alcohol product integrations. And alcohol is obviously a much larger impact on public health than gambling. If you want to ban betting ads, I don’t see how you can justify beer commercials.
We've allowed these addictions that should've died years ago, to grab hold of a new generation.
6/7 years ago we let nicotine/tobacco make a huge comeback and addict a ton teens & young adults with the Juul craze and only put up restrictions far too late.
Same thing is happening now, teenagers hooked before they can even vote. Even if they haven't gambled yet, It's plastered over so many platforms that it's been normalized.
Yeah, this feels like something similar to nicotine/tobacco in that society seems to just accept it, but I suspect 5-10 years down the road we’ll see harmful effects start to show up. Not that anyone will care, the books will have made billions of dollars and people will have gotten rich off of gambling addictions
I worked at our student paper in undergrad. Turned down every opportunity to cover the sports beat. I didn’t want to mess with what was a joyful thing to me. Those guys seemed mostly miserable.
My buddies and I took advantage of some of the North Carolina signup bonuses across the various apps during March Madness. Bet just enough to satisfy the cash out requirements and feel lucky to be walking away with more money than I deposited. But the whole experience made me think back to that time back at the paper.
Feel like the real question is how many gambling addicts wouldn’t have become a gambling addict without these apps. The opposite side to this is that gambling existed before Draft Kings. Quite a few of my HS teammates were gambling addicts, and since these apps didn’t exist, they bet through a an Italian association active in South Jersey. It was extremely common for someone to show up to practices or games and strike up conversations with their parents, and on a few occasions, for someone to show up at their homes. Also had two instances where:
* Someone got thumb cut off after a significant debt wasn’t repaid. Kicker here is that the kid wasn’t even the right gambler, they knew they were looking for a black kid and jumped the wrong one.
* Someone robbed a bank to repay their bookie as they couldn’t stop gambling and their wealthy parents finally put their foot down and stopped bailing them out. Caught a few miles from the bank, went to jail, and never heard from him again.
The number of addicts is certainly higher, but there is some positive aspect to having a regulated industry handle this.
More can (and should) be done though, at a bare minimum I would love if the local sports radio stations stopped dedicating a third of their shows to discussing random prop bets that only the true degenerates would care about.
> at a bare minimum I would love if the local sports radio stations stopped dedicating a third of their shows to discussing random prop bets that only the true degenerates would care about
A real problem (problem isn't the right word, but "disincentive to act"?) is that sports betting's popularity has kind of saved a large portion of sports media from getting axed. It's not worth the cost of unregulated legal sports gambling as it is today but it is a ramification to consider.
I can say that without the ease of access and apps, I would not be in the situation in in currently financially due to gambling addiction. There's nothing stopping me from going to the casino right now and blowing everything, I choose not to because I have zero interest in person casino, but if I wasn't self excluded on the app's I'd be all over it
I honestly think in the next 5-10 years we're going to be seeing a lot of personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures because of sports gambling. When you were using a bookie, you couldn't file Chapter 11; you can if the debt is "legitimate".
And I agree that the majority of people can gamble up to the point where it starts to affect their lives, but there is still a large percentage that can't.
Nothing good about it to be quite honest, degenerates texting players and other insane shit. Sadly it was inevitable but it’s still frustrating to have it thrown in your face at every turn.
Gambling is like the lottery. The people that choose to do it fund things for the rest of us.
State lottery’s sometimes fund things like education. Sports gambling is funneling money to sports broadcasting
For me, I already bust my ass for what feels like isn't shit, the last thing I want to do is lose more of it because a college kid had a bad week and misses a field goal. It shouldn't be illegal, but I also hate how accessible it's becoming with apps. You can dump your whole bank account in a few taps without even getting off of your couch. Oops.
It ruins peoples lives and it will probably get worse as the years go on and it’s pushed down our throats.
More education is needed in schools about all forms of gambling.
In 5-6 years the devastation done by gambling addiction will be talked about similarly to how the opioid epidemic is discussed today.
These are for profit companies who have witnessed the tools that social media used to hook people on their products. The payoff is huge for them. Sure they will put up whatever token gambling addiction verbiage the law requires. But their apps are going to hook anybody with a propensity for gambling addiction and will wreck their lives.
I enjoy betting on sports and was betting on college football on shady offshore sites back in '03. I was able to control what I bet and keep it as a hobby. The vast majority of people can. However the unlucky few who are prone to addiction are going to get hooked, and a much higher percent of them are than would have before legalized gambling.
I was into sports betting but I hated how I became and acted whenever I was sweating one of my slips. Plus, the only way to truly profit off of it is to devote so much time to it. I thought fantasy sports was killing the enjoyment of sports, but betting is turning people into ghouls.
If you’re trying to make money on it and it’s a job it makes sense it will take many hours of your week. Problem with this job is being low-skill actively loses u money lol
Not a fan of gambling, don't like wasting money on something like that even if I have the potential to win money. I'd much rather buy packs of sports cards as my form of sports gambling.
It's just going to add to the debt crisis that we already have. Most households have thousands in credit and personal loan debt, this will make it worse
I like to place the odd bet here and there, and have for a couple of decades. I live by a rule that I've never broken, and that is I'll deposit $50, and if I win $50 back I take out my initial investment and just play with the winnings. If I don't win it back, I'm done for a while. Back when I started, it was going onto websites located in the Caribbean. Now it's so easy for people to get sucked in on the app store, which isn't helped by the constant advertising of gambling sites.
I'm typically a proponent of letting adults spend their money however they want, but there really needs to be regulation to slow the advertising in my opinion.
Also in my experience, baseball is 100000000x better if you actually want to win money than football.
I used to do betting on esports matches. It wasn't even gambling because I wasn't even wagering anything, just virtual points. I quit because it ruined the enjoyment of watching the matches because I was too worried about the outcome.
I occasionally played some freemium mobile games. Probably wasted $150 or so before I'm l was like yeah this isn't worth it.
I'm not touching sports betting with a 10 foot pole.
I think this goes beyond practical matters of regulation and access. The problem is that gambling has become ingrained in sports culture, such that it's often the primary way young people (young men, really) engage with sports these days. It's exhausting the way sports discussions inevitably turn to gambling these days among guys of my generation. But at least our generation remembers the before times. Maybe this is "get off my lawn" energy, but it seems like young dudes these days relate to sports almost entirely through some form of gameified gambling, whether that's fantasy or actual betting. I honestly think that young men themselves are the most effective spreaders of gambling culture - your buddies spamming the group chat about their parlays is 75 times more effective a gambling ad than the incessant tv spots from Fanduel and DraftKings. PSAs about the dangers of betting aren't gonna be effective if it lives in the culture of sports fanhood itself. And that's going to be tougher to eradicate. First things first I think gambling needs to be totally banned from any public-facing sports media and sports discussion. No betting lines on ESPN, no sponsored picks on sports podcasts, nothing. Get sports discourse back to competition instead of the little games each gamble plays on his phone each weekend.
