It’s all part of getting every last penny out of us before we die. If you’ve still got some disposable income left after paying rent and student loans, then here’s a fun way to throw it away!
Lately I’ve been seeing Matthew Broderick advertising a new gambling app with Candy Crush type games, instead of sports or Vegas style games, so it will be much more attractive to people who already play games on their phones. Worse, they are aiming at middle-aged women, but not just any middle-aged women, they are looking for those who are unfulfilled in life.
I’ve seen three different commercials, and all of them feature a woman whose family is ignoring her, and making her feel bad. Then Ferris Beuhler sidles up with this fun new game, and now she’s getting fat hits of dopamine, and she’s happy.
Many women handle the household finances, and in a couple of years, we’re going to see stories of Moms who lost the family home, gambling on her phone.
Lately I’ve been seeing Matthew Broderick advertising a new gambling app with Candy Crush type games, instead of sports or Vegas style games
It can only mean he has money problems.
Just fulfilling his fiduciary duty to his family, scummily.
That in no way excuses being a shill
Either way a has-been find themselves clawing up the wall.
Does the stock market count as gambling? 😂
Michael Burry invested more on gambling stocks and now I can see why.
For this article? No. For people with retirement accounts? Arguably no.
For people trading daily with an app on their phone? Yes.
I wonder what this figure is like not including the whales throwing around six figure paychecks. hard to spend 10k on a single book or movie ticket or song, ya know…
Apparently a lot of people (particularly younger generations) are increasingly getting hooked on gambling and are even psy-op’d enough to consider it as a part of their retirement strategy
It’s a tax on people who can’t do math.
Gambling addiction is an illness.
But you don’t get addicted if you don’t try it. The house always wins or there would be no gambling establishments. Tax on people who can’t do math.
But you don’t get addicted if you don’t try it.
Finally, addiction has terrorised societies for millenia, but this brave user has solved it!
Yep, that’s how i avoided heroin addiction too
Everyone I’ve known to get addicted to heroin started with simple painkillers, after the prescription was gone they went Black market, this led to stronger and stronger pills until the pills just didn’t do it anymore. Is somebody who was prescribed 40 mg Percocet per day for more than 2 months I can tell you, it’s fucking hard to stop.
Part of the problem is just how available it is. One doesn’t have to make a pilgrimage to a casino anymore. Just download an app. It’s advertised as a fun game to play rather than a highly addictive and crippling behavior.
Agreed. Gambling was almost totally illegal in canada until the government decided they wanted a slice (and a thin slice at that). now it is everywhere and problem gambling is exploding
Not entirely surprised, but surprised it is that high.
When I went there 10 years ago I met people in Vegas who go there every year as their main holiday with a few thousand euro budget to gamble.
I’m not pro-gambling but I think Vegas vacations are valid - they’re special occasions where you get a thrill for your money. What’s the difference between a $2000 cruise and a $2000 weekend in Vegas? Both are a waste to me but I see the appeal.
But this is different…it’s very much NOT about Vegas (which is struggling), it’s the apps. “Sports betting” aka gambling was legalized in 2018.
DraftKings and the rest have been fighting regulations since like…2012? And they won. Which is why there’s gambling ads everywhere with very little regulation. It’s why polymarket and kalshi exist.
Regulate these internet gambling companies back to the 2000s and the problem mostly goes away.
While I wholeheartedly agree with your statement about the app/site/sports betting, I don’t wholly agree with the travelling comparison.
Travelling and visiting places tend to open your horizons and enrich you culturally. It’s not easily generalized. Travelling to Disneyland probably won’t really broaden your horizons or teach you something culturally and neither will idly sitting on a cruise ship.
You are correct that the article is more about sports betting rather than casinos like in vegas. I merely meant that given what I experienced there, I’m not surprised the gambling in apps and sports is getting out of control. That’s on me though :)
Maybe I am against things like the Vegas vacations because I have such a large distaste for gambling in general. ( Loot box ‘surprise’ mechanics also do not help ).
I used cruises as an example because I don’t really consider that “traveling” for the most part. You’re on a floating box shuffling between touristy ports.
Very much not my idea of a good trip but some people LOVE that. I’d rather spend a week somewhere to soak it all in
Happy to say I contributed zero to that, but jesus fuck regardless.
