# What's up with young people's aversion to gambling? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 12, 2012, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345 "2012-01-12T23:10:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/121 "2012-01-20T18:42:20Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > I’m 25. > > Because statistically I am going to lose. I have an office in Las Vegas and I have a whole bushel of clients who gamble on the regular. Do you know what they all have in common? They all lose WAY more than they make. None of them actually come out ahead in the long term— and that’s how it’s supposed to be because a casino isn’t in the business of handing out free money. > > Me? I’d rather take that $200 and go shopping or go see a show. I’d rather have something to show for my money. > > If I did gamble, I’d probably be like my dad: he plays poker, but he never spends a dime of his own money. Dad gambles in free entry things locally, takes that money, and uses it to enter bigger tournaments (or gets bids or whatever it is into the WSoP). But again, he doesn’t spend any of his own money. All this plus the smoking in them is utterly filthy. **Diosa** and I are the same age. ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/122 "2012-01-20T21:56:49Z")
> [@](#): > > And the people who play slots baffle me. They sit there for hours, pressing a button over and over again, like a rat in some sort of reward experiment. They’re zombied out and sad. It almost creeps me out walking amongst them, always wondering wtf is wrong with them. I took my wife to a nearby casino on a reservation. It was her first experience at a casino and she found the glassy-eyed depressed-looking vacant stares of the slot players to be a big turn-off. She threw some money in a machine and played a few times; I had to argue with her to get her to finish the bill and not just walk away without pulling the last few handles’ worth. She said she understood the vacant stares and never wanted to develop the depressed look. We’ve never done that again. > [@](#): > > I think the younger generation isn’t as impressed by “press a button, watch spinning and lights” thing because we’ve grew up on video games that provide a far greater level of interaction and interest. Sitting in front of a slot machine all day has to be the most boring thing in the world, and yet it makes up the majority of casino patrons. Yeah, there’s an intrinsic reward-for-action (stimulus/response) that’s inherent in video games. Make an effort, succeed, and learn from it. Go left around the boulder and get “killed”; go right around the boulder and avoid the dragon. Now, when you do it again, you go right around the boulder and you avoid the dragon. You don’t get that with gambling. Pull the handle and win…you get a dollar. Pull the handle and win…you get forty dollars. Pull the handle and lose. I’m not getting consistent results, even when I benefit, from pulling that handle and that’s the only thing I can control. Slap two aces on the table and win eighty bucks. Slap two aces on the table and lose my $5 ante because the guy next to me has the other two aces, plus three threes. > [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > You might be on to something. It might be along the lines of not driving drunk and not smoking. Behaviors that were socially acceptable only a generation ago are now frowned upon. There is maybe something to this that explains why horse racing is a dying industry. I’ve been thinking lately that the slow demise of various superstitions in general have been helpful in the demise of gambling. There’s less and less of a notion that _Lady Luck (or God or Jesus, or Daikoku) is going to favor me in just a moment and then I’ll get my rent money back as well as the money Guido spotted me this morning and the rest of the year’s financial needs will be taken care of._ “Frank: Hit me!” > [@](#): > > Mathematics insists that the house has to win. > [@](#): > > Mathematics is the rule of the universe. Casino operate on that principle. Why pretend to be smarter than all of the mathematicians in the world? That’s not to say that taking a few bucks into a casino, sitting down, getting some drinks, having a sexy waitress rub against me isn’t worth the money. It is. Nevertheless, any and all money comes out of the entertainment budget, not the living expenses. I learned a long time ago from a manager where I worked that the games in Vegas (and most casinos) are actually geared to favor the player from one hand to the next or from one pull to the next – but see the next entry… > [@](#): > > I have no gambling habit. I’ve been to casinos for fun and probably have won more than I have lost. The only reason for that is that gambling in a casino gets boring and, knowing that, I can get up and walk away when I’m ahead. Casinos hate people like me. Cash out, have a drink, go to bed. The problem is that people who are into gambling don’t just play like you do – one hand or a few hands and cash out. That’s where and why the casinos win. They’re not serving free drinks to keep you sitting at the