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15 votes
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The International Olympic Committee published a study comparing trans- and cisgender athletes
15 votes -
The highs, lows and terrible in-betweens of a compulsive sports gambler
4 votes -
The mysterious life and questionable claims of Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter
16 votes -
Documentary ‘The Home Game’, about an Icelandic village's football team, has taken the top honour at the Glasgow Film Festival
6 votes -
'Copa 71' - the Lost Lionesses and the forgotten 1971 women's World Cup
6 votes -
EA offering players $600 and a free game to appear in College Football 25
8 votes -
The majority of traffic from Elon Musk's X may have been fake during the Super Bowl, report suggests
50 votes -
Christian Super Bowl commercial outrages US conservatives
39 votes -
Ski vacations in the Alps are becoming increasingly elitist
28 votes -
The US Park Service wants to ban all rock climbing in designated wilderness
33 votes -
Utah teen athlete faces threats after state official posted photos questioning her gender
40 votes -
Warner, Fox, Disney to launch streaming sports joint venture
6 votes -
The Super Bowl and gambling are locked in a tight and dangerous embrace
26 votes -
Carl Weathers, linebacker-turned-actor who starred in ‘Rocky’ movies and ‘The Mandalorian,’ dies
31 votes -
Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a MAGA meltdown
37 votes -
Prediction markets have an elections problem
9 votes -
Amber Glenn becomes first LGBTQ+ woman to win US Women's Figure Skating Championship
12 votes -
Finnish sauna that was gifted to the UK after the 1948 Olympic Games has been granted Grade II-listed status
4 votes -
A feminist manifesto
14 votes -
The making of NHL 94: 30th anniversary documentary
15 votes -
Dwayne Johnson to play MMA fighter Mark Kerr in A24 movie from Benny Safdie
6 votes -
Campaigners seek listed status for Finnish sauna from 1948 Olympics – wooden hut is Britain's oldest operating sauna and ‘hugely important’ piece of sporting history
9 votes -
Is Los Angeles’ transit Olympics-ready?
13 votes -
The making of NHL 94 - 30th anniversary documentary
15 votes -
Gambling, and my rambling on why gambling advertisements should be illegal
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...
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?
76 votes -
Bowling in the 1700’s? - Full "Skittles" gameplay | Engineering America
4 votes -
The odd history of goalie masks
11 votes -
Arizona golf course destroyed by herds of javelinas
44 votes -
The Boys in the Boat | Official trailer
4 votes -
Two Swedish nationals have been shot dead and a third person injured in Brussels, in an attack which prosecutors are treating as terrorism
21 votes -
The Iron Claw | Official trailer
7 votes -
Olympics vs booksellers
13 votes -
'Sports specialization' in young athletes can do more harm than good
8 votes -
How Barstool built an empire by swiping sports highlights and music clips online
14 votes -
The NFL season opener is also the kickoff for the biggest gambling season ever
12 votes -
The unwanted Spanish soccer kiss is textbook male chauvinism. Don’t excuse it.
34 votes -
Golf badly exposed to gambling with little sign of Jay Monahan handling problem
9 votes -
What Courtney Dauwalter learned in the pain cave
6 votes -
This is the gayest World Cup ever (and no one’s batting an eyelid)
25 votes -
US Ninth circuit court of appeal upholds preliminary injunction against Idaho law banning transgender girls and women participation in women's sports
I haven't yet found a news article, but will add if I find one. Here is the ruling. https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/08/17/20-35813.pdf
26 votes -
Matildas v France World Cup match pulls the biggest Australian TV audience of 2023 (so far)
9 votes -
Pioneering mothers are breaking down barriers to breastfeeding in Olympic sports
24 votes -
Jelle's Marble Runs - GForce Tournament
9 votes -
Women's soccer players, do you remember how you fell in love with the game?
I'm a soon-to-be new dad of a baby girl. I have loved and played soccer since 6 years old, and would love nothing more than to see my daughter take to the game. However, I would never force...
I'm a soon-to-be new dad of a baby girl. I have loved and played soccer since 6 years old, and would love nothing more than to see my daughter take to the game. However, I would never force anything on her just because I happen to like it - if she ends up having no interest in soccer, so be it.
So my question to those of you who play/played, do you remember what got you hooked? I'll obviously be kicking the ball around with her at the park, and my city is fortunate enough to have a pro women's team, so I'll be taking her to games. Is there anything else I can do to put together my best "pitch deck" together for the sport?
Thanks in advance, and go KC Current! :)
13 votes -
Anyone play cards-and-dice sports simulator games?
Curious to see if there are any other sports sim fans around here. If you're not familiar with the genre, the two most popular and longest running are APBA Baseball/Football/Hockey and...
Curious to see if there are any other sports sim fans around here. If you're not familiar with the genre, the two most popular and longest running are APBA Baseball/Football/Hockey and Strat-O-Matic Baseball/Football/Hockey. Personally, I'm a big fan of Second Season Football and I'm playing with Back to Minnesota's 1965 season so I can bring Jim Brown and Cleveland back to glory!
If you've never heard of this before, think of these games as "story generators" where you can play two teams against each other and see how close the dice rolls and stats get to real life. I play as a sort of chill night where I listen to a baseball game or a podcast with a cup of coffee. Throwing dice around and watching Jim Brown plow through some poor defense is really enjoyable :)
You can also play head to head with another player! I highly recommend a smaller game like Pocket Pennant Run if you're interested in diving into games like this. A similar game would be Stone Cold Hockey for hockey fans and Fast Drive Football for football nerds like myself.
The biggest communities online are definitely the Delphi Forums for Tabletop Sports as well as the Digital to Dice Podcast Facebook page.
Digital versions of the APBA and Strat games exist, and there is a huge fanbase for the Action! PC Games, and a hugely popular game is Out of the Park Baseball which has simulator-like features but is mostly a baseball management game.
6 votes -
Running and the science of mental toughness
26 votes -
How many ten-year-olds can you beat in a fight?
Just wondering how many average 10 year olds you think you can fight off before being overwhelmed. Here are the basic terms of fighting: the kids are very angry at you, each one will fight you...
Just wondering how many average 10 year olds you think you can fight off before being overwhelmed. Here are the basic terms of fighting: the kids are very angry at you, each one will fight you until they get hurt enough to quit or become unconscious, you are unarmed, and you are in a gated school playground as the battle arena. The playground is about 50 feet around, closed gate around in an octagon and closes up top like a dome. First one kid comes at you, then it adds one each time you defeat a group. Defeat 1 and 2 come, defeat the 2 then 3 come, and so on. Each group arrives by sliding down a pole into the middle playground and sliding down the slide. From there, they rush at you full force.
I feel confident in my abilities to fight. I'm pretty sure I can get to group 13, so that would be roughly give or take 70 kids if I can take a few out in that round.
What do you think?
58 votes -
Mark Zuckerberg is ready to fight Elon Musk in a cage match
27 votes -
Is coffee good for you?
21 votes