Yeah I’ve never even bought a lottery ticket, no interest whatsoever.
Woof, that’s depressing
How much did the museum industry spend on gambling?
Less than Americans did.
“So you should buy me more books”
-- my wife
Okay, yeah sure. That looks bad. But how much did those Americans win back?
Handle is gross throughput, not consumer expenditure: over 90% of what is wagered gets returned to bettors in the form of winnings. That $1,000 in bets translates to roughly $100 in average losses per adult.
The market is big, but less than the more clickbaity headline would suggest.
over 90% of what is wagered gets returned to bettors in the form of winnings
As someone who has gambled once or twice, this seems like a wild overestimate.
They didn’t say it returned to the same individual. Some people get the ocasional win and stop, others keep gambling the winnings until they lose it all.
It depends on category of gambling.
For poker there’s usually a standalone price going to the organiser, for betting it’s often at 95% return rates.
Scratch cards tho, those fuckers goes low. Lotteries, 60% is not uncommon, but people like it at the very slight off chance they take the big price.
So it would require a pretty big breakdown of how many plays each category of gambling
Lotteries, 60% is not uncommon, but people like it at the very slight off chance they take the big price.
I think its more that you don’t have the time or opportunity to play a hand of poker in the same way you have to buy a scratch ticket at a gas station.
I would guess the mean and the median are very different. How many people taking out a mortgage on their house does it take to counteract a hundred grannies playing the penny slots?
I’m shocked that so little winds up with the house.
10% vig is actually rather large.
House taking 10% sounds about right.
You have to keep your clients thinking that they are almost there, maybe the next hand will be the one, that loss wasn’t so bad… You don’t gut the fish, you slowly raise the temperature.
Really an idiotic comparison. If I start an account with a hundred and regularly bet low stakes, moving ny account up and down without any crazy losses, are they gonna say I placed thousands in bets when my account was always near $100?
Well the IRS can say you won thousands for tax purposes so be careful. Gambling losses do not offset winnings.
Wait what? As a non gambler I have questions. Do the wins and losses per customer get summed up at the end of the night and reported to the IRS by the casinos? Does one self-report? If so, again would it be your net over a certain period or each hand/roll/pull/spin?
Losses were deductible until a few years ago. Now most people just pay on the winnings. Once the standard deduction was raised, that deduction went away. Losses maybe deductable if you itemize (?), but it’s a pretty high bar.
Winnings over a certain amount are reported to the IRS. W-2 G
That’s bonkers.
This is a bit misleading in my opinion… 90% of the money is returned to the bettors per article.
Which is actually more than I expected and a pleasant surprise to me. I’m glad the USA is no longer imprisoning/fining gamblers, it’s a sin. Haha get it
Its also really not as insane as it sounds because it will also include all the state lotteries.
166 billion divided by roughly 300 million Americans puts it at about $500 a year. So if you buy a $10 ticket every week you are hitting the national average.
500 a year on gambling is quite a lot. Though also not a crippling amount. If you really enjoy it then whatever, go throw away your money.
I spend money on arguably stupid things too. Got 5 games on GOG for £55 the other day.
The insane amount, is that per capita, America is only second.
The graph of all countries average spending per capita on gambling is nice and straight, with America second at about $450 per capita. Then it jumps to the no.1, who spends $2400 per capita on gambling.
Australia
That does surprise me, I thought it would be one of those tiny tax haven countries.
Well losers lose and the winners win, with the house taking a cut from the middle.
Insane but unsurprising with how bad betting advertising is and prediction market scams.
House takes 10%.
with the intellectual level they have displayed in the last few years, this is no surprise
I’d call 25 more than a few.
My vices are many but thank god gambling isn’t among them.
I can make a gallon of mead for the cost of the minimum bet on a single horse race.
Hmm… I don’t recall spending any (possibly a scratcher or two)
I wonder what the breakdown by demographics would look like.
This makes me sad. =(
Well, look at it this way. This is only sports betting, and doesn’t include other forms of gambling like casino betting, crypto, day trading, art speculation, etc.
ExCUsE mE! Gambling platforms are called “prediction markets” nowadays.
