I’m with @DrDeth that issue #2 pales in comparison to #1, especially considering that most match fixing will occur with athletes who are not playing in a major sport league, or are not key figures in their league.
My personal downsides are the ads, and the broadcasts of sports events being inextricably tied in with gambling. If I’m watching the game, I’m watching it because I enjoy the sport and the team, and I get very irritated with the gambling side taking over interest in the games.
Gambling isn’t about the players on my team competing against the players of another team, it isn’t about the game. Gambling is about some dipshit viewer 1,000 miles away who put $300 on a parlay instead of his electric bill. I don’t care about him, and the TV broadcast is speaking directly to him about something he did all on his own, instead of speaking to fans like me about the game.
Just out of curiosity, which sports have people seen where the announcers start talking about the odds and how to bet on the sport? Not betting ads, but the sport announcers talking about betting like it’s a normal part of the sport. I previously mentioned NASCAR announcers bringing up driver odds in the middle of the race and directing you to a site to place bets. How common is that kind of thing and what sports are doing it?
Baseball does it but it is part of the broadcast in the same vein as other stats/graphics.
So, at least for Guardians games where betting is legal in Ohio, they’ll put up 3 different bets and talk about the odds for a minute - brought to you by bet365 - and then bring up the bets later in the game to show how they are progressing. Such as Jose Ramirez gets a home run, Stephen Kwan gets 3 hits, Guardians strike out 10.
I absolutely hate all of the gambling advertising, and I hate even more that shit like this is “part” of the game. It’s nasty.
I’ve noticed in recent years a number of NFL announcers are saying things like “That missed extra point won’t be a factor in the outcome of the game, but it might mean something to a lot of you.”, or “Taking a knee here rather than kicking a field goal will ensure victory, and many people are happy with that decision.” Statements like this are definitely referring to the betting lines of the game.
Yes yes a thousand tines yes. Including commentator betting talk, which is another type of ad
I mentioned in another thread that NHRA does it to an annoying degree. And thinking of this thread, professional drag racing is totally easy to convincingly throw a race. People break traction and lose all the time when they are trying to win, so tweaking the setup to lose is nothing.
I think NFL does it, too.
I am on record, not entirely joking, that it should be legal to separate the stupid from their money.
Everything’s an “illness”. Sometimes you just have to be responsible for your own actions, and if that action involves getting treatment for your illness, well, that’s on you.
Setting aside the illness / bad judgement controversy before it grows legs …
It might be morally OK to separate the stupid from their money while telling the truth. That’s an arguable proposition where I’m not sure exactly where I stand. But …
It’s certainly not (IMO) morally OK to separate the stupid from their money by lying to them. That would amount to elevating lying to a moral good. And a look around at present day politics should show all of us that pervasive lying is not a moral or social good.
So IMO the real problem with selling gambling is that it amounts to selling the lie that you, and you, and even you over there in the back, will be winners! Hint: in reality over the long run, none of you will be winners.
I lived in Vegas for 20 years, although not connected to the gambling industry. Those glittering palaces to greed were not built by sending lots of folks home with newfound windfalls. They were built (and my taxes paid) by sending them home freshly depleted of money. Over and over and over.
I know of some that are more than a “buck or five” but there’s still a limit. The biggest one I know is $500/square - but to run a $500/square game, you need to have enough people willing to pay $500 to sell 100 squares and most people won’t have access to more than one or two at that price. And that pretty much means I won’t be able to bet $100,000 on Superbowl squares like I could if I was placing bets at a sportsbook. ( or with a bookie)
Although I’m really not sure how much of a change legalization makes - I suppose it might depend on exact form of gambling but my husband’s friend who spends a truly absurd amount of money on legal lottery numbers games (25% or more of his income) would just be playing the illegal numbers if there wasn’t a legal lottery. He wouldn’t be gambling any less. And buying the lottery tickets isn’t any easier than betting on numbers was (is?).
Many of these stupid people who throw their money away gambling have other people, innocent people, children even, who depend on them for support. When the stupid person (with or without an “illness”) is lured in by newly legal activities to bankrupt his family, who is there to advocate for the newly bankrupted child?
