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points

by asdff19 hours ago |

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by lazide16 hours ago|

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They won’t be marginalized if we don’t shit on them somehow.

by mikkupikku11 hours ago|

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Unless we nut up and ban gambling, there will never be a shortage of broke motherfuckers who should be able to make ends meet with their job but simply never will be able to. You have no idea how badly gambling suppresses a large subset of the working class.

by bjoli9 hours ago|

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I dont think most people here see that, or even have the willingness to see that. The same was true for the opioid epidemic. Had it hit a group with any political capital there would have been laws passed and the sacklers would have been not just painted as villains, they would have been castrated a quarter of a century ago.

Just wait 15 years when the middle class has been struggling with easily accessible gambling and it can't be explained as problem of character. There will be laws passed and people prosecuted or successfully sued.

by lazide6 hours ago|

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Many of those targeted by the sacklers did start as white, middle class, etc. or even white, upper class.

Those folks that did fall to it, then became (often) lower class while failing to it.

The thing to realize, is that the upper classes ‘eat their own’ just like any other. It’s why Trump is as frantic as he is, he knows what will happen when he stops being ‘useful’/necessary.

by hn_acc13 hours ago|

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I'm not really affected by it yet (I've been able to resist gambling more than a self-imposed $20 at a time, which I can afford, and one time I realized I wanted to break my limit, I realized it was an important moment to nut up and walk away). But I understand that there are people it's really affecting. So I'm all in favor of "NO more gambling".

But even if that wasn't a thing - the way it's ruined watching sports now, with the constant odds flashing, etc, I'd ban it JUST for that, on top of all the detrimental effects on society.

by mrguyorama2 hours ago|

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Which, as a reminder, was the status quo just a decade or so ago.

I don't remember "I can't throw money away on this football play" being a massive society wide problem that needed fixing in 2010, pretty sure everyone could bet with their friends already.

by mikkupikku2 hours ago|

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What's more, betting with friends is vastly less harmful than betting at casinos (digital or otherwise.) When you bet with friends, your loss is their gain and their loss is your gain, the money more or less sticks around, the community as a whole isn't impoverished by it. But when people are gambling away their days wages playing rigged slot machines on their phone, that money might as well have been set on fire. It goes into the pockets of investors who might as well be on the other side of the planet and in the long run it will never be won back. The community as a whole is impoverished by this kind of gambling.