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[–] 48 points 7 months ago (57 children)

Gambling needs to simply be made illegal

I don’t care what your arguments are gambling needs to be made illegal

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  • [–] 47 points 7 months ago (33 children)

    I think it's fair for it to be legal, but only in specific locations and contexts. I think small scale gambling between friends and coworkers is fine. I think well regulated casinos are bad but serve as a deterrent to underground criminal gambling. I think having legal gambling through the internet and on your phone, advertised everywhere is a serious problem.

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  • [+] -25 points 7 months ago (32 children)

    Nah this needs to be illegal period. Not taking questions

    Find something else to do

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  • [–] 58 points 7 months ago (12 children)

    Prohibition of vices doesn't work, it just pushes it into organized crime. I want harm reduction more than purity

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  • [–] 20 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    You’re interested in solutions. The person you’re replying to is only interested in hearing his own voice.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah I never assume I can convince someone I'm arguing with on the internet. My goal is to convince the readers. Or entertain myself while bored at work

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    I agree completely. I always assume there are younger folks in the room who haven’t formed an opinion on everything yet.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago

    It's not just that, even us old and opinionated people can be swayed when we aren't in the fight, given we have the wisdom to let ourselves listen to arguments. Especially if we keep seeing similar ideas from those we see as peers. It's just that when we feel confronted most people (myself included) dig in rather than reevaluate.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    It's the young and the ignorant who have formed opinions on subjects they don't understand.

    At least a few people learn nuance as they age and gain life experience. It's far from inevitable, but it does happen.

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  • [–] 16 points 7 months ago

    "provide for their needs"...? What do you mean? Sure, many gamblers don't have a very stable economic situation, but you're implying that something like UBI would suddenly stop people from gambling or what?

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    And then there are those of us for whom gambling is not a need. And I think it's problematic to regard any unnecessary activity, especially one that's a known focus for self-destructively compulsive behavior, as a need.

    Heroin's a pressing need too, when you're addicted.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Im cool with the state owning things. Its the oversize marketing budgets and no concern for harm that comes with private ownership that bugs me.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    Yes prohibition of alcohol worked so well in America, the 18th amendment, in the 1919 that 14 years later they repealed it, the 21st amendment.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Well what is the difference? A vice is a vice. Both are used to distracte us from the daily life of contant reminder that we are just a flesh bag being controlled by a mass of fat that will decay and die at some point. While we circle around a massive black hole. So why is this one vice so different that you think that prohibition would work?

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    They should adopt the same approach they use in Sweden to fight alcoholism: tax the hell out of it. You won a million by doing "insider trading" on the most recent dumb government decision? Congratulations, you owe the IRS half a mil.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Arguably prohibition did reduce alcohol consumption during that time period.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    That does not mean that it "worked" in any practical sense, considering all else that was associated with it.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    If the goal was to reduce alcohol consumption then it was successful at that. I'm not saying it didn't cause other issues, and it was decided that it wasn't worth it, but it did not fail at the intended goal of reducing alcohol consumption.

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  • [+] -7 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    itt: 100 billion lemmings see the phrase "i'm not going to debate you" and immediately take up arms and move to debate positions, so as to maximize the insufferability of the platform writ large

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Itt: the person saying "I'm not going to debate you" continues to respond.

    Also: "I'm not going to debate you" is not some magic phrase that prevents your statement from being challenged.

    In closing: I'm not going to debate you. So if you respond to this you're a hypocrite.

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  • [–] 21 points 7 months ago (11 children)

    Prohibition on vices never works, it just sends the money to criminal organizations that kill people instead of capitalist companies that kill less people.

    The solution is to have it be state run, remove the profit motive, and send any money gained from it to education and social services.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Oohh yeah, let the state run the "gambling on genocide" and "gambling on child murder", that sounds awesome!

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    Not saying it's the best situation but if the choice is between the mob running it, capitalist corporations running it, and the state running it, I'd pick the state.

    The state has an incentive to decrease problem gambling. Even if you ignore any democratic pressures from the people who don't like gambling being pushed, the state also has to bear the cost of addicts with social services so it's monetarily incentivized to reduce problem gambling.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Gambling addiction has one of the highest suicide rates out of any addiction, so I'm pretty sure the capitalist gambling companies right now cause more death than illegal organizations could.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    I don't care about the gambling, my issue is with the advertising. They are enticing people, mostly young men, with visions of excitement and LOTS of money. They don't show any ads of a guy losing the rent money, and having to break the news to his wife.