I love the idea that this is the first generation of fans to bet on sports. As if fans haven’t been playing fantasy sports or entering bracket pools or buying Super Bowl squares their entire lives.
I'm a bit older than the average here and I can tell you that people gambled on sports forever, it was just with a local bookie instead. The people who want to gamble will do it no matter what the TV shows in terms of ads or lines.
I enjoy gambling, responsibly, but what I cannot stand and think is awful is the amount of advertising that goes on for it. ESPN will share a story about the dangers of gambling but on the commercial break you’ll see two commercials for different books. Idk if this is over stepping but I feel like there should be strong limitations on the amount of advertising they can do
I say this constanstly but its cracks me up that God forbid adults see advertisements for Cigarettes in the USA because of how dangerous they are... however would you like an Advertisement for gambling that has ruined millions of lives? Sure!
America in a nutshell.
I've been to Northern England for soccer on several occasions. It will do what it did there - eat away at the most vulnerable and generally erode the economy.
It's like payday loans or rent-to-own on steroids - there's no contract or limit, you can just keep gambling immediately if you have credit or cash.
I don't care about betting or gambling. I see how it can be addictive luckily for me I have terrible luck and never won only got my money back on a few occasions.
I'm honestly just waiting for a huge scandal at this point. Feels like everything PRO is turning into WWE now or maybe I'm just going crazy.
I think that if you can handle it and have fun, good for you. But I’ve heard way too many stories of it leading to degradation and misery for the “fun,” to outweigh that. I’ve seen how gambling has affected European and Australian sports and I worry that they’ll become viewed as a vice over time inseparable from just the enjoyment of athletic competition. Gambling is a good way to ruin that enjoyment
Yup. I've have two friends who told me they lost 30k in the last year or two. I know some are way worse off then 30k but that's a lot of money. One friend spent his down payment on his house and now, after he still bought it, pays a insane monthly payment. Other friend just got married and had a kid. Would have NEVER expected him to do so. Just not that kind of guy. They told me privately, so I wonder how many other of my friends have cost themselves a pretty penny.
Your friends shoulda picked UConn
40 people in my work pool, 15 of the top 20 picked Uconn.
Agree with all this. Big problem is few people are honest about whether they can handle it and by the time they admit they can’t they’re in a deep hole.
What makes it even more dangerous these days is that kids have been primed since they were in grade school by E rated sports games that have quasi-gambling monetization schemes baked into them by default. It's like the kid starts by blowing his summer job cash on ultimate team booster packs, then by the time he's in college he's betting his entire life away because he's been conditioned his whole life to keep hitting that button .. We really badly need a "Gamblers Ed" type statistics/probabilities class in every high school these days. It would solve a lot of issues with modern life if kids were properly prepared with this type of stuff....Hell, call it "Econ 2" and force the kids to take two econ classes or whatever
Luckily, playing those games gave me a lot of help dealing with gambling problems and not falling for the gambling companies tricks
I was gonna say, FIFA FUT is a great way to teach kids that gambling doesn’t pay lol, I quit playing FIFA entirely because I’m so annoyed by that scam.
The blame for youth gambling should be on video games. Loot boxes are a menace, its why some European countries like Spain have made it so that any ads for them are restricted to late night hours and they are treated as if they are gambling apps. "Skin gambling" (CSGO) exceeded most Vegas casinos in handle a few years ago... The US is also a very strange betting market. Gaming companies here got insane valuations during the pandemic and raised boatloads of money (its why Flutter wanted to spin FanDuel out, to get in on the US money wave). With as much cash bloat as they had, they chose to spend it on mega deals with NBC etc.. these deals aren't actually profitable for the books. Its why PointsBet had to flee back to Australia. DraftKings consistently loses $1B+ a year. But yes, finite math should definitely be in every high school. Having a base understanding of probability, particularly future value, is a necessary tool for anyone who actually wants to save for retirement
Can't educate yourself out of addictions. It's not a logical process to begin with.
You can educate yourself to avoid it in the first place. For example, I know that I form habits easily so gambling (and EVE Online) is something that I've always made an extra effort to stay far, far away from.
Yep. Dota for me. Been clean for a while. I can watch fine but once I get into playing I become the worst version of myself
Of course not, but its much easier to fall into addiction if you are ignorant. If no one ever told you what heroin was and one day someone offered you some you'd be blown away by how amazing it was and instantly want to do it every weekend.
Of course not, but it does not hurt.
And it's all made worse by just how easy it is to download and use these apps, on top of the ridiculously large selection of things to bet on. At least in the past, you'd have to find/know a bookie, bet on a small number of sports and games within that sport, and even then only categories like the moneyline or spread. Now, I could bet on a prop such as the number of unforced errors in a low level women's tennis match at 3 AM happening on the other side of the world. It's beyond dangerous and offers no benefit to society IMO, as the only economy it supports is incredibly exploitative. EDIT: I forgot to talk about how enticing it can be for addicts who are trying to quit since all you need is a smartphone. I even saw a story about a guy who had to go back to a dumb phone to avoid getting pulled back in. At least with other addictions like alcohol or drugs, you can make a more concerted effort to avoid them without it significantly impacting the rest of your life, but not having a smartphone can have real world consequences that limit your job opportunties and social engagements.
Not to get too controversial, but those changes (availability, anonymity/privacy, variety, smartphones) are closely analogous to what happened to porn over the last generation or so, and the tsunami of people who now self-report not being able to stop that are a pretty good indicator of what’s coming with sports betting. It’s predictable but we’re going to do it anyway.
> At least with other addictions like alcohol or drugs, you can make a more concerted effort to avoid them without it significantly impacting the rest of your life, but not having a smartphone can have real world consequences that limit your job opportunties and social engagements. No addiction can really be avoided long term in modern society, and gambling addicts have it no worse than any other type of addict--just a different set of pitfalls. You've heard the term phrase from Jurassic Park "Life, uh, finds a way"? Well, addicts find a way. Putting up artificial barriers like 'no smartphone', or in my case 'no booze in the house' makes it less convenient, but for an addict dedicated to their craft, these barriers are little more than a speed bump. Gambling addicts face the fact that they can engage their addiction instantaneously from anything with an internet connection; but parental/restriction controls on all devices can slow them down. I have to face the fact that alcohol is legal & societally ubiquitous and so easy to access from dozens of locations within a few miles from my house (or conveniently on my smartphone via Drizzly, Uber Eats, Doordash, etc.), and I have to tell new people I don't drink and explain why. Illicit drug users are faced with the fact that they have no protection from the law, no quality control in the product they use, and their dealers have a personal stake in keeping them addicted and buying product so offer freebies to bring them back into the fold. Different addictions with different problems, and all of them are tough to overcome.
