[Atlantic] Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake. Study has shown for every $1 spent on betting, households put $2 less into investment accounts. Big increases in the risk of overdrafting a bank account or maxing out a credit card. Most affecting among young men living in low-income counties
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Who needs to save money when you can hit it big gambling?
None of this is new data, FWIW.
They’re going to either gamble on sports or options with Nana’s money
Literally everyone knew what the outcome would be, but because it mostly only screws the poor, no one stopped it.
“Hmm interesting. This news update brought to you by DraftKings. And now back to the Las Vegas A’s game.”
Saw that coming. Any time you mix big business with vice, the world becomes a worse place in objective and measurable ways.
No sane person thought this was a good idea. Study after study shows those who can least afford it gamble more of their money away.
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
Of course it was bad. Gambling has always been exploitative in nature, preying on the poor, gullible and desperate. Turning it into a completely inescapable, fully embedded part of every sports broadcast will only help grow it into a nationwide epidemic. At least before, you had to go out of your way to gamble, and people with gambling addiction could watch games without being bombarded with constant temptation to throw their paycheck away, or worse.
The least surprising news item of the day.
My next parlay is the big winner I swear
And the ads. So annoying!
I think the advertising definitely has to be curtailed significantly, and I can even buy an argument that you shouldn’t be able to do it via an app.
Ultimately though Reddit for whatever reason has SEVERE blinders on this issue. For a majority of young American men, this is now something that’s a socially acceptable hobby, whether Reddit likes it or not. Just like other vices, the vast majority of people are doing this for a quick bit of fun without ruining their lives.
You can curb the excesses of the industry while still letting someone throw $10 on a random college football game to make it a little more entertaining.
Wait, so this information wasn’t just instinctively obvious from the get-go?
I invest my money with Wu Tang Financial. They protect my neck.
This obviously sucks but I still think it should be legal.
That was the point.
I like to bet on games I’m interested in, nothing crazy though. Plus I have the extra cash. All my winnings go straight into my Roth IRA.
Isn’t that obvious? Gambling is not good for society neither is alcohol but we live in a free society that allows you to do whatever you want as long as you’re responsible for the fuck ups that occur
It’s only bad for the gamblers. Won’t somebody think of the businesses?
It seems like this is probably not a causal effect, but rather both are downstream from the household’s/person’s general financial literacy
Sports gambling should def be illegal tho
I’m not really against sports betting in and of itself. But they simply threw open the floodgates and made it waaaaaaaaaay too fucking easy and accessible.
And all the leagues and media jumping into bed with the sports betting organizations is **appalling**.
Yeah I can make $1000 in investments, or I can make $100000 off this parlay (I don’t even make $80 off parlays)
Vices are always poor taxes
What is even worse is now you have to listen to your friends Fantasy Football team AND now their sports bets.
So it’s Robinhood versus Draftkings.
I have the same position on gambling and drugs: people will do it regardless of its legality. It’s better to legalize and regulate than move to absolute prohibition.
The way we’ve legalized has involved essentially zero regulation – including gamblers addiction hotlines at the end of radio ads is practically insulting. Advertising for things we know are dangerous like smoking is highly regulated. The fact that we’ve legalized gambling with absolutely no advertising guardrails is going to be such an obvious mistake in 10 years, and it’s going to heavily cost a generation of Americans.
I’m amazed how much of sports media is tied in with gambling now. Every other sports article seems to be about betting. The scores and schedules of every major sports has betting odds and over/under. It no longer feels like the games exist to entertain fans. It feels like sports exists to feed the gambling industry. It is a means to an end. Not an end itself. ESPN is no longer a sports broadcast company. It’s the media arm of the gambling industry.
It should be treated just like any other vice:
minimal to nonexistent advertising and regulated to attempt to prevent abuse but remaining legal because adults should have the right to do what we will with our money and our own bodies in this country whether it bankrupts us, destroys us from the inside out, kills us, or as is the case with 98% of those who partake, provides us with a simple form of enjoyment in the face of largely anger inducing existences.
What if my investment account is just my DraftKings account?
It’s land of the free not land of the smart
Sports gambling isn’t necessarily the problem. It’s the fact that everybody has the equivalent of a casino in their pocket. It’s basically the difference between legalizing alcohol in a vacuum versus legalizing alcohol AND ALSO everybody lives in a liquor store.
This is just a variant of one of the main diseases afflicting our society: transformative connective technology being operated by some of the world’s most unscrupulous assholes.
Whoever did that report is just a loser, that hasn’t hit an 8 leg parlay 😎
I actually don’t have a huge issue with the legalization, let people do what they will with their money.
But the fact that alongside it has come a literal never ending, unceasing, brutal, enveloping, manipulative stream of ads across every platform, every outlet, every single thing we lay our eyes on every single day is the real problem. It’s fucking exhausting.
I have no problem with gambling my problem is how incestuous pro sports have gotten with sportsbooks in recent years.
You can’t advertise cigarette on TV but announcer telling your the current odds in the bottom of the 6th? That’s okay? Ridiculous.
Yes, yes criminalize EVERYTHING that some people can’t be responsible about. No more fattening foods or drinks, no more alcohol, no more baseball cards, go back to outlawing marijuana, no casinos or lotteries, no smoking, no prescription medication. I think you get the idea.
Should alcohol be illegal because alcoholics exists? Gambling is fun and dangerous, it’s not for everyone.