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It’s definitely bad that twice as many people have a gambling problem. However to assess the NET impact you also have to count how much value/fun/whatever the non-problem-gamblers are having, plus whatever tax revenues you get, increased economic activity from more attention on sports, etc.

Personally I think these companies suck. Just need more work to make a strong good faith argument about it.

by vintermann2 hours ago|

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I think an important question to ask is: how much of a company's income comes from harmful use?

Gambling (and some other industries, in particular alcohol) come out so bad on this metric, you can practically let the industry define excessive use themselves. In order to claim most of their money comes from "healthy normal entertainment use" or similar, they'd have to claim absurd things, such as that drinking a bottle of whisky per day or spending your entire paycheck each month on slots can be healthy, normal use.

by AlexandrB2 hours ago|

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My problem with sports gambling is that all these companies are lying. If you win a lot you get (the gambling equivalent of) shadow banned[1]. The provider pretends they're providing a game where you can "win big" and it's all up to your knowledge of sports, but the reality is that it's a skewed playing field where you can either lose or lose more.

The common industry explanation is that this is because they would be unprofitable if they allowed "winners" to keep betting, which tells you everything you need to know. These businesses can only exist because they're allowed to skew the odds in their favour. Eliminate this unfair practice and the problem goes away on its own.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/19/stake-factor...

by VBprogrammer1 hours ago|

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Yeah, I've worked in the industry for a long time. I think good regulation would prevent per punter limits. I don't really see why doing this would make the industry unprofitable, the odds have a margin baked in, exactly the same as a 0 (and in the US the 00) in roulette. Worst case they would have to increase the margin, which maybe isn't so good for casual players but at least it's a level playing field.

I also find the common implementation of in-play delay poor. The way it generally works is a delay is applied before confirming the bet, anything which changes (including pricing) causes the bet to be rejected. The main reason for this is that the traders sometimes only have access to something like sky sports so their feed is quite far behind someone at the stadium. I feel like in reality it should be based on official timings.

by erfgh2 hours ago|

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They will just switch to a betting exchange model where the house gets a percentage of the turnover and the rest is distributed to the players. Under this model there is no incentive to ban winners.

by VBprogrammer2 hours ago|

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The problem with this is liquidity, particularly well before an event. It's why the original exchange (or at least the first one I'm aware of) also now offer a normal sportsbook.

by lordnacho2 hours ago|

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But the two big players in question do not do this, do they?