Back when we wore onions on our belts sports betting was related to the mafia. Bookies were low level operators, and people who owed money got their legs broken.

Gambling will save the economy after the AI bubble bursts! /s

This is like my gambling story, except I just lost $60 on a slot machine in ten minutes and wondered why people thought this was fun.

Alex Trebek said that gambling had no appeal for him.

If he won $100.00 it didn't make any difference in his life, and if he lost $100.00 he felt like an idiot.

What put me off from gambling at an early age was trying to get a porygon in the original Pokemon Red Version.

Also, I played a lot of casino minigames in the Mario64 DS remake. I did alright at some but it definitely taught me that you can never truly predict the outcomes, so don't bet with anything you don't mind losing.

As an adult though, I literally never felt the desire to actually gamble with real money. That sounds idiotic.

Brother took me to a casino for my 21st birthday. I did a bit of research, so I only took in $40 and left my atm card at home.

I wanted to play the cool looking slot machines. Brother convinced me that roulette was going to be way more fun. It was a busy night, so it took almost an hour to get a spot at the table. And the minimum bet was $10. Roughly 3 min after finally getting to bet, I'd lost all $40, having not won a single time (even my bets on the colors failed).

It was so utterly disappointing, especially when the next person in our party got to the table and managed to keep their bets going for over an hour and left with a few hundred extra $ that night. Most of the night was me just standing around bored out of my mind.

I'm very thankful for that early experience. Later experiences were better, but also far more tempting. I attribute my ability to resist the temptation largely to how shitty that first night was.

I don’t gamble often but when I do I treat it as an entertainment expense. I can budget $60 to going to a casino or for buying tickets to something. When the $60 is gone I am done.

It’s all about $/hr of entertainment value.

That said I haven’t really been gambling for 20 years.

I’d say that’s 20SEK well spent to learn a valuable lesson.

My trick is to try to separate “winnings” from the amount planned for gambling. I look at it as how much to spend for time of entertainment. The idea would be to try to only lose the original 20SEK you started with and try to move the over 40SEK into the other pants pocket.

It’s not always easy, and it’s harder with the stupid electronic cards that I’m sure track your profitability.

This is also my gambling story! I also lost money to those slots on a ship as a teenager. Although it was a ferry to England, not a cruise. But I haven't gambled since.

I lost maybe 100-200 euros opening lootboxes in Counterstrike. Not at once but maybe 20 euros at a time. At some point I realized it didn't make any sense to continue buying them and I haven't spent money on microtransactions since.

Same, but many people are wired very, very differently from you and I here.

It's basically a skinner box + the unknown, if I spend $1000 then I've spent $1000, but if I gamble $1000, I could win all this money, or I could lose it all, no one knows, and every time it's new + dangerous. It also just ruins your perspective/ respect for money, because if you gained/lost 20k in an afternoon, what are you going to do go back to working for $20 an hour for half a year for what you made/spent in 2 hours?

It’s “intermittent” or “unpredictable reward” coupled with the addict’s brain wiring. The thrill and relief of a win is addictive.

If you’re not wired that way you simply aren’t going to “get it”, same as not really understanding any other addiction - at least in any way other than intellectually.

I don't gamble, I just buy pallets of equipment at auction in the hopes that I can resell it for a profit.

Gambling addiction is about the high like any other addiction. It comes down to brain chemistry, and personality. There's the high from anticipation, and a second from the payoff just like every addiction. Gambling is just easier than most because it's money, something we all have to use. Like food addiction, it's something we all need to consume.

It's the variable reward that does it. That's also true for animals. Give a pigeon a button that when pressed gives sometimes nothin or some food and they go haywire and become addicted to pressing the button.

Then the money men saw it works the same in humans. Hence loot box mechanics everywhere. Press bottom and get variable reward. Whaddya know, some folks are really susceptible to this and hit that button like a pigeon.

Sports betting is the same, but with the illusion of skill around it.

I've been gambling before and it was fun when I won money. The thing is I know how, with few exceptions with games like poker and blackjack (and only then if you're skilled), you will ALWAYS lose more money than you win over long enough of a time period.