table (instead of heading off to the restaurant) they’re serving you free ALCOHOL to lower your inhibitions and judgement. (You can pass laws against drinking-and-driving, but you’d never get a law passed in Nevada, New Jersey, Mississippi, etc. against drinking-and-gambling.) The point is that once your inhibitions are low enough and your critical thinking skills are poor enough (which may be the case before you ever sip a free drink) you’re going to try just one more until you’ve drained your wallet. If you’re addicted, you’ll drain a few credit cards, too. > [@](#): > > With sports gambling the player doesn’t get that sense. If there is no vig involved and the player feels knowledgeable why not go with sports betting instead of casino tables? The reason that the stock market is not a casino is that there is more money flowing to the players than what is being taken by the house. So yes, a person with a gambling mindset has the odds in his favor. Why not play the listings instead of the tables? On the other hand, the problem with the stock market is that most day-traders are not expert enough to do more than gamble – they don’t do as much research as would be required to bet properly on a sports team, much less a dot-com or pharmaceutical company or commodity. Furthermore, while the original stock market was a gamble because the investor had little to no control over a company’s performance, it was still more like sports-betting because an investor (wagerer) could do some research about the past performance of the company and get an idea of the worth of the company’s stock. But as was noted in the 1990s [I think it was [Mirlees and Vickrey](http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/)], the stock market today runs on rumor, fad, and speculation rather than actual company performance, and the value of a stock goes up and down based on the rumors and fads rather than what’s actually happening to or within the company it represents. Thus, the modern stock market is even more of a gamble because spin is more important than substance and investors have little to no control over rumors and speculation about a stock’s performance. > [@](#): > > Gambling is a weird vice. Normally, drugs, alcohol, gluttony and sex will shut you down before you have lost everything, even if it kills you. Gambling will take everything from you and leave you alive to deal with the consequences. It’s a peculiarly insidious vice. Boy, that should be in a Sig-line! ===G! You always won every time you placed a bet You’re still damn good, no one’s gotten to you yet Every time they were sure they had you caught You were quicker than they thought You’d just turn your back and walk . --Bob Seger . _Still the Same_ ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/123 "2012-01-20T23:02:45Z")
I’ve got video games. Why would I need a casino? Though really, the tales and the machines are two different beasts. The last few times I’ve been in a casino, I sat down at a video poker machine: $20 gone in 10 minutes. That blows. Then I took my money to a blackjack table, sat down with my dad and brother, and we had a really fun time of it. The money didn’t disappear nearly as fast as it did at the machine and the social element came into play with chatting and joking around. If it is true that fewer young people are gambling, my guess is that, as with smoking, our current culture is inundated with the effects of a lifetime of gambling. “The house always wins,” “a tax on people bad at math,” deadbeat relatives who’ve already lost their shirts, etc. It may not have been nearly so pronounced in earlier decades, but we’ve got a couple generations of people who’ve been drawn in by the glamor of the Rat Pack’s vision of Las Vegas to look back on. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/124 "2012-01-21T00:06:41Z")
I’m 28 and work as a trader at a proprietary trading firm. I never gamble. All day long I search for trades to make in the market that have positive expected value. Gambling at a casino is like purposefully making bad trades. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/125 "2012-01-21T01:40:13Z")
> [@Trom](#): > > I’m 28 and work as a trader at a proprietary trading firm. I never gamble. All day long I search for trades to make in the market that have positive expected value. Gambling at a casino is like purposefully making bad trades. Oh don’t fool yourself. You do gamble every day. The entire difference is what you stated. It is the difference between positive and negative expected value. The gambling industry (the casinos) don’t gamble themselves either by your definition. They know the math and know that if people play long enough, they will win in the long run guaranteed. Only people that understand statistics get this. Gamblers tend to be really bad at understanding statistics even if they think they know the games well. Most of them lie about how much they win versus lose but, even if they don’t, they tend to break it down into discrete trials like an hour or a night at the casino when they won big. That doesn’t matter financially at all. You can only count your gambling wins versus losses as one trial: the first time you laid down a bet until the last one just before you die. Breaking it down any other way is a psychological fantasy. It is all about raw numbers from start to finish and that is where positive versus negative expected outcomes becomes so important. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/126 "2012-01-21T05:23:45Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Oh don’t fool yourself. You do gamble every day. The entire difference is what you stated. It is the difference between positive and negative expected value. The gambling industry (the casinos) don’t gamble themselves either by your definition. They know the math and know that if people play long enough, they will win in the long run guaranteed. Only people that understand statistics get this. > > Gamblers tend to be really bad at understanding statistics even if they think they know the games well. Most of them lie about how much they win versus lose but, even if they don’t, they tend to break it down into discrete trials like an hour or a night at the casino when they won big. That doesn’t matter financially at all. You can only count your gambling wins versus losses as one trial: the first time you laid down a bet until the last one just before you die. Breaking it down any other way is a psychological fantasy. It is all about raw numbers from start to finish and that is where positive versus negative expected outcomes becomes so important. There’s an element of uncertainty involved with trading, of course. You could argue that every single business is gambling if you pick the right definition of gambling. In what I do every day, the risk already exists - eg: a corn farmer wants to hedge his crop, so he sells a contract to a speculator. The speculator now bears the price risk. Or a stock trader that buys stock from a retiree looking to lessen his exposure to volatile equity markets. Gambling at a casino creates a risk out of thin air that serves no other purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/127 "2012-01-21T07:55:40Z")
> [@Grestarian](#): > > I learned a long time ago from a manager where I worked that the games in Vegas (and most casinos) are actually geared to favor the player from one hand to the next or from one pull to the next – but see the next entry… > > The problem is that people who are into gambling don’t just play like you do – one hand or a few hands and cash out. That’s where and why the casinos win. They’re not serving free drinks to keep you sitting at the table (instead of heading off to the restaurant) they’re serving you free ALCOHOL to lower your inhibitions and judgement. (You can pass laws against drinking-and-driving, but you’d never get a law passed in Nevada, New Jersey, Mississippi, etc. against drinking-and-gambling.) > The point is that once your inhibitions are low enough and your critical thinking skills are poor enough (which may be the case before you ever sip a free drink) you’re going to try just one more until you’ve drained your wallet. If you’re addicted, you’ll drain a few credit cards, too. Er… no. Not unless I misunderstood your meaning. If the game favoured the player on the micro scale, it would favour them on the macro scale. If you’re losing money on every game, you can’t make it up on volume. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2012, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/128 "2012-01-21T10:41:47Z")
Yeah, he makes it sound as if you could make individual bets with a positive expectation, but everyone goes broke anyway because they just keep going until a downswing wipes out their bankroll, but that’s not true, of course. There’s not a single positive expectation bet in a casino - well, aside from poker and rarely sports - and only one neutral one (true gambling, I suppose) but it requires a -ev bet to pay for the opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/129 "2012-01-22T03:47:24Z")
Blackjack tournaments can be positive expectation too. You’re playing against other players, not the house, and most of the players don’t know basic strategy. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/130 "2012-01-22T03:59:31Z")
I’m 54 and I’ve always been averse to gambling. There is a perfectly good reason why gambling dens are glitzy and have fancy hotels attached and free drinks and hot hostesses. That reason is not because they’re giving money to me. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/131 "2012-01-22T06:15:42Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > -don’t have any money (this unending recession has 18-35 year olds with a 45% unemployment rate 18-35 year olds have approximately a 15% unemployment rate, not 45% ([BLS Data](http://bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm)). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/132 "2012-01-22T14:47:44Z")