I get that we expect the stupid gambling parent to do that, but he’s an idiot, and the kid is left destitute.
I am as liberal, compassionate, maybe even more, than the next guy, but how much do we do to protect adults from their own choices? (spoiler alert: I have no idea) In a free society, what is the limit of imposing behavior on people?
Yes, gambling away the rent money can hurt children. but so can buying a bigger house than you can afford, having a ginormous balloon payment, buying expensive cars, boats, toys, on credit and assuming you’ll never lose your job, making bad investments, lending money to your idiot brother in law, not having sufficient insurance, getting large student loans, becoming a Scientologist, getting sued because you drove drunk/carelessly and injured someone, and buying crypto currencies and trump NFTs. When do we say, they have an illness, and when do we say, they made a bad choice?
And to clarify, I think gambling shouldn’t be legal. So what if they go to Louie on the corner? It’s a lot harder to lose money as fast as you can with on-phone sports betting. And Louie will only break your leg if you can’t pay.
One thing society can do is realize that people with problems will have an easier time avoiding the problem if their temptations are reduced. For instance, there are bans and restrictions on tobacco and hard alcohol advertising. They can’t have commercials for them on TV. That way someone who is trying to give up smoking or alcohol won’t have to deal with the constant temptations from commercials. It’s not 100% perfect, but the fewer temptations, the more likely the person is to avoid the problem. It can be the same with gambling. If gambling is advertised on TV, then someone with a gambling problem is going to be faced with additional temptations every time there’s a gambling ad and whenever the announcers talk about the odds during the game. Restricting things like access and advertising makes it more inconvenient for those people who don’t have a problem, but, hopefully, society understands it’s a reasonable sacrifice so that people with problems have a better chance of staying out of trouble.
That can be about betting lines, or it can be about fantasy leagues, not all of which involve betting. But yes, betting lines are definitely part of it.
A $500/square pool isn’t the sort of thing I was talking about. I was talking about the casual sort of pool that someone in the office sets up, and which the authorities ignore even if it’s technically illegal. A $500/square pool is presumably something run by a gambling institution or business of some sort, and that’s big enough that, in a jurisdiction where it’s illegal, the authorities (if not corrupt) would bust it if they found out.
Cigarette smoking has been nearly wiped out by relentless campaigns against cigarettes. Vaping is growing but forces are going after it. Alcohol usages by young people has declined in this century. Of course, legal pot is a major factor and that will need to be addressed sooner rather than later. Progress can be made against societal ills. Even teen pregnancy rates continue to plummet.
We’re on the wrong side of the curve with gambling. With so much money to be made, nothing will stop more governments for wanting their share. Maybe the commercials can be banned on television but there are too many outlets for them with no government regulation.
Gambling addiction and the huge number of victims - and victims’ families, yes - will be the next opiod crisis.
And, for that matter, nothing will stop the sports teams and leagues from wanting their share, either. The legal sports wagering sites are often “official sponsors” of pro sports leagues.
To push back against the idea that it’s bad to separate the stupid from their money, there’s no reason conversely why the smart should not be able to make money. Some gamblers are very savvy (such as observing sports trends, etc.) and there’s no reason why they should not be rewarded for a Moneyball approach and astute wagering.
Suppose, for instance, that someone with a keen sports eye noticed something particular about the Nuggets last year that firmly convinced him they would stand the best chance of winning the NBA title. Why not let him cash in on his insight?
Nobody would ever say it’s wrong for someone to “gamble” by buying Microsoft or Apple stock in the 1990s if they had an intuition it would pay off.
I’m not so sure gambling is a net good for society as a whole. The downside to legalized sports betting is more people might start gambling. We talk about separating the stupid from their money, which is fine in theory, but those “stupid” people often have families. A family could lose their home because mommy has a gambling problem.
Plenty of people are responsible users of alcohol. Should we drop all DUI laws because of that? Close AA? Take the warning labels off bottles? Remove the diagnosis of fetal alcohol syndrome? What, oh, what can we do to not hurt the feelings of those responsible drinkers?
