Gambling, and my rambling on why gambling advertisements should be illegal

There's a whole lot of advertising that should be illegal but isn't.

Prescription drugs are a pretty big one. The average person doesn't have the skills or knowledge to know if they need any given drug - that's why doctors exist. Drug advertisements exist to get people to pressure doctors to prescribe them against their better judgement, and that is not a good thing.

Political ads should probably be banned as well. They are often so misleading that they're basically all lies. But it's such a monied interest and has political ramifications, so it's a minefield every time you bring up the topic.

Normal gambling? I'm okay with. I'm fine with the experience of going to a casino and having $100-$200 to see what I come out with at the end. It's something to do whenever I'm on a solo trip to somewhere that I happen to be staying at a Casino. Depending on the location, you can just chill and essentially pay for your drinks or maybe make something out of it. In that light, gambling is fine.

I am aware, however, that some people are more at risk of becoming addicted to the rush and losing everything. For example, This incident in Canada where an event organizer gambled away the deposits for 2 (TWO!!) Christmas market events, leaving 200+ vendors high and dry. These are people who are, unfortunately targeted by the casinos as they dump all their spare money into gambling and inevitably ruin their lives while doing it.

This is where I get really upset with the current state of gambling. Living in Ontario, there are two things that have grown frustratingly in-your-face over the last few years: sports gambling and casino apps.

Sports gambling ads I can't get away from. There was a moment a few years ago, in both the US and Canada, where sports gambling became legal and suddenly advertisements were EVERYWHERE. FanDuel, Draft Kings, MGM... anyone who has a sports betting service is eager to shove it in your face in the commercials. Then, before the game and at halftime, you're being aggressively told by announcers what the current betting lines are and where you can go to place your bet. You literally cannot watch sports today (especially in Ontario) and not see sports betting ads. And, because I like sports, guess what I get for what few ads I can't filter out? Sports books... because obviously I like sports so I just want to make a few extra winnings on the side, right? I refuse to bet on sports on principle at this point.

...which brings me to the one that disgusts me even more: Casino apps. Why, you don't have to even travel down to the nearest casino anymore. Nor do you have to go to the corner store or gas station to buy lotto tickets or scratch offs. You can just whip out your smartphone while sitting on your couch and piss away your paycheck. They spend all this effort in the ads to make these things look full of glitz and glamour, but they also make sure to have all the fun bells and whistles of a casino.... complete with the small, afterthought text or statement of "If you think you might have a gambling problem, you can seek help at this gambling help line!" which covers their butts just enough to avoid any legal ramifications.

The casino apps are disgusting. I hate them. Their existence is completely predatory and there is no redeeming factor for their existence. I already thought mobile gacha games were bad with their loot boxes, but these are incredibly worse. They need to be legislated out of existence to keep the vulnerable people from falling into the traps and ruining their lives.

...Looking back at the above text, I think your post stirred a long stewing discontent with some aspects of the world around me. I hope it all made sense!

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.

First, speaking as a local, a lot of the money goes back to the community(part of the reason we have no state tax and god knows it's not perfect), it's just unfortunate that yes some of the worst parts of town are adjacent to the strip. This has a lot more to do with how cities grow/degrade in general as older construction becomes less desirable than distribution of wealth, and Vegas doesn't do a great job of making those area's better (although we have done ok at times).

As for the rest of gambling:

I think if the country was held to the standards Vegas/Nevada is, it'd be a good thing. I don't think you can just stop gambling without making massive black markets and criminals out of too many people, ESPECIALLY now.

However, 99% of the ad's and systems you see, especially on mobile, would be illegal as fuck in Vegas as real devices, with a sort of exception being loot boxes "which aren't gambling", but if they were(as they should be), would be GROSSLY illegal.

Basically with Vegas having the mob and always being in the Fed's eyes, they had to make sure they had real rules on gambling, and they wanted to try and make sure it wasn't the only thing the town was good for (and they did succeed there.) The GCB is decades behind on tech, but the congress is even worse, because stuff that would be 100% illegal (basically gambling for children with hold %'s 90's when it's not outright fraud) has just....been allowed.

