• radix@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      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.

      • TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub
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        1 day ago

        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.

      • BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk
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        18 hours ago

        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

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          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.

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      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?

    • hash@slrpnk.net
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      1 day ago

      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?

        • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          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?

          • radix@lemmy.world
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            21 hours ago

            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