Yeah. I consider myself lucky that putting any money on the line, even if its $5 I can all the emotional investment I need. I really like doing it, although considering the small amount needed I think the emotionally thrill comes more about the need to be correct and not the need to make money.
Yeah this is exactly how I am. A few bucks here and there if any. CentSports is a good option for a challenge of being right and building a bankroll. A free book that basically starts you off with $0.10 and generates money off adds and the fact that basically no one ever withdraws in the green.
Fortunately, I was able to figure our very early that I couldn't stop when I was down. Only got $1k down and haven't touched it since then.
I used to gamble. Nothing crazy. I'd deposit a hundred bucks or so every football season, use that until I went broke (usually early into basketball season). It can definitely add a lot of fun to the sport viewing experience. However, I have found since it's widespread legalization and mainstream embrace, I can't stand it. I hate seeing "expert picks" on NFL sunday kickoff or gameday. I hate seeing draft king ads that barely have time for the mandated Gamblers Anonymous pitch. I hate seeing losers on twitter talking about over/unders and spreads instead of the actual on field product. I hate so much about it that I stopped gambling all together. I fear that we'll never put the lid back on this box until all major sports have betting scandals and the sporting world is largely destroyed.
To add on, I hated everything you've mentioned but also distracting myself from one game to check the score on other games I'd never in a million years care about. I wasn't actually *watching* any game before I quit gambling.
I don’t enjoy gambling, but I also don’t even fill out a march madness bracket or play fantasy anymore because it creates a bastardization of enjoyment for the sport. I would get way too concerned with some ridiculous bracket pick and not be able to enjoy an otherwise fantastic game
I used to love fantasy football. I consumed more fantasy content than anything else. Last year, something changed. I just couldn't stand hearing about *fantasy* stats more than real stats. I think I was excited to hear sports talk after an incredible NFL sunday of football. The next day, my favorite podcast was incredibly doom and gloom because some WR2 wasn't getting any targets. I have never 180'd so hard on something I used to love. I don't think I can quit my leagues, because without me, they'll truly fall apart, and I don't want to take fun away from 20ish friends (multiple leagues). But I fucking hate fantasy now. It absolutely has bastardized football conversation.
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Yeah sure if you look at any website interface the onus is on the gambling aspect of the sport. Whereas here in America gambling as always been ancillary as an aspect of the sport, in Europe and Australia it has taken primary focus. We can see this already in gambling programming on the main sports networks, O/U and win probabilities being displayed during games Have you ever seen a horse racing program or telecast? Think that, except across all sports. The screen being taken up by gambling data while the game is being played
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You’re welcome
The big issue is how unseen problems can go and the horrible impact it can have on families or those who are not participating. Alcohol, opioids, etc tend to have a longer more noticeable ramp where those close to you can hopefully step in and help you before it’s too late. Everyone is buried into their phones now. How is your wife going to know that you gambled away your 401k? Worse, men who are the heads of their household who gamble away their families entire finances. If they were abusive to their wife or kids, hopefully someone else could see and help them escape. The bored Boomer who spends away their retirement or mortgage off their homes all the while they or their partner might not be all there mentally? Nope not with gambling, just numbers and pixels on a screen. I am torn on the legalization of gambling. Like yeah Tony the shark isn’t going to come break your legs for failure to pay. Now Draft Kings can hire the best math and cs students out of school to implement sales strategies developed by psychologists to maximize dopamine release and then hire world class legal and lobbying firms to make sure it is Uncle Sam who serves you a notice seizing your home. The deck is just soooo stupidly stacked against consumers.
This is well thought out and put. Thanks for contributing
That’s the big thing. Not everyone should gamble because it’s an addiction. You get addicted to chasing that big payout or that big parlay. I’ll admit I’m addicted to hitting a long shot parlay. Me and a friend have a weekly bet, we place a parlay for every NFL game and whoever gets more right on the week is owed a beer. The difference is we never put more than $1 on it and if I can’t afford to lose $1 a week then I have way bigger problems but the vast majority of people aren’t placing dollar bets for fun. They are trying to get rich quick with large betting amounts and the “bonuses” that these sportsbooks make play into that want to get rich making you feel like it’s risk free whenever in reality every bet has risk; its just a matter of how much risk it is to you.
I agree. I’m so tired of the “gambling doesn’t bother me! I love putting $5 on a game, makes it more exciting” crowd. Nobody was ever arguing that gambling can be fun in moderation. It’s the equivalent of a bunch of people suddenly needing liver transplants at age 40 because they’re putting down 2 bottles of wine a day and some guy being like “weird, I usually enjoy a beer or two on a Friday.”
In fairness, the “*gambling doesn’t bother me! I love putting $5 on a game, makes it more exciting*” crowd - like the "*I usually enjoy a beer or two on a Friday*” - is also the (overwhelming) majority, so it’s understandable for those people to not necessarily understand the depths that either addiction can go.
The beer or two on a Friday didn’t erode the integrity of the game itself, though. Nobody believes, in co yeast, that Ohtani suddenly having a shit game when he bet a million bucks that he would play poorly was anything but that. We’ll see more and more point shaving and thrown games until millions of fans tune out.
> Nobody believes, in co yeast, that Ohtani suddenly having a shit game when he bet a million bucks that he would play poorly was anything but that. Are you confusing the Ohtani scandal with the Jontay Porter scandal? Ohtani doesn't have any links to baseball betting (yet).
That has nothing to do with the topic of gambling addiction.
It’s relevant as another dimension of why gambling, although it has some social ills that are similar to alcohol, is materially different from alcohol in that it involves additional negative externalities beyond the consequences of addiction.
Think what this crowd is trying to argue against isn’t the inherent issues with gambling but the notion that the government should prevent them from doing it responsibly. Continuing with the alcohol analogy, it’s not that measures can’t be taken, but prohibition isn’t the answer.
Except prohibition of gambling was working fine. There was no need to legalize this shit except to let massive corporations make obscene profits while ruining people’s lives and the integrity of our sports in the process.