I'm a big, walking math machine, though, so I've been the person getting a little too tipsy at the roulette table and telling everyone exactly how probability works and that numbers are never "hot". The roulette dealer was surprisingly amused.

I think it's because they think they'll win more money. I'd be happy having fun while getting money at the same time.

We used to play poker when I was at university, but because we were all nerds we used to play for Pokémon cards.

It is fun but playing for money is a really bad idea because even if it's all amicable and no one actually cheats it will still result in one person being happy with the outcome and everyone else being mad at them.

But I'm with you I'm much rather just spend money that I own rather than take a risk on it especially because I can do the odds. I've often thought I would rather play the stock markets than in a casino, the odds are better because there is actually an element of skill involved.

Reading your comment, I'm imagining that the "likes gambling" trait has much overlap with the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" trait. These are people who do not get excited from regular purchases because regular purchases do not strike them as a way to get out of their temporarily embarrassed rut.

Fun fact: you CAN win money because they operate in a legal gray area calling themselves "prediction markets".

Basically you buy percentage shares in an outcome and if that outcome happens all of those that bought the shares get a payout. At least that's my understanding of it.

Do I do it? Fuck no.

Do I know more than a few people that do? Literally more than half of my coworkers do and a few people in my friend group do.

Bonus "fun" fact: they're not limited to just gambling. If you managed to miss it, not too long ago people were gambling on events in the Iran War.

If it wasn't obvious I'm very much against this practice. Shit's fucked.

They push that phrase so hard because it is gambling. They’re trying to skirt the legal definition, but the common sense definition would disagree.

But you can win it's practically gaurenteed!

-Ads.

Seriously, why don't these things have warnings on them like cigarettes. I see ads for the local casino that say stuff like "riches are just 3 exits down," it's crazy. Should also say "GAMBLING IS ADDICTIVE AND YOU WILL LOSE MONEY" or something.

What you're hoping for is that governments go back to protecting people instead of being used by the rich to transfer wealth from the citizenry.

Everyone knows gambling has zero social benefit and does a lot of harm. But none of that matters because you can show up to a few congressmen with a few thousand dollars and they'll do what you tell them, and no other congress critters will get in their way because every other congresscritter wants support for their grifts.

Government is working hard to find a million ways to redistribute wealth upward. Public advertising of gambling is just one more sign of corruption.

I fucking love horse racing man, and no i dont gamble (anymore lol)

Yup, I fell into the sports gambling world for a few years. I originally just played fantasy football and thought it was fun then quickly started gambling on each fantasy season which then just became gambling each game and then became gambling on sports I didn't watch like golf.

I was able to break the addiction but I cannot watch any sports anymore do to a fear of falling into that all again. Its actually nice to not to give a fuck about these rich athletes anymore and just enjoying things I can do.

All I needed to know was to pay attention to the terminology and optics of NFL drafts and the power dynamics following it. The fact that those in power are a-okay with problematic stuff like that, strongly suggests they have skewed ethics and likely apply that ethos everywhere.

I'd wager the majority of people trying to get into professional sports is because of the money.

I stopped watching F1 2 or 3 races in this year. has it improved? the constant pass and repass is boring and not what F1 is supposed to be in my opinion.

I just paid for F1TV via an Indian Apple account. Very cheap and better commentary than SkySports. Plus it has extra analysis videos.

Sports betting is huge in the UK though.

The only reason I have cable TV is it was literally cheaper to get it packaged with my Internet than just getting the Internet alone.

I've never had cable in my entire life. Parents never paid for it, and I got so sick of watching planes crash into buildings 25 years ago that I stopped watching it entirely. It didn't take long before advertising drove me crazy, and I've never been back.

I've been arguing with strangers online ever since. I should get back into books.

Very helpful summary thank you for this

Moneybags!

What sport are you watching? That’s literally the other commercial.

Different strokes for different folks

There's a lot of sports I don't enjoy watching but some are pretty cool IMO

Don't worry, they're plastering the same shit in your news as "prediction markets".