Sadly this all kinda circles back to shitty election's and congress and all the other usual stuff. There's too much money in it (because hey turns out getting kids to use their parents credit cards and gamble away is a huge revenue stream where you can dump money to get friendly people elected), and congress is completely willing to ignore it.

We need stronger laws on what is and isn't ok.

I try to take a balanced view on it. I enjoy a number of things responsibly that can ruin others' lives. I don't think such things (gambling, alcohol, etc) should be banned/illegal.

I do think they should be highly regulated in multiple ways- including where revenue/funds/profits can go, any kind of advertising (probably should ban this or make it very dry / un-enticing / full of warnings) and that signs of addiction / abuse should be looked out for and actively treated / addressed. Additionally, advertising or pushing these things to kids is 100% a no-go. Absolutely not. I also don't like the 'gambling stuff' in video games that primes kids brains for this stuff. It also bothers me that gambling wants to be so prevalent on streaming sites, etc. If they weren't restricted the amount they are already, media that is constantly in front of young people would be rampant with this stuff more than what is now.

The willingness of those in charge of services/products that we can consider 'vices' to ignore the harms and/or advertise to the vulnerable shows me that lots of reasonable, properly-applied regulation is a must.

That said, I think no matter how much you surround 'vices' with, there will still be people that fall through the cracks, but I don't think it's a reason to ban them. I do think these things must be accompanied with extremely strong focus on harm reduction in mind, however.

Trying to ignore or oppose the idea that these things can be dangerous, is a dangerous attitude itself, IMHO, so it bothers me that some that partake don't seem to realize the dangers or, even worse, choose actively to not care. I enjoy alcohol, I enjoy gambling, and I also know they can be dangerous.

I also think, in our society where money is king, and almost no one ever feels like they have enough- gambling looks incredibly enticing as a 'extremely small chance' of making it out of the capitalist work/money game we're all stuck in or at least potentially getting a small bump to lessen its weariness. That adds to the danger but I understand that feeling myself. It's why so many play the Powerball and other lotteries or whatnot- everyone wants that big break that removes them from the existential pain of financial insecurity (though many don't realize, while not a given, often your problems increase rather than decrease if you win big amounts).

So overall, yeah I agree, and not only that advertising for it should be restricted or illegal, but also that there needs to be more oversight / ways of ensuring that money is invested into communities that need it, etc. I think there are optimal ways to keep these things legal but lessen their harm and properly direct their benefits.

Many harmful behaviors are more or less inescapable and are probably better to regulate than eliminate.

That is the case with most drugs, and, I believe, gambling. However, there is nothing sensible about Casinos and other enterprises that employ Ivy League psychologists to find ways to increase addictive behavior to an extreme (an aside, but, to me, a psychologist working to make people addicted is like a doctor trying to get people sick).

That is not much different from gaming companies promoting addicting behavior in both children and adults with loot boxes and all kinds of disguised digital slot machines. Gambling should be regulated to prevent companies from purposefully triggering addiction. Regulation should protect people, not profit.

Gambling will always exist no matter what you do. It should be regulated in a way that prevents people from losing their lives, their mental health, and their life savings.

The UK has a huge problem with it. There's a bookie on every street corner I swear.

I walked past one earlier this week that said something about "Gamble awareness week".

It was like someone writing 'animal "hospital"' and made me laugh. Betting is a huge business in the UK, ivr got mates who've sunk thousands into it because one day they'll be like the fella who got £100 with 5000/1 odds on Leicester.

People will always gamble, you can't stop it. But the advertising absolutely takes the piss. That includes gaming gambling and the shitty Steam marketplace auction sites.

I agree that gambling advertisements have gotten way out of hand, especially in sports. The sheer volume of gambling ads have made a lot of sports unwatchable for me and it seems like most sports news programs are now just a bunch of "experts" talking about betting lines.

I'm a pretty big hockey fan and the way that the NHL has treated gambling ads is just one of several ways they've disappointed me lately. Nearly every commercial break features ads for sportsbooks, some current players even have endorsement deals. The sport's GOAT, Wayne Gretzky, who has been implicated in illegal sports gambling activities in the past, even has a deal with one.