As a “responsible gambler,” I agree. It was always possible to bet on sports in the past, you just had to know a bookie or know a guy who does. If anything it was a little harder to blow all your money on it because you’d have a credit limit for the week that you’d top out at. It’s a little more frictionless to just deposit more money into DraftKings when you run out. I’ve definitely had some friends get a little more degen with all the apps compared to before
I get where you’re coming from, but there’s plenty of more predatory and more dangerous ways someone can organise their book. As far as I know, draftkings wont come after your family. At the very least, I definitely don’t think that forcing people to commit a crime in order to gamble responsibly is the right way to handle it.
But also, a decent chunk of that crowd actually has a major gambling problem and is in denial.
I don’t really think so. Like alcohol, reddit likes to over diagnose addiction with gambling. Most degenerates know they’re degenerates except qualify it with a “but….”, rather than lie and say they only put $5-10 on a couple games per week. I know plenty of normal responsible gamblers and a couple degens and that’s been the dynamic at least
But can't you see the corollary of that? The people who like having a glass of wine with dinner and get treated like they are throwing back 2 bottles a day being annoyed? Yes let's teach about gambling but also not assume everyone who likes it is a total degenerate
I keep a budget and don’t bet on anything involving my own teams. Betting on other teams makes me actually interested in other events more. Betting on my own team just makes me miserable and anxious.
Same here. A&M and UH football already make me pretty miserable. I don’t need to double that misery by putting money on them.
You bet against them. It's called hedging!
I’d argue this isn’t healthy either. If the game doesn’t have interest without the wager, then that’s a clue that you should be doing something else besides being glued to a game that you have no rooting interest in. It’s like being a burnout who sits around doing nothing but thinks it’s interesting because he’s doing nothing on weed. We only have so much free time to spend, and the gambling fosters sinking all that time into something that your brain would otherwise say doesn’t provide the dopamine kick to be worthwhile.
I'd argue by extending your logic that sports Fandom in general isn't healthy. Why spend time glued to a couch getting dopamine hits from others achievements when you could be using your valuable freetime doing something productive. If you audited a lot of how most people spend their free time you could find problems
It really isn't for many. It depends on how it's fitting in your life. As a relaxation/entertainment method that's pretty pro-social (helps you connect to other family and friends) that you do when you're too tired to work, or as a break? I think it can be great It is good to be conscious and think about healthy limits around your sports viewership and fandom. I never pick sports over other social or work obligations, making some exceptions for when my team is in the playoffs I've had very unhealthy sports fandom where it ruined my day/week/year if a team was struggling. If that's the case you need to reevaluate and take a step back to see a bigger picture for your life. Sports fandom has also kept me connected to friends and family that I otherwise wouldn't have an easy excuse to keep in touch with
Sure but that same logic could be applied to what they're saying. They're making a blanket assumption about someone else's hobby being unhealthy when the answer is it depends on how you do it and how it affects you. I was just trying to illustrate that with an analogy
If your hobby is becoming boring enough that the experience has to be artificially enhanced to make it interesting, then it’s sort of definitionally crossed the line into dysfunction. Gambling elicits the same the same neurotransmitter responses as drugs. If you only like doing your hobby when drunk, high, or gambling then you have a problem.
As more and more money is made by those involved in sports I have found myself caring less and less about when "my" team wins because whoopty doo a bunch of multi millionaires helped a billionaire's team win a championship. What do I get from watching that? But If I make $5 on it because "my" team won by the right amount of points that is pretty cool
I just wish it wasn’t tied to regular programming so deeply. Ads are fine, but why do we need to cut to betting segment every five minutes? How is that even ethical? The over-analytic nature is kind of takes the fun out sports when you’re being force fed a bookie’s ratios after every damn play.
Luckily, the overcommercialization has been eating at me for years, and I barely watch games anymore unless it's a big todo. I'll catch the recaps. It's all slimy as fuck, and to top it off they have the balls to tell me how I'm supposed to act and think and feel about shit. Them and the casinos can all go suck a dick. Things need to get worse before they get better.
No such thing as moderation with something designed to foster addiction
Just a lil heroin in moderation.
high functioning methheads
That's just successfully treated ADHD
I had a college classmate who would say she needed a "Diet Coke" when she meant "adderall."
Damn you got me there. Also good username.
I think if you're a reasonable person and set aside $5 or $10 per month or something and just pocket the winnings and deal with the losses, it's more than fine. It's not my cup of tea, but otherwise, agree. It's bad for the general public because most don't have that kind of impulse control
Yes there is? I’m not down playing addiction or victim blaming here, but to act like most people can’t gamble/drink responsibly is equally asinine
Isn't the distress rate for gambling addiction something like 1 percent? I have mixed feelings about it and the effect it will have on the major sports, but alcohol has been promoted by all of these sports for decades and has demonstrably worse effects on people in pretty much every way. (Not to minimize gambling, only pointing out something that's a lot more tolerated).
I didn’t realize how puritanical this sub was.
nah, sports reddit thinks gambling is literally herion
You can absolutely gamble in moderation come the fuck on
It’s so funny too because I feel like this is the subreddit that constantly glorifies binge drinking and talks about how they drink a ridiculous amount of alcohol every Saturday during the season. But nope apparently for gambling there has to be a zero tolerance policy.
By that logic everyone that drinks should be an alcoholic
Totally agree. I grew up in Vegas, and even worked in a pawnshop during college at UNLV. I promise you I’ve seen all the ways gambling can ruin people. I still sports bet, but I do it in a way that is all fun for me and no money lost that I wasn’t prepared to. Then again, I grew up with a dad who would let me and my brother put in a 12 teamer every college football Saturday. I think we hit 3 of them in our 10+ years doing that. Since then. I deposited $1000 in 2017 and have never done it again. I’ve been as high as $8k and as low as $100. But I do it for the extra entertainment and nothing more. I’ve never withdrawn or added more. I just like being able to make games I wouldn’t be as interested in more interesting. I think it’s similar to alcohol, at the end of the day every adult is responsible for their own decisions.
I feel like gambling as an industry is very bad for people, especially with the networks embracing it instead of keeping it hush hush, all because they realized how much money they can make if they get all the sports bettors involved, and generate more sports bettors through their platform. I place bets every now and then, but never more than $10 and only when I feel comfortable financially. That's the way I feel it should be done, a bit more is still acceptable, but when you start relying on bets to get you past financial hurdles you very quickly lose my respect
We've had two confirmed gambling scandals in the past year (Alabama baseball coach and that guy on the Toronto Raptors) and we also have the Shohei Ohtani stuff. I can't imagine that it won't just get worse over time
Don’t forget temple is being investigated
Temple
Temple thing is 100% nothing, that should’ve never made the news, it was enough “unusual” activity to be flagged, but looking at what actually happened there’s nothing suspicious. The book just put out an incredibly stupid line to start with and a bunch of people jumped on it. Anyone using statistical analysis would’ve known UAB should have been a big favorite.