I’m 50 and I’m not much drawn to casino gambling as it exists in the USA. As others have mentioned, the forest of slot machines with people passively sitting there dazed by the lights does nothing for my mood and the smoke in many of them just drives me out. And besides the smoke, the atmosphere in a lot of them, however many fancy schmany upscale pretentions you add, is just, well… you know Bally’s is not the venue where you’ll spot Mr. Bond facing off Le Chiffre. I have had a few positive impressions, though. When I’ve visited Mohegan Sun it has been for the entertainment and meeting venues but at least that casino has the advantage that it’s configured as a very large shopping/entertaiment/dining mall that happens to have a humongous casino running through the middle of it. Similarly the Las Vegas Rio Suites, where they even have built in a show into the casino’s air space. Make it a fun place to be besides the games themselves, just so I don’t have to look at the slot machine zombies! Plus the high ceilings and relatively decent lighting in both places help liberate from the oppressiveness often found in gaming halls. At the other end of the size spectrum was the the relatively small one opened just a couple of years ago at the Greenbrier Resort in WV, and it actually felt very pleasant to me, probably because it was new and not worn out, well lit, and of a much more manageable scale; there was a lower ratio of slots:tables and a higher relative density of people per table, who seemed actively interested. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/133 "2012-01-22T20:04:07Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > 18-35 year olds have approximately a 15% unemployment rate, not 45% ([BLS Data](http://bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm)). Yep, except the BLS doesn’t count people who have dropped out of the labor force. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/134 "2012-01-23T00:11:47Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Yep, except the BLS doesn’t count people who have dropped out of the labor force. Do you have a cite for your 45% number? ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/135 "2012-01-23T00:51:51Z")
Have we actually determined that young people are adverse to gambling? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/136 "2012-01-23T01:17:53Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Have we actually determined that young people are adverse to gambling? Not really. Nobody has given age stats for gamblers broken down by time and money spent. The claim seems true on its face because of many of the reasons other people gave like being smarter with numbers and entertainment option competition. I hope it is true because habitual gambling is nothing but a money pit and a waste of time over other options. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/137 "2012-01-23T01:20:26Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Have we actually determined that young people are adverse to gambling? Not really. Nobody has given age stats for gamblers broken down by time and money spent. The claim seems true on its face because of many of the reasons other people gave like being smarter with numbers and entertainment option competition. I hope it is true because habitual gambling is nothing but a money pit and a waste of time over other options. Video games are cheaper and more varied. Internet addiction usually has some plus side but casinos are there to lull you into their own fake little world and take all your money while giving you just enough back at random intervals so that you think you are doing Ok. It is a human Skinner box and I don’t like to see large numbers of people behaving predictably as rats in a capitalistic lab experiment. ---
**Author:** ![Old\_Eel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/977dab/32.png) [@Old\_Eel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Old_Eel)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/138 "2012-01-23T01:36:52Z")
I’m old. I have no interest in gambling. I have no fantasy about striking it rich. I have plently of things I’d rather spend money on and the experience itself isn’t worth what I’d pay. I’d rather spend the money on dinner with friends. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345/139 "2012-01-24T13:00:06Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > 1. I’m pretty sure I could get more liquor per unit of money spent at a bar. It’s even cheaper to mix my own drinks at home, though. Either way, the casino loses this one. > 2. All of the gamblers I have ever known, _without exception_, are broke and endlessly self-deluded. I don’t want to be either of those things. > 3. I would rather have things to show for my money, or buy food that tastes delicious, than throw it down a slot machine’s gullet. > 4. My family history (and indeed, my personal experience) indicates a strong tendency for addictive behavior. If I start gambling, I might not be able to stop. No thanks. True story: I went to Vegas once, staying at the Imperial Palace. One night, as I got into the elevator along with several other people, one guy held up a bottle of Bud Light and announced, “This is a $500 free beer.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-young-peoples-aversion-to-gambling/609345.md?page=6)