    I don't mind vices being legal, but I strongly object to them being marketed. Cigarettes are banned in most media, and liquor is heavily controlled. I wouldn't mind if all marketing for all vices were prohibited.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Not sure if you read the article but it looks like organized crime is threatening to kill people on the “above board” platforms as well.

    I also am against turning the state into the purveyor of gambling as it creates perverse incentive for the state to prioritize predating on problem gamblers and poor people in order to raise tax revenues. Money is fungible and as soon as the lottery becomes a funding vehicle for education it becomes the funding vehicle and you shift more of the burden off of the rich paying taxes and more on the poor to fund it.

    I’m all for the state staying out of regulating vices but also the state shouldn’t be the one providing it to the populace.

    Gambling is a moral issue, the prevalence of which is showing the degradation of the values of our society due to late stage capitalism. Unregulated capitalism places no value on values and only value in capital.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    it creates perverse incentive for the state to prioritize predating on problem gamblers and poor people in order to raise tax revenues

    Yeah but that incentive exists for any organization running gambling. It's just that the mob/companies will pursue that motive more ruthlessly because:

    1. The state is more accountable to the public and public opinion than a company. A company is only accountable to its shareholders who will almost always tell it to pursue profits at all costs. The state, at least in a democratic system, is accountable to the people. People can vote out a city council pushing gambling to increase revenue, they can't vote out the board of draft kings.

    2. The state bears some of the cost of addiction so they have some incentive to not let it get out of hand. A destitute gambler is more likely to use social services, to commit crime, abuse their family etc. which the state has to pay for in some way. Also there's lost sales tax revenue if they can't buy anything else and they're more likely to stop paying property tax or get their home foreclosed, sold for a lower price lowering the assessed value and the property tax you can charge. All of these costs are completely externalized for companies / the mob so they can, and usually do, ignore them.

    Also the money can go to actually good causes as opposed to the pocket of the draft king's CEO or the mob boss. You can even theoretically set a cap for revenue, say the state can only make $10 million off of gambling, and the rest is proportionally refunded to the gamblers, you'd never see that in a for-profit enterprise like a company or the mob.

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Removing the profit motive of gambling is exactly prohibition, what????

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Remove the profit motive from "the house" side. The house is taking a cut of every bet as profit, which encourages them to advertise and increase their market and market share to get more money. Which in the end means them trying to push gambling on those with a problem because they make them the most money.

    If it's run by the state it's not beholden to share holders who want as much profit as possible, social costs be damned. The state is at least nominally beholden to the people in a democratic system and the people generally don't want gambling advertising to be pushed on gambling addicts.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    House always wins. It's literally just a way to steal people's money.

    And in the city I live now, they passed a law for those stupid slot machines like 10 years ago.

    Now they are everywhere.

    You know who sits at slot machines?

    Old people. Retired people.
    People living off social security.

    It's literally a way to steal money from people who need it most. And specifically, it was tax payers money.

    So whenever I hear ,"but it creates revenue" I think. "Yeah by stealing it from the state and our seniors. Wtf. That's not real revenue."

    And this whole idea of autonomy. Like people have to choose for themselves if they want to gamble.

    We all know it's addictive. And it's designed to trick and manipulate people.

    There is less autonomy there than you think.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    I dunno, I find it hard to respect laws intending to protect people from their own choices, especially when the majority of people can enjoy the thing (or just ignore it on their own) without any problems.

    Try to idiot-proof the world and the world just comes up with a better idiot.

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  • It's how you make it illegal. Government has no business telling people they cant have poker night at their house with friends.

    But, they absolutely can and should ban all corporations from engaging in gambling. It's not about punishing people who engage in a little gambling for entertainment.

    It's about preventing corporations from unleashing the full force of capitalism and state sponsored enterprise to ruin millions of gambling addicts lives.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    I think the "argument" is that it's massively gray.

    So much stuff can be considered gambling.

    It needs to be handled. Idk how. But the term is too encompassing to just outright make illegal.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I'd vote for you to be dictator for a day to enact your policy.

    If I were dictator for a day, I'd outlaw all overly loud personal vehicles. You'd be sentenced to 10 minutes strapped behind your vehicle while it's blaring full blast, and then anyone who wants can be given guns to just go nuts on your vehicle.

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