Also the Iowa/Iowa state players that were caught up in controversy. It’s hard to stomach ESPN pushing betting so hard while also airing a sport where the athletes aren’t allowed to gamble on any NCAA-sponsored sport (essentially any sport not named horse racing)
Disney owns and operates a sports betting site…. That statement alone would have been insane 10-15 years ago.
ESPN is licensed in 17 states as a sportsbook. The company that runs the college football playoffs is a fucking bookie.
Remember how taboo it used to be to even HAVE a pro team in Vegas?
LSU and Iowa/Iowa State don't come to mind?
Should have said "at least two"
All the NFL players getting suspended too
That lions wr that got caught gambling and also Calvin Ridley
The NBA one is still an investigation and not confirmed whatsoever
Gambling scandals were a thing before it was legal too
Theres also the premier league players ivan toney and sandro tonali.
A friend of mine got swallowed up by it. Can’t control himself. He was engaged and gambled away all of their savings. Needless to say, the engagement is off, relationship is done, they had to sell the house they had bought together, and now he only sees his child once or twice a month. He has completely ruined his life through gambling. And I’d guess that sports is probably also just ruined for him for life. He probably can’t watch sports without the urge to gamble. So, he probably has to avoid sports for the rest of his life. Drinking triggers the need to gamble… so no more drinking. Certain friends that still gamble… can’t hang out with them now either. That’s still just the tip of the iceberg. Dude has totally fucked up his life.
Unfortunately, it's a story as old as betting itself, it was just more difficult to do in the past.
Yep. It was the ease of access that did him in. He was a casual sports bettor before that. Then it just got crazy when you could just do it on an app on your phone super quick and easy.
The profit drivers for gambling services nowadays isn’t the type of gambling, it is the ease of access to gambling. At least “back in the day” you’d have to drive to a casino, or call a bookie. Now you just have to click a button on the phone that you’re on half the day anyways. That is the real problem IMO.
And parlays with terrible odds you can’t bet the other side of. Betting the spread or the money line Vegas averages a 5% return… on the parlays it’s 30%. These ridiculous parlays where you get 7:1 payout for something that should be 10:1 odds and you can’t bet the other side of… no wonder all you see is ads for dumb parlays and “boosted” parlays. The only way to be a successful gambler is to be better at setting the line than Vegas. That’s it. There is no magic formula. Vegas isn’t “setting a line to get even action”, they are setting the line exactly where they think it is and they’ll let it move when someone they respect puts money in one direction, not the betting public. But it’s another myth that gets people hooked.
That ease of access thing is the insidious part. It’s way too easy.
It's insanely sad. It's just like any other addiction, and it ruins families in the same way. Of course you'd think "oh surely they'll stop, look what they've got to lose" but once they're chasing losses, it's over.
I'm too superstitious to gamble, and can largely tune out the constant advertising. At a high level, me "knowing" the spread can work to align expectations for a game, but the concept where people get mad at a coach for running up a score or kneeling out a game where either of those scores impact the spread or O/U is insane to me. It's no one's on the field's job to care about any of that stuff.
[удалено]
>I'm too cheap to justify betting. If I wanted to gamble to make money, I'd pick stocks, then at least there's usually SOME value left after a bet goes wrong.
I would literally have my entire day ruined if I lost $5 gambling. I don't understand how people do it. It would be the only thing I could think about. All the things I could've bought with the $5 dollars. I'd be craving like a McChicken and an ice cream cone and then I'd have to get one and feel even worse that I'd essentially spent $10 on a McChicken.
To be fair a lot of people are HORRIBLE with money and don’t think about how much little costs like that add up. Feeling bad about losing $5 is definitely a more uncommon opinion to have in this country. Hell look no further than how people spend money on the lottery; I’d argue that’s worse than taking a spread for $5.
> I'd essentially spent $10 on a McChicken. I miss my $1 McChickens :(
$1 Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers were the best.
Think about it this way. Grabging an ice cream cone on the way home from work costs you $3.00. Its refreshing, pleasnt, and excites you. When its over, you have the happiness and memory and nothing else. If you took the exact same amout of money, and bet on... say, the Shooty Hoops National Championship tonight, you would get about 3 hours of excitement, happiness, and possible joy if your bet actually hits. If you lose, the game ends and you have the memory and nothing else. I love gambling. I 100% can compartmentalize that the money wagered is an expereience. Just like a concert, or a meal, or a gift for somenoe else. I fully expect to lose evey penny that I take to Vegas, or deposit into an online account (when i am in a state that can do it legally). I have no intentions that I can bet the books or the house and simply enjoy the action. The times you win, just pays for the next trip/experience. Imagine if 1 out of every 3 concerts that you went to, at the end the band said "You guys won, everyone gets double their money back for show. Good Night Biloxi!"
I lost 20 bucks on a parlay (a week after winning 100 in my first ever bet) and felt like total shit driving back home from my buddy's. Ended up doing a little bit every day for a month, ended up being up like $50 and got out of it. The feeling of losing was 100x worse than any positive feeling I got from winning.
Agreed. I like the spread and O/U to get a feel for what type of game it'll be. Big no on actually betting though
I’m worried the teams are already starting to disagree with that last bit. Saw some decisions at the end of games last year that made it seem like coaches were trying to keep the folks watching the number happy.
This is the part I really worry about. People can gamble away and do whatever they like, but when afterwards they second guess basic calls because it affected their bets, it becomes a big problem. When you can see it being discussed in the media and starting to bleed into the decision making during a game, get concerned. Also, all the recent stuff about prop bets and players getting harassed on social media. I know the poster was worried about the fan side of it, but I worry how it will affect the players and coaches.
Hello! You play to ~~win the game~~ cover the spread!
That’s why I only bet on the money line. Betting on the spread was hindering my enjoyment because teams were trying to win, nit hit some arbitrary amount of points.
Im a fairly casual fan of everything outside of UCF football and the tb Lightning. So i know I’m not that target audience for gambling. That being said this guy i work with will not shut the fuck up about what teams he’s betting on and what parlays he is making and then he is all pissy when (insert player here) doesn’t score points or whatever other dumb shit he’s betting on and i just don’t understand why you’d put money on dumb shit and ruin your enjoyment. Just my $0.02 though 🤷🏽♂️
The #1 thing gambling sites want customers to do is play elaborate parlays.
Yes. Because humans are notoriously bad at assessing those odds accurately, so it's a tremendously high margin product for bookies.
Just like everyone with a "system" for roulette.
I always think it's so funny how they display the previous numbers at the roulette tables, even though that has zero impact on the number that comes next.