Despite welcoming the cash that sportsbooks bring to the league with open arms and encouraging players to sign endorsement deals with them, the league also suspended Ottawa Senators player Shane Pinto for half a season for betting-related activities. The full details of the incident haven't been made public AFAIK, but some insiders suggest that he allowed a friend to use one of his accounts to make bets on his behalf. Guess what kind of company pays to have their logo displayed on his team's helmets? I'll give you a hint, it's a sportsbook. It's been hard to take the NHL seriously on any matter of morals or integrity lately.

Hear hear! Gambling provides absolutely no value to society and in fact only serves to make poor people even poorer. It's ridiculous that so many innocuous things are illegal and yet one of the most damaging diseases is not only allowed, but incentivized.

I'm a bit of a gambling addict. I know this about myself, and it mostly keeps it in check. If I want to go to a casino, I'll take a fixed amount of cash and not bring any cards, with the understanding I'm losing it all. Thankfully since quitting smoking casinos are about 100x less fun. Something about playing blackjack at 2 AM without chainsmoking makes it extra sad instead of thrilling.

One of the best things I found that helped was Yotta, a fintech that used prize-based savings that let you scratch the lotto-monkey's back without spending your money. It wasn't really better than a proper savings account, but was half-decent as a checking alternative. It definitely saved me a good chunk of change not throwing money at slots or lotto.

They recently introduced gambling games for the tickets you get from having savings. And offering a weekly "subscription" for $5 or $10 to give you approximately 1/3 that value in tickets. Incidentally giving more tickrts than most people ever earn from saving. Diluting the valur of savings tickets, on top of charging more for it than the average person would earn in interest a month in a regular savings account, even at 4% interest rates.

They built their userbase on the promise of avoiding exploitative gambling and are now deploying features design to exploit users to dial up the revenue. Both by selling tickets at an inflated cost, and by being able to collect those tickets so they don't even have to pay out as much winnings, which still usually amounted to less than 1% interest, back when 1.2% in a savings account was awesome. I am pissed.

I'm saddened to hear that gambling has impacted your family so badly, and your venting about it is completely reasonable.

I don't think there's enough attention paid to gambling as a public health problem. I'd like to emphasize this portion:

Researchers have also argued that unhealthy commodity industries use personal responsibility frameworks to minimise their role in the production of harm [17]. By framing individuals as informed consumers who are free to choose their health behaviours, personal responsibility paradigms also conflate the choice to engage in certain behaviours with the acceptance of responsibility for any harm that may be experienced [18]. This type of framing has contributed to the moralising of health behaviours by creating the perception that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ways that individuals may consume or engage with products that may be harmful for their health [19]. From this perspective, the experience of harm signifies a moral failing of the decision-making agent [20], thus overlooking the range of factors that may contribute to the risks associated with gambling. Researchers have argued that personal responsibility framings may also contribute to the stigmatisation of individuals who are perceived to be at fault for their own negative experiences with gambling and other harmful products [21,22,23,24,25].

In the same ways that the processed food industry blames consumers for overeating foods engineered to be addictive, the alcohol and tobacco industries promote "responsible" consumption, the gambling industry promotes a potentially addictive product and blames individual moral failure when users engage addictively. All these industries have had the privilege of externalizing the costs of addiction, even though the harms extend far beyond the individual users.

Our flawed monkey brains are constantly exposed to stimuli we never evolved to cope with. Any sufficiently evil actor (here's looking at you, advertising and gaming industries) can play with our brain chemistry given enough exposure and repetition. Fear, greed, anger, lust, hunger, despair... aside from the classic moral framing of sin, these are valid descriptors for vulnerable neurochemical states. And gambling preys on these vulnerabilities. The tiny dopamine hits from variable-ratio behavioral reinforcement are a form of classic Skinnerian operant conditioning. It's an open secret that this is widely exploited in game design and gambling.

I've been to Las Vegas, and seen a GINI that looks more like that of a deprived developing nation with total corruption, than a well-run polity. I'm old enough to have seen the steady decay of public services and growth of plutocracy that results from funding government via lotteries which absorb revenue from the hopeful and desperate who can least afford to pay. It's not my intention to sound like an old-fashioned Christian moralist rattling on about the scourge of greed. But I can atheistically agree that morality meets ethics here - it's fundamentally evil to exploit individual vulnerability in ways that harm both individuals and society as a whole.

