When legal sports betting surges, so do Americans' financial problems

SoftTalker

Gambling can be a fun way to make a game more interesting. Some people can't stop there, but government lost any moral high ground when they legalized state lotteries.

recursivedoubts

remember when gambling was illegal? and the idea of advertising gambling on television wasn't even something conceivable? and, even more so, the idea that sports entertainment channels would be directly involved in the operation of gambling of was just completely beyond comprehension? ahhh, the remote, halcyon, bygone days of 2018...

gz5

and the US govt often helps facilitate gambling during downturns so we could see even more direct and indirect promotion of the problem. examples: + in stagflation of 70s/early 80s - states create state-run lotteries to help fix their budgets + 2008 great recession - states legalize casinos to recover lost tax revenue and prevent folks from traveling out of state to gamble + C19 - states fast track the legalization of mobile sports betting and online casinos to secure immediate tax revenue

bmitc

American citizens have willingly given up their freedom and allowed themselves to be captured by corporate control.

nikanj

Gambling seems like a rational choice, when all the ”traditional” rational choices just lead into a mountain of student debt, not being able to afford a home, and general failure to launch Summed up very nicely in https://oldcoinbad.com/p/long-degeneracy

chistev

The house always wins. I don't know of any long term profitable sports gamblers - but that makes sense because why reveal yourself and your methods if you're profitable? By long term I mean at least 1,000 bets while still being profitable. Even more impressive if they are making a living off of it. The only person I can think of is Picks Office on Twitter.

sidrag22

> And research shows young people are particularly at risk of sports gambling problems, lured in by splashy advertisements often featuring celebrities and promises of low risks and high rewards. The Fed study found that the sharpest drop in credit delinquency rates were among people under 40 years old. There are so many portions of the post Muprhy vs NCAA world that bum me out, but this is by far what makes me the most annoyed. There seem to be so many objectives being achieved while hiding behind the guise of protecting the children. Yet we just let these advertisements slide by and infest broadcasts that children largely consume. Not like getting an older person to buy you a GTA game when you are 12 or something either, this is just watching any sort of sports broadcast, aimed at all ages. I see some other people here mentioning how we gave into legalized state lotteries and its why we arrived here, its such a stark difference though. There was a ton of back and forth for state lotteries, the results were tons of advertising restrictions, and the profits largely benefited the education system. Murphy vs NCAA was passed in 2018, we have legal sports betting now in 38 total states after ~8 total years. New Hampshire legalized state lotteries in 1964, from that point it took 32 years to reach 38 total states with some form of a state lottery.

gbacon

Is there a causal relationship? If so, in which direction does it flow?

carefulfungi

> A 2024 Wall Street Journal report, for example, found that 70% of the profits from one online gambling company came from less than 1% of its users. Betting platforms assign highly profitable customers "concierges" who reach out and prompt them to gamble, offer incentives, and work to keep them betting. It's insidious and wrong - the platforms actively identify and take advantage of addicts. For most, a lottery ticket or an online bet is just buying entertainment - not much different from a movie ticket or steam game. Turns out, though, this majority isn't the target customer; we're just the top of the funnel as these platforms algorithmically search for personalities they can abuse, rob, and financially destroy.

jjk166

I strongly suspect if one were to dig a little deeper there would probably be some common factors between loosening financial regulations, community economic problems, credit issues of people in those communities, and impetus to gamble.

retired

Gambling is massive in large parts of Europe. For Spain, in 2022 83.9% of the population participated in gambling. Every time I am outside I am confronted with gambling in some sort of way. I don't think society benefits from it.

NickC25

I think the issue is a lot deeper than the article suggests. The problem is, society is fucking broken. The middle class is being decimated. People are going to take their destinies into their own hands, as seen by the growth of daytrading and sports betting. With wages being destroyed, billionaires avoiding taxes, COL skyrocketing for the middle and lower classes, and jobs evaporating, who's going to fucking blame someone for trying to figure out how to use what they know (in this case, sports) to make money? Plus, this generation has seen another class of gamblers (big banks) get bailout after bailout without any problem. Sports betting is the symptom, not the root cause that needs to be addressed.

jimt1234

Honest question; sorta related: How long until prostitution is legalized in the United States? Sounds crazy, indeed, but when I was a kid growing up in Missouri - if you told me, someday, businesses will be open on Sunday, alcohol will be legally sold on Sunday, and there will be gambling casinos a few miles from my house, I wouldn't have believed you.

Vaslo

I’m a pretty right leaning libertarian. That said there are some hills I’ll abandon like smoking bans and this being legal.