Oh, just in New York? Whew, I'm safe then.

/s

Online sports betting through apps on your phone is just yet another example of everything sliding toward degeneracy

This is tough for me because I'm conflicted. On the whole, I agree this (mobile and just in your face gambling everywhere) is a net negative for society.

I have played fantasy sports for twenty five years, daily fantasy sports for almost eleven years, horse racing betting for ten years, and now sports betting for about two years. They're hobbies I enjoy and have fun spending time on. I've also been fortunate enough to make decent money over the years, not enough to live off of but it's paid for a few vacations and other luxuries with plenty still left in my accounts.

I would dislike not being able to enjoy my hobby and the money that comes with it though. Maybe a better way to handle this would be heavy regulation on advertisements?

Are these so-called experts supposed to have me believe that gambling apps designed to get people addicted to their gambling app might be a gateway to gambling addiction?

The amount of political capital it takes to restrict capitalism is huge. We had restrictions on sports betting. Now that they've been removed, billionaires can spend money on lobbyists and continue to exploit people ruining their lives through addiction.

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I don't think gambling should be illegal. That's the tough thing.

"regulated" doing a lot of heavy lifting

So gambling is a gateway to gambling? Brilliant analysis there, healthbeat.org

Australian xiellenial here, 12 years ago I taught at tafe and I reckon about half the class was on gambling apps. I was shocked as none of my peers use them AFAIK.

'Degeneracy' is just a dogwhistle

Same energy

If you make it illegal, they'll just run back to a tax haven like so many are already doing, but at least people will be less likely to find them. If you tax them to hell, they'll also run to a tax haven and do money laundering+tax evasion. Gambling companies are lose-lose-win for people-govts-themselves.

Brazilian under a similar situation. Gambling and casinos are illegal within the entire country, but in 2018 online gambling/casinos were allowed to run ads everywhere. Every other week there'd be a new betting site throwing ads on every TV channel and tiktok/instagram influencer. Some regulation started showing up last year, people on Bolsa Familia (govt money for people in extreme poverty) were dumping that money straight into the gambling sites, but it's too little, too late. A significant portion of the political right is now being bribed lobbied to legalize casinos again, "It'z gun generert jerbs and tworism!!!!"

'Round my parts, robbers just target the armoured trucks that move money to ATMs.

What am I dogwhistling? A dogshit, decrepit capitalist society designed to exploit poor people?

It's a loaded term that should be replaced with a more nimble definition.

A dog whistle is the name for a loaded term that is used to tag a specific target with a large baggage of information, but in a way where only people who are part of the "in group" can understand the baggage of the word, hence "dog whistle", only heard by dogs.

In the case of the word "degeneracy", it's a vague word that has been often used to attack, among other things, LGBTQ and their allies as well as non-religious people. The term is vague enough that the user can easily weasel their way out of criticism for its usage, but the target audience gets the message loud and clear: "[target] should be attacked for being [thing]."

Another example of such a word would be "woke".