YHK - yet another hacker news clone

> its much better to regulate vices then prohibition

And applied to gambling, this seems like an conjured argument, so oft repeated it has morphed into a platitude. I'm not aware of research that indicate that having the state safeguard gambling improves society in a quantifiable way - the lowest possible bar of "much better".

The gross proliferation of gambling ads certainly feels far removed from any notion of watching out for society's well being.

But i do not see, what the meta-narrative wrapped around the problem adds to the conversation. What do all these moralin negators add to the conversation? Just step back, be a example and remain virtuous while the rest of the world follows "First comes the feast, then the morals?"

This is such a discourse decay, we used to have analysis, a whole pyramid of needs- and a culture with a dedication to keeping the machine that gives us the luxus of morals at any costs. Now instead of guarding civilizations and the machine that keeps it going, we get https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant, for whom their virtuous self-important abstinence from the decay, makes them blue blooded, nobles even.

(And yes, I am using the word "ban" as shorthand for "extremely tight/onerous regulations in red and blue states, respectively".)

Do people who have actually had to earn and deserve what they have gamble?

The whole article's complaint isn't about the legality of sports gambling. It's about the prevalence of advertising. Of course the author doesn't like it, period, but once the billions started rolling in the politicians got out of the way.

I'm sure this will be inflammatory, but's not meant to be. It's like having separate smoking areas in bars/restaurants vs everybody smokes anywhere they want.

One way to regulate a vice is to completely ban advertising it.

Another is to make it inconvenient to access - offline only, away from schools, places of worship, commercial areas, or other places people congregate.

I'm eating just ramen here ...

Beyond that however I agree that turning this loose on the American public is an incredibly short-sighted act, but it's part of a pattern rather than an outlier.

I'm going with the rollout of LED headlights on that one, but reasonable people can disagree.

Here's an unforced error.

As with many other psychological phenomenona, finances and education only protect to a certain degree or not at all, depending on what one is talking about in detail.

This is not a comment about correlation or causation of wealth with mental health, but rather a warning to keep in the back of ones head; success and a sharp mind don't make one immune against mental health issues in general and gambling addiction in particular.

That's a tough sell; the US makes a lot of errors. Assuming "public policy" means "domestic"; their industrial policy promoting deindustrialisation seems like a bigger error. After a few moments of thought I'd probably argue the Bush-Obama era establishment of a massive internal surveillance apparatus (including a secret court) is a strong contender for biggest unforced error in living memory. There might be bigger ones but the US citizens lost a remarkable amount there. It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret. And the use of spying and federal harassment of political opponents seems to have been steadily normalising.

Even just background over-regulation on starting and running new businesses is probably going to cause more damage to poor people than legalising sports gambling.

But for others their "fill" is so high their addictions will wreck them entirely regardless of means.

But perhaps to your point, if I'm give it charity, people with less means are more likely to get entirely wrecked by certain addictions.

Sports gambling isn't a good thing, but 2025-2026 has shown us many far worse errors in public policy every single day.

You should allow people to bet sums on whether you're gonna get shot tomorrow, so you can have the best possible information!

Of course there's no incentives for acting badly against you, and if there are it's again, just price discovery.

Shameful.

In general, it’s been a disaster: it’s just moved betting to (illegal), offshore bookmakers. It’s pretty easy to get on via WhatsApp if you need to, these days.

I’d suggest most territories should be OK with sports bets on singles, not parlays, and block online casinos and slots. That latter category is very problematic for addicts. I get why it’s problematic for fans watching the game, which is why UK leagues have started to push it out a bit (no shirt front sponsors in EPL for example). I’d definitely push more down that route.

I’d also legally force platforms to move away from RFQs and parlays because they create an unfair asymmetry that harms the backer and creates huge profits to the layers (bookmakers, or market makers on prediction markets).

Disclosure: I write software that trades on exchanges in the UK. I have skin in the game, the above is based on what I track over here.

Offline-only, no advertising allowed.

This only works of course if the game is actually fair, and you have infinite money reserves.