Bitcoin Forum

You might see a campaign in the media against online gambling.  If supposed moral authorities attack gambling, here is what they and you should know:

• Most People Gamble all the time (Without Knowing It)
  
• According to the Boston University Law Review:
  
  • Gambling and investing are identical
  • regulations on online gambling is mainly about money and blocking competition, not about morals or protecting consumers
    
  • The government discriminates, as it lets the rich gamble, but ban it from the lower class
    
• Extremely important activities are gambling activities
  
• Governments have "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" mantras, as they are the world's biggest operators and pushers of gambling
  
• Americans have lost way more to gambling on houses and stocks, than to Las Vegas.  Housing bubbles in the U.S., Canada, Australia and UK are partially or mostly created by their governments, luring millions to gamble on it.
  
• The filthy rich, such as Sheldon Adelson, is reversing the legalization trend in the U.S., in order to fend off competition.  Don't believe his employed and richly paid lobbyists, who claim that they are trying to protect consumers.  (The UIGEA helped fend off competition.)
  

For explanations of the above, read:

http://stockbet.com/#/support/gambling

what's logic behind this?

no it's not. the expected value of almost all gambling games is negative, whereas the expected value of investments is positive (see: stock markets).

clarification needed


clarification needed

maybe because the amount of money spent on stocks is much greater than on las vegas?
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what's logic behind this?

no it's not. the expected value of almost all gambling games is negative, whereas the expected value of investments is positive (see: stock markets).

clarification needed


clarification needed

maybe because the amount of money spent on stocks is much greater than on las vegas?
[/list]

You might see a campaign in the media against online gambling. 

Agree with grue, investing is not "gambling" in my opinion. OP is trying to compare real life risk taking with negative EV gameplay.

The right argument to make is simply the fact that gambling is a fun activity that people should have the right to partake in if they please.

"...gambling and investing are identical activities of wagering...both risk-taking activities have been present in the American culture for all of its history. At some point over 100 years ago, public attitudes of the two types of speculation diverged, with investing being labeled as socially desirable and therefore supported by law, and gambling being labeled as socially undesirable and therefore prohibited by law. This divergence was based not on any logical differences in the activities, but instead on the classes of people that participated in these activities and who profited from them. Stock brokers, stock exchanges, and their wealthy clients benefited from this legal distinction; working class gamblers and bookmakers did not.

The decision to prohibit an activity should be based on a sound analysis of its costs and benefits, including whether any important freedoms are associated with that activity. Similar activities should be regulated similarly, without regard to traditional labels, pretextual and inconsistent morality arguments, or discriminatory categorizations based on class."

Gambling for any reason other than entertainment is not a good idea.

otoh, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=642090.0

Yeah. There have been times when I felt like I was gambling when I was just doing my thing on Mintpal. And I've told people that just getting out of bed in the morning can be risky. I'm not against gambling, but I do think that people with gambling addictions need to get help before it reaches the point where they're taking out a second mortgage to keep their habit going.

Based on the above three elements [stake, chance, profit/loss], millions of people also gamble on real estate. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's article: "Flip This House": Investor Speculation and the Housing Bubble: "At the peak of the boom in 2006, over a third of all U.S. home purchase lending was made to people who already owned at least one house."
...
People complain that users of online gambling or casinos can lose too much money. However, millions of Americans have lost way more money to houses and the stock market. The comparison is not even close. If these self-appointed moral authorities are concerned about others losing money, they should ban people from buying investment properties or stocks. They should also ban the millions of entrepreneurs because every year, the majority of them lose their shirts and waste several years of their lives trying to start a new business. They should also ban small business owners, as the far majority of them go bankrupt. The number of "problem gamblers" pale in comparison to the number of entreprenuers and small business owners and the amount that they lose.
...
Few activities in this world are perfect with no downsides. Driving provides significant value, but it has downsides as well. According to Wikipedia, approximately 34,000 Americans are killed in cars every year. But we don't ban driving.

How many people die from gambling per year? If it is such a problem, then why doesn't the government ban lotteries, which is the worst form of gambling? Why does the government promote it and push it heavily?

