I have something I need to vent about, that I've tried to vent to friends about as well, but where nobody has been on the same page as me before.

In short, I despise gambling (casinos, sports betting, loot boxes in games, etc.), I think it destroys lives, often slowly and discreetly, and I think advertisements for it should be as taboo as tobacco advertisements and should even be illegal.

In long:

I've seen a trend in the last few years of sports betting becoming advertised to an unbearable degree. I can't watch any sport without a commercial for draft kings or fan duel. I can't even watch youtube without content creators being sponsored by draft kings. Advertisements for sports betting, specifically, are literally everywhere. I'm even in a basketball chat and there are several people there that DON'T EVEN WATCH BASKETBALL, they're specifically there to talk about the bets they make for a sport they don't watch.

I've seen at least a dozen friends sign up due to the ridiculous amount of advertising and with almost every single one, they claim they're getting "free money" since DK does give you free bets on a first deposit or something, but then every single one, after running out of the "free money" doesn't cash out and delete their account, they put five more dollars in, then put ten in, etc. until it starts to control their life and their finances. There shouldn't be a person alive that doesn't know how gambling can destroy you, but people still sign up for this bullshit. Nobody seems to understand that the only reason draft kings can give you free money on signup is because, on average, they make MORE than that per person.

On the subject of casinos, I went to Las Vegas for the first time last year. I already knew how elaborate and rich the casinos on the strip are, that part did not surprise me. What did surprise me is that if you go just a few blocks off the strip, it's almost entirely run down low income housing. You have possibly one of the richest areas in the United States in the form of the strip and seemingly none of that wealth is being shared to neighboring communities. It just goes back into the strip, getting sports teams to move to Vegas, getting F1 races, etc.

It just baffles me that so many people gamble and, even when warned about it, even after losing money, they insist that it's fun or that it's not so bad, but I truly think that gambling culture and companies running gambling schemes are some of the biggest evils out there. My parents divorced partly because of gambling. My dad permanently fucked his life up because of it. He has zero money, is now at an age and health where he can barely work, and my sister and I will likely be stuck footing the bill for his care later in life when just 15 years ago he was in a position to be set up pretty well for the rest of his life.

And yet, people still go to Vegas and lose hundreds or thousands on slots or cards, people still sign up on draft kings and lose hundreds or thousands on bets, and seemingly everyone I talk to is entirely blind on how bad of a situation this is and thinks me radical when I say that gambling advertisements should be illegal.

I value personal freedom, I don't think gambling should be banned, but I do think it can pose just as much of a danger to ruining someone's life as cigarettes can, but as a society, nobody seems to have any issue with ads for sports betting and casinos.

In addition to all of the above, we still have loot boxes in video games and collectible card games as a whole, but that would be another 2 pages of writing and I don't want to get in that deep.

If you stuck with me this whole time, thank you. I don't expect many people to agree, but I at least really needed to vent this out, even if it's into the void.

Do any of you have positive or negative experiences regarding gambling to add?

As far as "vice" is concerned, do any of you draw the line somewhere? For example, has anyone here been to a strip club? Paid for sex? Engaged in recreational use of illegal drugs? Gambled?

I was inspired by this post and was wondering where ya'll stand.

The premise is like Survivor: don't get eliminated. The thirteen contestants vie for immunity and each week's loser gets axed. The games are mostly board game-style gambling -- from straightforward poker derivatives to deckbuilding.

The show is completely unscripted and the cast is a mixture of minor celebrities, professional game players, and -- in seasons three and four -- ordinary folks from the general public.

The show's marketing material describes the show as an investigation of what genius is. There's a case to be made for this -- the games are diverse, well-designed, and the gameplay onscreen is always interesting. You'll be constantly saying to yourself "I didn't think of that," even the second or third time you watch the show. There's often more than one way to win each game.

What the show does well is presenting mundane reality TV dilemmas psychologically. The show takes place in a kind of liminal space where it isn't clear who's going to become the monster and how. There's lighter stuff and camaderie -- on-camera shtick like hugging and bowing and begging, eating delicious food. Sometimes, there's a little bit of sexism.

It ends in something continually getting worse, and nobody's ever sure exactly what. It usually takes more than one episode for someone to pinpoint what it is. A lot of the tension comes from how the first time something strange happens, it's OK or you excuse it as a coincidence -- and the second or third time it happens, your fear of confirmation bias makes it so you're still not entirely sure if it's a pattern. The show spends a lot of time on this precipice.

The people on The Genius are abnormal. Some of them play the games weird and some are weird themselves -- some of them have learned to hide their biggest character flaws and some of them haven't. At the most extreme it's like sitting next to someone on the bus who snores loud, but not loud enough to make you give up your seat, and then he shoves his hand down your throat.

You can view the first season here, subtitled in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpwIgWPfNvc . Most of the fans consider Episode 2 a very strong episode, so you should watch at least until that, or skip to it if you're impatient.

If all the psychodrama stuff I mentioned sounds appealing to you, skip to season 2, the darkest season. Unfortunately, the later seasons aren't on YouTube, but you can find them in a lot of places: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGenius/comments/5s7eh9/the_genius_s2_s3_and_society_game_file_links/

I've been rabidly evangelizing this show to all my real life friends for years. Please ask any questions that will lead to you watching it! (PS: To those who've seen it, please don't post spoilers in this thread!)

I started gambling on sports at the start of the 2016 NFL season. Using a popular offshore site that takes bitcoin for wagers, I managed to get around the stringent US laws against sports betting. I got very lucky early on, and I thought I had a knack for picking teams. Obviously, that luck doesn't last forever (a tale as old as time) and now I have to watch games for "fun" instead of relying on the outcome to make money.

I still throw money on playoff games from time to time. That said, there really isn't a thrill like watching a fuzzy stream of two high school football teams halfway across the country, hoping for a safety to cover the spread. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Or does anyone have an edge on the BIG3 summer league they wanna share?