So here's what I would propose:

Eliminate gambling ads on public broadcast media, period.

Penalize ad placement companies that put gambling ads in any medium available to under-21's, the same as for alcohol and tobacco.

No gambling (including lottery tickets) in any establishment where drugs (including tobacco and alcohol) are used or sold. That means no exploitation of gambling + disinhibiting substances.

No gambling, lottery ticket sales, or public ad display for addictive substances or games within 1 km of a pre-K - 12 school.

No ATMs inside casinos or other gaming establishments. Require gambling establishments and online gaming companies to use regulated merchant category codes for credit cards, with a hard limit of $1000/month, and a mandatory public health warning with links to addiction services each time that limit is reached.

I'm sure there are other proposals that would be legally enforceable and might diminish the social acceptance of games of chance for money.

Full disclosure: I've avoided gambling all my life, knowing there's a family predisposition to that particular addiction. Nonetheless, I got hooked on a loot box mobile game to mitigate anxiety during the pandemic lockdowns, and it was a miserable experience that cost me a couple of thousand dollars before I could delete it and walk away. Like /u/vord, I am pissed.

I completely agree with you and share the same sentiment. Also I’m aware of my own self control levels and how bad I am at gambling, which keeps me away. Gambling has a right to exist but what’s happening is straight-up predatory.

I am not a fan of gambling. Or advertising for that matter.

Gambling is something people do for the rush, and like every other thing that comes with "a rush", some allow that to sweep them away. I consider gambling throwing money away. You might as well light it on fire, because even five minutes of research into the gambling industry shows the odds are clearly stacked against you. The house always wins.

Advertising is about manipulation, however genteel and polite they might try to frame it (which is to say, these days they don't try very hard at all to be anything other than blunt and blatant). Marketing isn't about informing customers, it's about swaying them. Convincing them. Enticing them. Quite rude if you sit down and think about the whole subject for more than perhaps half a minute.

That said ... something's either legal, or it isn't. Legality is a society scribing its rules. The very concept of legality varies because people vary. Different societies are concerned with different things. For example, and it's just one, some countries have legal sex work, while others criminalize the concept of sex as a service.

At a certain point, one that's incredibly easy to reach the moment anyone, for any reason, over any subject, decides to start moralizing over legality and what should or shouldn't be so ... you're now infantilizing the adults of the society. Shaking your finger at them and saying "you don't know better, but I do, so cut it out or I'll sic the law on you."

We could run down the list of addictions, but we all pretty much know the major ones people like to argue about. Including gambling, drugs (along with alcohol), even sex. Lots of societies grapple with sex, from actual sex and sex acts over to pornography and sexual situations designed to titillate. The history of most countries is simply littered with the back-and-forth warring of its members over trying to decide if or where to put the line of legal or not in the vast and broad topic of "sex".

All this happens because some people are psychologically incapable of managing themselves. They get swept away, lost in the rush. Whatever that rush is.

Is it tragic when an addict, of anything, is overcome and spirals down? Yes. Does it create sometimes horrible results? Yes. But only sometimes. Something that's always wrong, like assault or murder, is illegal for a very clear and obvious reason. "Sin laws" are much less obvious, and considerably more arguable. They often just come down to morality, which is a fancier way of the shaking of fingers at grown adults and telling them "we know better, stop it."

Treating them like infants.

America once outlawed alcohol, at the urging of people who were appalled at what happens in the case of some of those excesses (along with some who just flat out hated anyone drinking, even not to excess). A period where responsible adults were punished for the excesses of the weak and problematic Most Americans know Prohibition was repealed.

It turns out, you can't really outlaw something most adults are going to want to engage in anyway. And doing so just creates a whole new set of problems. Not the least of which is how it undermines society members' faith and trust in the law itself. Not the law proscribing the thing they want; but in how that mistrust and disgruntlement bleeds out into their general faith and view of law and government in general.

Some people can't gamble responsibly. Some can't drink responsibly. Some can't listen to music responsibly, or hold a party responsibly, or even drive responsibly. Some of those excesses (assault, public disturbance, drunk driving, etc) are illegal in their own right.