Cell phones provide significant value, but they distract people to the point of causing car accidents and walking into buses. However, we don't ban cell phones.

I have no problems with gambling, like with porn, computer games and the list goes on, the people who attack these kind of things are just a bunch of controlling assholes who want to interfere with peoples private lives, if you don't harm anyone or commit fraud with your money then it's nobodies fucking business what you do.

Oh wait, I just realised this suspiciously looks like a minor plug for your site and took you more seriously than I should have, nevermind.

Seems like the Boston University Law Review is full of shit. I don't know why the American tax payers are funding organizations like this, which dish out nothing other than bull-crap all the time.

Can you elaborate on why they are full of shit?  How are each of their arguments flawed?

What next? People will argue that smoking weed is identical to doing research on cancer drugs.

Seems like the Boston University Law Review is full of shit. I don't know why the American tax payers are funding organizations like this, which dish out nothing other than bull-crap all the time.

Even a schoolkid would tell you that all this is crap:

1. Gambling and investing are identical
2. Most People Gamble all the time
3. Extremely important activities are gambling activities

What next? People will argue that smoking weed is identical to doing research on cancer drugs.

According to the documentary Lucky:

"More than half of all American adults play the lottery, making it, by far, the most popular form of paid entertainment in the country"

• Dictionary.com's definition for gambling includes:
  
  • "to take a chance on; venture; risk: I'm gambling that our new store will be a success."
    
  • "any matter or thing involving risk..."
    
• Merriam-Webster's definition includes:
  
  • "to risk losing (something valuable or important) in order to do or achieve something"
    
  • "to stake something on a contingency"
    
  • "take a chance"
    
  • "something that could produce a desired result or a bad or unpleasant result"
    
  • "an act having an element of risk"
    
  • Examples include:
    
    • "The mayor is gambling with the city's future."
      
    • "people who lost money gambling in the stock market"
      
    • The mayor is gambling that the new policies will help rather than hurt the city."
      
    • Starting her own business was a gamble, but it paid off."
      
    • "She thought about starting her own business, but she decided it was too much of a gamble."
      
• Oxford Dictionary's definition is:
  
  • "Take risky action in the hope of a desired result:"
    
  • Examples include:
    
    • 'he was gambling on the success of his satellite TV channel'
      
    • '...it is always tempting as an investor to gamble on risky firms...'
      
    • 'Investors began gambling on future returns...'
      
    • 'Financial speculators, who are gambling on more chaos in the Middle East, are also pushing up prices.'
      
    • 'He's extremely talented and has good drive and business sense, but this is a gamble and could leave me in a bit of financial trouble if it fails.'
      
    • 'we decided to take a gamble and offer him a place on our staff'
      
    • 'If reliability is unknown or unknowable, then they just charge a high premium and take a gamble, hoping to spread a loss to other less-risky areas.'
      
    • 'Some guests want to know at the time of booking precisely what cabin they will have and others are willing to take a gamble in exchange for an upgrade.'
      
    • 'The money stream was very fresh, and they were willing to take a gamble on buying a house and spending as much or more on a remodel.'
      

Hence, you and almost everybody you know, gamble all the time.

A more stringent definition of gambling stipulates that the activity should involve the following:

• Stake
  
• Chance (Most activities involve chance even if there is skill)
  
• Profit or Loss
  

Even with this, most activities are in fact, gambling activities, because they involve the above. These include extremely important activites:

• Sales
  
• Marketing
  
• Investing (in anything)
  
• Insurance
  
• Starting a Business
  
• Drilling for Oil
  
• Mining for Minerals
  

You might have read gambling definitions from the government that differ from the dictionaries'. Their motive for trying to spin or change it is explained later.

Neither do we. Most of us don't even pay enough attention to know we are funding so much garbage.

The poorly kept secret about this kind of stuff is that researchers learn really early on that if they tell the government what it wants to hear they get more funding. If they tell the truth and it doesn't fit into the government narrative their research grants dry up. 

Not sure if a clever reference to dank or just genuine circumstance.

The only argument you need when someone talks bad about gambling is that everyone has a choice of their own. It's not a big deal.