Well… I’ve gambled less than $10 in casinos over my lifetime (higher amounts at InTrade). I’m not particularly fond of gambling. I am fond of fighting ignorance, which the negotiation of odds promotes. [1]
Again, if the monetary stakes are small, the relationship to gambling preferences diminishes.
[1] Most vividly, it takes a lot of coin flips to ascertain whether the coin is even 60-40 unfair. The great majority of opinions confidently expressed are grounded on soft foundations.
Not all bets are ones of chance (gambling).
Presumably, a bet on the SDMB is one of conviction.
If I bet you the sun will rise in the east tomorrow is that a bet of chance or conviction? Am I making the bet because I like gambling or because I think I am right?
You won’t bet me that, nor anyone else on this board. You might offer that bet, but you won’t get any takers. As you knew you wouldn’t. Which means that it’s a meaningless “bet”.
Your first paragraph disproves your second. The monetary stakes in your bets at the casino were small, and yet you still made them, even knowing they were bad bets.
I’d hope you take the example in the spirit it is given to illustrate a point. Must I really work to concoct an almost plausible bet to say the same thing?
Probably neither of us should over-generalize. For some people gambling is a hobby because they like the emotional experience of gambling. Other people enjoy the challenge of beating the odds, and have no interest whatsoever in betting unless they are convinced that the expected return is positive. I have spent a significant proportion of my life risking money, but I have never spent a dime on a bet in a casino or in any situation where I did not believe the expected return was positive, and moreover that the risk-adjusted return was worthwhile.
It’s a bit odd that you clipped my post at “It demonstrates personal conviction…” to make your point, when the rest of my sentence was a BUT - that personal conviction is necessary but not sufficient for any given size of bet. Perhaps you’d go further and say that personal conviction is not even necessary for some people who just like gambling, but in any event my overall view is the same as yours - that betting does not contribute to fighting ignorance and should not be allowed.
Yeah, I didn’t think I was really disagreeing with you on substance. But I’ve seen the argument raised elsewhere that betting is good because it proves conviction, and yours was the only mention of that so far in this thread.
And yes, betting might demonstrate conviction in some specific individuals. But you’d have to know those specific individuals well already to recognize such a case. Most likely, you’d have to know them well enough that you’d already know if they had conviction, even without the bet.
This cuts to the core of the issue. And it has consequences. Gambling is similar to a number of other popular pastimes in American society. (And elsewhere, but I try not to comment on other cultures.) There’s always been a current in society that says “If you don’t like gambling there is something wrong with you.” And if you don’t like drinking… if you don’t like sports… if you don’t like guns… Any number of other “ifs” could be listed. (Along with a corresponding number of “if you do likes”.) The minorities who “don’t like” have always been subject to peer disapproval. Just ask @Aspenglow.
Making bets should be harmless. But by their nature they are personal. That doesn’t sit well in an environment where saying “I think you’re wrong” rather than “I think your argument is wrong” can get you a warning.
. . . and I was more than glad to award that well-earned prize. I’m interested in pulling the string on whether that situation was “a bet” (or probably more appropriately “a raffle”), but I was happy to put a tangible, human element to some fun on this Board.
Tripler
Cheetos are one serious fingerl*ckin’ wager. 
MfM beats the casino
Heh. They were good bets.
I was in a layover in Panama, and had a pocketful of Panama quarters (identically sized to US quarters, since Panama’s official currency is the US dollar). Useless in the US. The airport had slot machines with terrible odds, but again the coins would be worthless to me once I boarded the plane in a few hours.
I got lucky on my third coin. After I collected my winnings, I had sufficient funds for a sandwich. Yay me for quitting while I was ahead.
Having lived in Panama …
Panamanian coinage is made in the same factory as US coinage from the same blanks. It spends in US vending machines just fine. It is fact valid US money.
At least some US banks will take it at face. Better luck w that in Miami than Bumfuck Arkansas though.
I think that’s an important distinction and one that might need clarification.
Is a contest considered the same as gambling? To me it isn’t. When you’re gambling, you’re taking a risk (in fact, “gamble” and “risk” are synonymous). You’re putting down money and if you lose the bet, you lose your money.
In a contest, nobody is wagering their own property. They’re just entering a competition and if they win, they get a prize.
I do not gamble. I don’t make bets, I don’t play slot machines or poker for money. I don’t buy lottery tickets or scratchers. It’s just not my thing. I do like contests though. There’s a clear difference in my mind.
What matters, of course, is whether or not the moderators see a difference.
I worked as a consultant for a casino. I was reading a study, which shows the “hit” for an addicted gambler is losing.
I would like to see a cite ion that.
I know you can use the US dollar just fine in Panama. But the Panamanian Balboa is not quite worth 1 usd in exchange rate.
Even the Panamanian coins (nickels, dimes and quarters) are the same sizes as American coins, and so can be used in the USA in coin operated machines, although banks will not take them.
Wow. Thank you. That’s two dumb things I’ve posted today. They were locked at par when I was there. Which, admittedly is getting to be a long time ago.
Not “dumb” since yeah, you can use the coins in vending machines. But since a Panamanian Balboa is worth darn near a usd, you are not gaining much.
Incidentally, you can also use usd in Canadian border towns and in many places in Mexico.
Indeed, we went to Mexico last year and stayed at a resort, where they took American money.
Prices were listed in pesos, so I was constantly using my conversion calculator until I did it enough times that I could convert in my head. But they had no trouble accepting US dollars as payment.
Granted, we spent our entire trip within a resort catering to tourists, so it would have been silly for them to do anything else.
Just change the denomination of the bet. Instead of dollars, bet words. The loser of a bet at 10:1 odds must write, say, a 500-word admission of their loss and an explanation of why they were wrong. Had the other person lost, it would only require 50 words. If a person fails to pay up, or tries to cheat via repetition or otherwise, public shaming ensues.
This changes the monetary aspect to one more based on time. The cost of writing some number of words (including the humiliation of the admission) is much closer between any two people than the value of a particular sum of money. It scales better with wealth, and yet for any one person, it retains the crucial characteristic that the cost of an outcome scales with the odds against it. It’s also a real cost and forces people to think about the claims they are making.
(Is this a joke proposal? I’m not entirely sure…)
I’m hoping it is. I have no desire to skip past a 500-word post about how someone was wrong, no matter how amusing it might be to others.
Whether anyone reads it is irrelevant. The point is that it imposes a cost on the loser–a cost that forces people to clarify and think through the claims they’re making. @Measure_for_Measure is of course completely right about revealed preferences and cheap talk and all that. There is no natural reason for people to be totally honest in assigning probability to their beliefs, and significant social reasons for them to take more extreme positions than they actually hold. Unless, of course, there is a cost to being wrong.
The main problem with the “write an essay” proposal is that there’s no real upside for the winner aside from satisfaction, so there’s not much reason for anyone to participate (though arguably the same is true for winnings-to-go-charity bets as well). Maybe satisfaction is enough, though…
Nowadays, that cost is having to type “ChatGPT, write me a 500 word apology about how I was wrong about…”, not actually think and type 500 words.
AI is ruining everything! Even public shaming! Waah! 