November 11, 2024

“The Online Sports Gambling Experiment Has Failed” by Zvi

22 minutes

Related: Book Review: On the Edge: The Gamblers

I have previously been heavily involved in sports betting. That world was very good to me. The times were good, as were the profits. It was a skill game, and a form of positive-sum entertainment, and I was happy to participate and help ensure the sophisticated customer got a high quality product. I knew it wasn’t the most socially valuable enterprise, but I certainly thought it was net positive.

When sports gambling was legalized in America, I was hopeful it too could prove a net positive force, far superior to the previous obnoxious wave of daily fantasy sports.

It brings me no pleasure to conclude that this was not the case. The results are in. Legalized mobile gambling on sports, let alone casino games, has proven to be a huge mistake. The societal impacts are far worse than I expected.

Table [...]

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Outline:

(01:02) The Short Answer

(02:01) Paper One: Bankruptcies

(07:03) Paper Two: Reduced Household Savings

(08:37) Paper Three: Increased Domestic Violence

(10:04) The Product as Currently Offered is Terrible

(12:02) Things Sharp Players Do

(14:07) People Cannot Handle Gambling on Smartphones

(15:46) Yay and Also Beware Trivial Inconveniences (a future full post)

(17:03) How Does This Relate to Elite Hypocrisy?

(18:32) The Standard Libertarian Counterargument

(19:42) What About Other Prediction Markets?

(20:07) What Should Be Done

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First published:

November 11th, 2024

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tHiB8jLocbPLagYDZ/the-online-sports-gambling-experiment-has-failed

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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