Comment by xenadu02
4 days ago
Super shocking (sarcasm).
Gamblers are the whales of that industry. The industry is well aware of that and well aware of how much harm they can cause. But their paychecks depend on not knowing so they choose not to.
Same as pay-to-win freemium games. Find the whales and milk them for all you can. For every high-spender who can afford it they know full well the other 99 cannot. They know they are ruining some people's lives. They know they use dirty psychological manipulation tactics. Their paychecks depend on not knowing so they choose not to.
The worst thing is that gambling companies are free to ban you if you win too much.
So if you're still there it's just because you're being milked.
There's a a giant market for second hand accounts on betting websites for this very reason.
Not only winners but anyone that looks like to know what is doing.
By that I mean that they try to detect and ban any pattern that may be math / ML derived or arbitrage seeking.
I have been banned on an account that was loosing money (around -15eur) and the bet was 2.96eur - yep fractional bets is a big no - no.
So while it is possible to find better odds and win in the long run based on stats and ML with a 3% - 5% profit they will ban you before you do.
There are many jurisdictions where the companies are not allowed to ban 'winners', but the companies often respond by lowering those users' bet size limits.
This is my favorite line to bring up amongst my gambling addicted friends :)
They are not big fans
No different than Big Tobacco right? They loved researching all the things that weren’t linked to smoking.
No different than big tech and their divisive algorithms. Or big pharma and side effects. Or big manufacturing and environmental harm (including harm to the people living around manufacturing companies).
It is an inherent property of unchecked capitalism to externalise and ignore any unwanted costs. Or on the flip side of that coin, profit from causing damage to others, where possible.
Absolutely
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Also there’s a bit of a tragedy of the commons. If one entity is scrupulous that doesn’t mean another will. Obviously if they had any morals they’d see the bright line.
I wonder how incentives could be better aligned.
Had an interesting case study where a coworker liked to gamble - he was fairly responsible, kept to his budget and treated it like an expensive hobby he enjoyed- but at the same time, he had someone else handle his retirement investments, which is an unpredictable payoff market where you come out ahead on average. I asked a couple times why he didn't replace gambling with investing and never got a good answer. He was certainly smart enough that he could have had fun with the research and chance.
Then there was a market downturn and his investment advisor had to talk him down from selling in a panic, and I was like "oh... It's not an information problem at all. It's entirely an emotional regulation problem"
I should sell a "meditation for investors" course
> I asked a couple times why he didn't replace gambling with investing and never got a good answer
There's a simple answer, which is that gambling is fun, and investing is not fun (my guess.) Your coworker is a pleasure seeker, like everyone is to some degree.
I think your coworker was quite smart. Investing and gambling are close enough that for many parties they are indistinguishable. I've heard investing described as 'gambling for people with more money'. The biggest difference is that if you have enough money you can legally manipulate the market. If it's your retirement investment that might just be over the horizon far enough to get you into danger. Just having access to that with a habit could already be an issue.
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I'm not sure it's irrational to sell in a market downturn. It's a way to pad your emergency savings rather than try to catch a falling knife later when you're already fired. Of course if you sell more than you need to survive a layoff, then that's probably not smart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem
> Same as pay-to-win freemium games. Find the whales and milk them for all you can.
This is what happened to EVE Online and many other MMORPGs.