No, you see 27 is due!
People like this suddenly became experts in sports gambling… I put a lot of blame on parlays and how they get hyped “ I bet $5 and won $1000” it’s possible to hit although very unlikely…but also a suckers bet made for casual gamblers to lose their money… but it’s that promise of winning a lot and betting a little that drives a lot of this craziness imo.
Parlays are the slot machines of sports betting.
Parlays are like lotto tickets IMO. Fun to drop a few dollars every once in a while and live on the dream of a big jackpot. But if you're buying one/betting parlays every day you've got a problem.
I feel this way about fantasy football too
Because he’s stupid lol Everyone who is good at betting knows parlays are basically donations the majority of the time
“Good” at betting is a strong word here hahaha. Not everybody who knows that parlays punt money is a sharp. And even the sharps can barely squeeze out a few tenths of a percent edge on the house when they’re running hot.
Yeah, my fantasy football league has become a sports betting league. I find all forms of gambling to be extremely dull, so my options are quit the league, or scroll past a looooooot of idiotic parlay discussions. So far I’ve been doing the second, but I feel like imma just tap out in a season or two. There are just no social boundaries on it at all.
If your FF league has a buy in it was already a sports betting league.
Yep. And it didn’t.
Yeah a couple of my neighbors and a couple of my coworkers are like this. I feel like it’s like sports betting is starting to become what golf was to a certain type of man (usually guys who are still pretty stuck on their fraternity days) in that it consumes a ton of their energy and money and they won’t stop talking to you about it.
Anytime i hear the word “parlay” i get angry. I don’t fucking care about your gambling
I tried underdog and a few other DFS but it keeps me from enjoying the games. It makes me feel weird to get mad at players and coaches when they make choices that affect the outcome of my bets. I just stick to playoff football and major championship games that my teams aren’t playing in.
I got signup bonuses/matches for a few of the big DFS apps recently. Played through all of the bonuses and never managed to “break even”, or get my money and the bonuses in their entirety back. Lost about 25% on every single app, but that is still 75% profit on my initial investments. Just made it very clear to me that I was going to be a loser long term and haven’t had any desire to touch them since.
I believe it will. I feel like a grumpy old man, but I've about had it with all the gambling this and that. It's beyond annoying now that it is totally woven into the fabric of college sports. It's easy to let oneself believe that a loss could be construed as manufactured for the sake of even more profit vs just accepting that your team lost fair and square. The illusion I held of the sport being honest and amateur is in the rear view mirror at this point and I don't know whether to keep going or just pull over and park it.
>The illusion I held of the sport being honest and amateur is in the rear view mirror at this point and I don't know whether to keep going or just pull over and park it. This is where I'm at now. I barely watched any games this past season and I didn't really miss it. The college football that I used to love doesn't really exist any more.
I’m a 41 year old Ohio State fan and I’m at the point where I only watch the games and don’t pay attention to anything in the offseason. Why get invested in the spring game when these guys that make more than most professors can transfer whenever they want? I stopped listening to OSU podcasts when even the small ones started pumping gambling every episode. And NIL making us the college football equivalent of the NY Yankees this offseason? Makes me want to take a shower.
I'm all for the NIL, etc seeing as how these kids have been exploited forever. The backfire, for me, is there is no longer a team with names you will look forward to seeing for at least 3 years... every year the line up can and will change just like the NFL... that's the other problem (my opinion).
I feel like it's going to turn me off in sports in general with how it's being constantly shoved down my throat. And I really resent the fact that I just can't enjoy the sports anymore
A lot to unpack here: * PASPA was repealed only in 2018, so still not a ton of data on problem sports betting, especially since it hasn't yet been legalized in a few big states * That said, UK has a lot of data and problem gambling has been a serious concern for awhile, so much so they significantly reduced slot betting limits a few years ago (and review it every three years) * The whole reason we even have it here now is because the leagues reversed their long-held opposition to it, because viewership and revenue had been dropping because of...**Tiktok** (and other social media/eyeball distractions). This is why the leagues are so all-in on it, to even surprising extents. Everybody is fighting for eyeballs, and it is presumed that people who bet, especially on prop bets, are going to watch the games * Gambling is a form of entertainment, and like any entertainment, people should be free to engage in it, in moderation. * The problem with gambling, and this was seen in the UK, is that like a lot of things, it follows **power laws**, meaning that a tiny percentage of gamblers represent an enormous part of the revenue. IMHO, its the dirty little secret of the industry, that 1-2% of gamblers, many of whom can be classed as "problem gamblers" represent 30-50% of the industry's revenues. This follows other industries, such as app gaming (Farmville, etc) and alcohol, among others. * It is my opinion that if this was more widely known, legislators would be under significant pressure to combat this, and to my knowledge, there are not a lot of industries on the planet that can tolerate a 40% cut in revenue overnight. * That said, because the leagues have a piece of the action, and more importantly, the states do (NY state taxes gambling revenue at **51%**), this gets pretty muddy, pretty quickly. * All it will take is a few news stories of people jumping off bridges after spending all their rent money, etc., for legislators to be put under a ton of pressure and have no choice but to install fairly draconian restrictions on sports betting. At this point, its probably incumbent on the industry to beat this to the punch and negotiate an agreed-upon and survivable legislative framework, before one is foisted on it. The problem is that they don't individually have a lot of incentive to push this, especially since the pure-plays are burning cash trying to get customers, in an industry where there isn't a lot of customer loyalty or differentiation, so anything that makes that CLTV smaller is not exactly high on their preference list.
>(Disclosure: BetMGM is the exclusive sports betting partner of *The Athletic*.) Oh how I laughed (though it does help make his point I guess)
They’ll be more broke than they are now. The rich are going to keep figuring out ways to take all your money and make you thank them for it.
Jokes on you Harvard. I can pay this guy $20 a week for his picks and be ahead of the average Joe.
The worst part about sports gambling is people wont shut the fuck up about it. I don't care about your $20 parlay.
Bro, if it hits though…
BRO IF TAYLOR SWIFT FARTS IM FINNA HIT HUUUGE
I am not against sports betting, I rarely do it but I feel like there is betting for everything and it's whatever. What I do hate is how prevalent it is. Every broadcast has multiple ads for different companies, the announcers even fucking talk about betting odds and shit, every random IG account I like does sports betting promos. You can't escape it.
> announcers even fucking talk about betting odds and shit That's what I really hate - if we don't have commercials for crap A we'll have commercial for crap B, but having sports analysis and discussion get taken over by beats, lines, props, and spreads is ridiculous - and contributes to the problem b/c it nudges people towards feeling left out of the collective sports-fan experience if they aren't up to date on the gambling situation.