Behaviors, not specific acts, should be what law focuses on. Because it's behaviors that are damaging to society. And by behaviors, I mean acts against their fellow citizens. If you attack someone, we outlaw that for a reason. If you drive recklessly in a manner that is likely to injure or kill someone, that's illegal. Murder, rape, theft; these things are illegal for a reason.

Problematic behaviors don't need to be specifically outlawed, because we already have laws that target the actual problems that might arise from those behaviors. If a desperate gambler (or drug user, or even a crazed gamer who needs the entry fee for Saturday's tournament) breaks into my house to steal, that's theft. Charge him with theft. We don't need to also charge him with gambling atop the theft. Just the theft was what he did wrong.

Making an act like drinking, sex, gambling, and so on ... making that illegal is mostly missing the forest for the trees in my view. It infantilizes adults. It's society saying "we know better" which is just asinine for the most part. Who is anyone else to tell you something you're doing, that doesn't hurt others, should stop?

In reality, the more the act is in the blurry gray area where people wonder why it's over the line, or protest at it being there on the illegal side, the more dangerous it makes things for all involved since some will go looking for that service anyway.

So often, the very poster people the prohibitionists will hold up as a reason to outlaw something aren't saved or helped by the law anyway. A gambling addict will find a way to gamble, legal or not. Same for a drug user, an alcoholic, and so on. When you push something into the twilight areas, or straight into the shadows, unsurprisingly things that go bump in the night start clanging and causing a ruckus.

So all that really happens for the most part is people who'd otherwise be law abiding citizens are criminalized. Treating them like naughty children.

Gambling sucks. So do ads. But adults have a right to be adults. That means some of them will do shit other adults wouldn't, or don't understand. As long as whatever they're doing fits within the general broad framework of legal and law abiding (mostly here I'm talking about being a good citizen who doesn't hurt other people) ... I don't think anyone has the right to butt in. Leave people alone to live their lives.

Which is much harder, and far more problematic, when society starts picking and choosing what they're going to shake their finger about. And once people start picking what they're going to outlaw, history shows us the line just keeps moving. We outlawed this, so why not this other related thing too? It's almost as bad, and now it actually is the worst thing since the others are already verboten so we should outlaw it too.

Before you know it, you're down that path and wondering why everything's illegal and you can't hardly do anything without getting in trouble.

I try to live my life as ad-free as possible. I basically won't use an app or service that doesn't have an option to pay in lieu of ads.

You can't get rid of them all. Even though I have YT premium, there's still sponsor ads in the youtube videos and product placements, but it's a lot better than the endless repetition (and seemingly more time for ads than shows) I see every time there's cable TV on in the doctor's waiting room. Don't even get me started on gas station pumps with ads (don't give me any spray paint either!)

I know this is unlikely to be possible in this great capitalist global marketplace, but as long as we're wishing, I'd like to see all advertisements require consent. Not blanket consent, but consent for each ad, each time. Or pay me to watch the ad. I'd go for that.

Definitely agree. Im old enough to remember when gambling was not only banned just about everywhere (except Vegas) and was largely considered a vice by our society. Its disturbing to me to see vices that were once clearly understood to be harmful slowly become edgy, then morph into something mainstream. As long as there's a corresponding campaign to "Gamble Responsibly" then gambling seems to get a pass, just like "Drink Responsibly". I highly doubt that a person caught in a gambling addiction, sees a sticker that says "Gamble Responsibly" and decides to reign in their habit.

It feels like society becomes more liberal without counting the cost of what the corresponding 'freedom' costs us all in the long run and sadly, a lot of that cost is invisible, borne by family and friends whose lives are deeply impacted by the gamblers actions, just like the OP.

Most people in modern society gamble or are affected by gambling.

Religiously putting 5-10% of your paycheck into your 401k? Then you're gambling, just slowly and over a long time horizon.

Those Wall St. bankers putting on a suit and sitting at a desk? Yup, gambling, just with bloomberg terminals.

And sometimes these gambles lose, just like at a casino.

But casinos catch shade because they are much more blatantly hedonistic and played in short time windows.

I think the reality is that, most of life is gambling, it's all about taking risks.
But more than that, it's about managing risk.