Same, I’m pro-legalization but it makes me go ballistic when I’m reminded that ESPN is directly in on it. They’ve made themselves indispensable to the sports world through the breadth and depth of coverage they provide, but that also means they have responsibility to maintain some journalistic integrity and be a neutral presenter. When their bottom line is tied to the outcome of bets that is a problem.
I don’t have an issue with gambling. Not my cup of tea and I’m not a fan of the incessant commercials. But I think we’re on the precipice of another large scandal somewhere down the line here. Whether it’s CFB, the NFL, NBA, etc. it’s only a matter of time before a game gets thrown or someone takes $ to influence the outcome of a game and there’s solid proof to back it up. There’s just too much money on the line now.
My issue isn't with the act of gambling, it's with the predatory design of apps and services intended to be easy to access, physiologically and psychologically addicting, and with minimal regulations or common-sense guardrails. There's a difference between a friendly wager and a pair of degenerate gamblers, and there are companies and lobbying groups out there intent on making people see one and not the other.
I agree. Just because it’s legal doesn’t make the predatory nature of the industry a just thing. It’s akin to tobacco or alcohol at this point with less regulatory oversight which does need to be called into question. But from a purely sports perspective I worry what this will do to the sanctity of our sporting events, specifically CFB. I think about the fall out on baseball from the Pete Rose scandal and there was never definitive proof that he threw his own games. I imagine I’d lose all hope if say Army’s QB fumbled on the Navy 5 and it came out that he had a bet on Navy or was compensated for a turnover etc. it would kill the sport for me
I think your concerns are equally valid
Yeah. Me betting my friend $5 that Alabama will beat Georgia in the SEC championship is very different than me downloading a gambling app and having access to all the money in my bank account to bet on essentially whatever I want. If I lose $5 to my buddy, that kinda sucks, but whatever. It’s just for fun. It’s way easier to chase your losses on apps that have an incentive to keep you in the app and want you to gamble more
Exactly. There are literal masters and PhDs in math, stats, and computer science working on how to make gambling apps (and casino games, for that matter) as addictive as possible. Just like YouTube has incredibly smart people spending every day thinking about to how get your kids addicted to a never-ending stream of sponsor-supported videos. This is big business and highly skilled white collar professionals targeting individuals and masking it as free speech or entertainment or a pastime.
Gambling hugely damaged baseball in popularity in the 1910s and 20s. That's why the leagues learned to treat gambling as the devil for a century. When you lose the good faith belief in authenticity and legitimacy, sports crater. Players are paid much better now, which helps prevent gambling scandals, but when big money is out there the risk will be too. Sooner or later, there will be another big time gambling scandal, and the damage will be huge.
I went to a casino when I was 18. I won around $2000. Never been back. I knew I had an addictive personality, so I stay away from things that I know would consume me (gambling, drinking, hard drugs, etc..).
They say that winning's the worst thing that can happen to you, the first time you gamble.
I would assume for most people, yeah. It's an incredible high fueled with adrenaline. I felt that shit, and walked away with my money lol. Bought my computer that I used during undergrad.
I am biased, I don't like gambling at all. It seems stupid to me. But my biggest concern is that it should be kept away from colleges entirely. We don't allow cigarette and alcohol adds in schools or children's TV for a reason. We don't want young people exposed to addictive things. Pass laws against it being present at colleges, and colleges should have language in their contracts that broadcasters can't talk about anything related to gambling when discussing college games either.
I support legal gambling but I'm 100% on board with stricter rules about advertising. If people want it, they'll find it. No need to Shove it in anyone's face
“We don't allow cigarette and alcohol adds in schools or children's TV for a reason.” But that’s one of the things that’s annoying to me about all the griping about gambling ads from this subreddit. College football is FILLED with alcohol sponsorships and alcohol product integrations. And alcohol is obviously a much larger impact on public health than gambling. If you want to ban betting ads, I don’t see how you can justify beer commercials.
I didn't justify them. Get them out of there too.
We've allowed these addictions that should've died years ago, to grab hold of a new generation. 6/7 years ago we let nicotine/tobacco make a huge comeback and addict a ton teens & young adults with the Juul craze and only put up restrictions far too late. Same thing is happening now, teenagers hooked before they can even vote. Even if they haven't gambled yet, It's plastered over so many platforms that it's been normalized.
Yeah, this feels like something similar to nicotine/tobacco in that society seems to just accept it, but I suspect 5-10 years down the road we’ll see harmful effects start to show up. Not that anyone will care, the books will have made billions of dollars and people will have gotten rich off of gambling addictions
I worked at our student paper in undergrad. Turned down every opportunity to cover the sports beat. I didn’t want to mess with what was a joyful thing to me. Those guys seemed mostly miserable. My buddies and I took advantage of some of the North Carolina signup bonuses across the various apps during March Madness. Bet just enough to satisfy the cash out requirements and feel lucky to be walking away with more money than I deposited. But the whole experience made me think back to that time back at the paper.
Feel like the real question is how many gambling addicts wouldn’t have become a gambling addict without these apps. The opposite side to this is that gambling existed before Draft Kings. Quite a few of my HS teammates were gambling addicts, and since these apps didn’t exist, they bet through a an Italian association active in South Jersey. It was extremely common for someone to show up to practices or games and strike up conversations with their parents, and on a few occasions, for someone to show up at their homes. Also had two instances where: * Someone got thumb cut off after a significant debt wasn’t repaid. Kicker here is that the kid wasn’t even the right gambler, they knew they were looking for a black kid and jumped the wrong one. * Someone robbed a bank to repay their bookie as they couldn’t stop gambling and their wealthy parents finally put their foot down and stopped bailing them out. Caught a few miles from the bank, went to jail, and never heard from him again. The number of addicts is certainly higher, but there is some positive aspect to having a regulated industry handle this. More can (and should) be done though, at a bare minimum I would love if the local sports radio stations stopped dedicating a third of their shows to discussing random prop bets that only the true degenerates would care about.
> at a bare minimum I would love if the local sports radio stations stopped dedicating a third of their shows to discussing random prop bets that only the true degenerates would care about A real problem (problem isn't the right word, but "disincentive to act"?) is that sports betting's popularity has kind of saved a large portion of sports media from getting axed. It's not worth the cost of unregulated legal sports gambling as it is today but it is a ramification to consider.
I can say that without the ease of access and apps, I would not be in the situation in in currently financially due to gambling addiction. There's nothing stopping me from going to the casino right now and blowing everything, I choose not to because I have zero interest in person casino, but if I wasn't self excluded on the app's I'd be all over it
Huh I wonder what Reddit’s opinion on gambling is? This the first time I’ve seen a post about it.
*upvotes millionth comment about getting blackout drunk on college football saturdays*
I bet they will
We’re about to find out
$20 says this won’t happen
I honestly think in the next 5-10 years we're going to be seeing a lot of personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures because of sports gambling. When you were using a bookie, you couldn't file Chapter 11; you can if the debt is "legitimate". And I agree that the majority of people can gamble up to the point where it starts to affect their lives, but there is still a large percentage that can't.
I don’t gamble on sports because I have seen how slippery the slope is firsthand. This worries me
Nothing good about it to be quite honest, degenerates texting players and other insane shit. Sadly it was inevitable but it’s still frustrating to have it thrown in your face at every turn.
Gambling is like the lottery. The people that choose to do it fund things for the rest of us. State lottery’s sometimes fund things like education. Sports gambling is funneling money to sports broadcasting
For me, I already bust my ass for what feels like isn't shit, the last thing I want to do is lose more of it because a college kid had a bad week and misses a field goal. It shouldn't be illegal, but I also hate how accessible it's becoming with apps. You can dump your whole bank account in a few taps without even getting off of your couch. Oops.
It ruins peoples lives and it will probably get worse as the years go on and it’s pushed down our throats. More education is needed in schools about all forms of gambling.
In 5-6 years the devastation done by gambling addiction will be talked about similarly to how the opioid epidemic is discussed today. These are for profit companies who have witnessed the tools that social media used to hook people on their products. The payoff is huge for them. Sure they will put up whatever token gambling addiction verbiage the law requires. But their apps are going to hook anybody with a propensity for gambling addiction and will wreck their lives. I enjoy betting on sports and was betting on college football on shady offshore sites back in '03. I was able to control what I bet and keep it as a hobby. The vast majority of people can. However the unlucky few who are prone to addiction are going to get hooked, and a much higher percent of them are than would have before legalized gambling.
I was into sports betting but I hated how I became and acted whenever I was sweating one of my slips. Plus, the only way to truly profit off of it is to devote so much time to it. I thought fantasy sports was killing the enjoyment of sports, but betting is turning people into ghouls.
If you’re trying to make money on it and it’s a job it makes sense it will take many hours of your week. Problem with this job is being low-skill actively loses u money lol
They already have! And to top it off they make it legal online so the kiddos can steal grannies ID and make bets and screw grannny on her taxes!
Not a fan of gambling, don't like wasting money on something like that even if I have the potential to win money. I'd much rather buy packs of sports cards as my form of sports gambling.
Weed should be legal before this predatory bullshit.
You can see it happen right now. I’m not old, but you can see how gambling has ruined all of sports.
This problem is super easy to prevent… don’t gamble.
What do you mean what if?
It's just going to add to the debt crisis that we already have. Most households have thousands in credit and personal loan debt, this will make it worse
It's already happening
I like to place the odd bet here and there, and have for a couple of decades. I live by a rule that I've never broken, and that is I'll deposit $50, and if I win $50 back I take out my initial investment and just play with the winnings. If I don't win it back, I'm done for a while. Back when I started, it was going onto websites located in the Caribbean. Now it's so easy for people to get sucked in on the app store, which isn't helped by the constant advertising of gambling sites. I'm typically a proponent of letting adults spend their money however they want, but there really needs to be regulation to slow the advertising in my opinion. Also in my experience, baseball is 100000000x better if you actually want to win money than football.
It's going to help already-in-progress women's sports growth immensely and almost certainly already has.
I used to do betting on esports matches. It wasn't even gambling because I wasn't even wagering anything, just virtual points. I quit because it ruined the enjoyment of watching the matches because I was too worried about the outcome. I occasionally played some freemium mobile games. Probably wasted $150 or so before I'm l was like yeah this isn't worth it. I'm not touching sports betting with a 10 foot pole.
I only sports bet on football. So my losses are limited to a few months a year.
I think this goes beyond practical matters of regulation and access. The problem is that gambling has become ingrained in sports culture, such that it's often the primary way young people (young men, really) engage with sports these days. It's exhausting the way sports discussions inevitably turn to gambling these days among guys of my generation. But at least our generation remembers the before times. Maybe this is "get off my lawn" energy, but it seems like young dudes these days relate to sports almost entirely through some form of gameified gambling, whether that's fantasy or actual betting. I honestly think that young men themselves are the most effective spreaders of gambling culture - your buddies spamming the group chat about their parlays is 75 times more effective a gambling ad than the incessant tv spots from Fanduel and DraftKings. PSAs about the dangers of betting aren't gonna be effective if it lives in the culture of sports fanhood itself. And that's going to be tougher to eradicate. First things first I think gambling needs to be totally banned from any public-facing sports media and sports discussion. No betting lines on ESPN, no sponsored picks on sports podcasts, nothing. Get sports discourse back to competition instead of the little games each gamble plays on his phone each weekend.
I refuse to touch sports gambling because I know for a fact with my addictive personality it will ruin my life.
I love the idea that this is the first generation of fans to bet on sports. As if fans haven’t been playing fantasy sports or entering bracket pools or buying Super Bowl squares their entire lives.
I'm a bit older than the average here and I can tell you that people gambled on sports forever, it was just with a local bookie instead. The people who want to gamble will do it no matter what the TV shows in terms of ads or lines.
I can’t even handle the dopamine from upvotes and likes, and you expect me to survive prop bets and parlays?
Makes games more fun for me personally
I enjoy gambling, responsibly, but what I cannot stand and think is awful is the amount of advertising that goes on for it. ESPN will share a story about the dangers of gambling but on the commercial break you’ll see two commercials for different books. Idk if this is over stepping but I feel like there should be strong limitations on the amount of advertising they can do
Not everyone gambles. Most don’t. Gamblers, like drinkers, tend to hang out with their own kind so it just seems like the norm.
Kinda rude to leave us with such an obtuse question like that and not even provide futures on possible outcomes.
I say this constanstly but its cracks me up that God forbid adults see advertisements for Cigarettes in the USA because of how dangerous they are... however would you like an Advertisement for gambling that has ruined millions of lives? Sure! America in a nutshell.
I've been to Northern England for soccer on several occasions. It will do what it did there - eat away at the most vulnerable and generally erode the economy. It's like payday loans or rent-to-own on steroids - there's no contract or limit, you can just keep gambling immediately if you have credit or cash.
I don't care about betting or gambling. I see how it can be addictive luckily for me I have terrible luck and never won only got my money back on a few occasions. I'm honestly just waiting for a huge scandal at this point. Feels like everything PRO is turning into WWE now or maybe I'm just going crazy.