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Title: Don’t Bet On It [legal sports gambling]
Source: CityJournal
URL Source: https://www.city-journal.org/html/dont-bet-it-15906.html
Published: May 15, 2018
Author: Steven Malanga
Post Date: 2018-05-16 13:21:12 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 3256
Comments: 24

The Supreme Court has opened the floodgates to sports betting by overturning a federal law restricting legal betting on games. More than a dozen states are likely to join New Jersey, which brought the suit challenging the1992 federal law, in instituting legalized betting on the NFL, NBA, and other leagues. Other states, under pressure to balance their budgets without raising taxes, will surely follow.

Don’t bet, however, that this is good news for taxpayers. Since states began instituting lotteries six decades ago, legalized gambling has spread throughout the United States. Advocates have often touted gambling as a magic bullet to generate revenues, but it hasn’t delivered. And there’s plenty of evidence that it does harm—to people and to the greater economy.

The rationale for legalized gambling is that people do it anyway, so why not tax it? Research suggests, however, that legal gambling is not so innocuous. A groundbreaking 2002 study of states with lotteries, for instance, found that household spending declined by as much as was bet on the lottery during the first year after a state instituted a game. “Spending on lottery tickets is financed completely by a reduction in non-gaming expenditures,” the study concluded. In other words, legal gambling largely siphons spending from other areas of the economy.

Nor is gambling a budget fix. New Jersey introduced lottery and casino gambling in the 1970s, selling them as a way to fund public services without raising taxes. Today, however, Jersey residents bear one of the nation’s highest tax burdens, and the state persistently has trouble paying its bills. Gambling revenues did nothing to deter either of those outcomes. But Jersey is not alone. “Sold to the electorate on the grounds that they will reduce taxes or provide better services, lotteries do neither,” observed a 1994 study of states that instituted legal gambling.

In the wake of yesterday’s ruling, politicians and industry experts have been quick to predict that Americans will soon be betting fantastic sums through legal sports books. But for decades, elected officials and advocates have promoted legal gambling by overstating what it will bring to state coffers. A 2012 analysis by Stateline found that states that had legalized one form or another of gambling in the past decade had consistently failed to achieve the fiscal projections trotted out during legalization debates. New Jersey, which instituted online casino gambling within its borders several years ago, predicted that bettors would wager about $1 billion in the first year. Instead, new online games generated about one-tenth that amount.

Even when legalized betting underperforms, however, the revenues that it generates are easier to calculate than the costs to society and the economy. The dirty secret of legal betting, for instance, is that much of it is targeted at persistent, problem users. Surveys of legal gamblers in Louisiana, Montana, and Ontario, Canada, have found that problem gamblers make up as much as 20 percent of bettors on state lotteries and up to 40 percent of casino gambling. Just what that costs society is hard to estimate, though a 2015 report by researchers at Rutgers University estimated that New Jersey had about 190,000 problem gamblers, and that they can cost the economy up to $1,700 a year each in lost productivity, health-care expenditures, and increased levels of crime. And the 1999 federally funded Gambling Impact Behavior Study estimated that a shocking one-quarter of problem gamblers file for bankruptcy.

Scientific studies of how the brain works have reshaped gaming, making state-sponsored games more addictive. When players started losing interest in weekly lottery games, states switched to scratch-off formats, which, research suggested, would be more likely to reignite interest because they provided instant gratification. Some critics call instant games the “crack cocaine” of lotteries. Similarly, fantasy sports betting took off when operators ditched the traditional format, in which players competed against one another in leagues that lasted a whole season, and transitioned to instant games that take place over the course of a single day or weekend. That was a calculated move, based on research on how to attract and keep bettors. Sports betting may take us further down these paths, especially since it has such appeal to young men. Early research suggests that teens who start betting on fantasy sports are far more likely to graduate to other forms of sports betting and more likely to develop gambling problems than the average teenager.

Two things seem certain about Jersey’s victory at the high court: new gaming revenues won’t make a dent in the state’s budget problems, and the spread of sports betting will exact a heavy toll on some players, who will find it easy to get a bet down—but hard to stop. The poet of bettors, Damon Runyon, once wrote, “I came to the conclusion long ago that all life is six to five against.” Those odds just got worse.

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#1. To: Tooconservative (#0) (Edited)

My view: the government - federal, state and local - has no legitimate right whatsoever to tell people whether they can gamble with their money or not. I think that government at ALL levels ought to be powerless to get this far into people's business.

It's like telling people they can't date people of different races, or the same sex. I think that government ought to be powerless to enact any laws or regulations, at all, on such things. On the margins that will mean some bad things happen. But the existence of the idea that government, and the people, have the right to impose rules on such matters AT ALL is a pure evil, an oppression that I find intolerable. It's like telling people they can't eat fried eggs. There comes a point where it's not a matter of federal rights versus states rights, but absolute individual rights that the government doesn't even have the right to question or monitor.

Since the government currently does not admit that there is ANY area of human endeavor that is not subject to government regulation, I think it's an important new battlefield for the future - the boundary of where the government may not rule, or regulate, or enforce, or look, at all - where it is a crime for any public official to even LOOK at the subject using government time.

I'd rather not pick GAMBLING as the subject matter for that. I think that interracial and homosexual DATING were the places to have that fight - and actually, the Supreme Court pretty much agreed with me on that one, which is why Virginia was told that it had no authority to regulate whom the Lovings loved, and no authority to prevent interracial marriage.

The gay marriage rule flowed from that logic. I find the whole idea of gay marriage, and male gay anything, pretty squidgy, but I recognize it's none of my business, and that all levels of government and officialdom should be rendered totally powerless to even have an official opinion on it.

Gambling is one of those things, like drinking alcohol. Some heretical Christians have made up doctrines that call these things a sin, and legislated it in the name of their false morality. Christian heresy should not be able to gain control of government and oppress people like that.

THAT is why it is so important to repeal prohibition and repeal the "No sales on Sunday" laws, and repeal the anti-gambling laws. Those laws come from Christian heresy, and defeating those immoral, evil, moralistic jackasses is necessary for the true human liberty that exists in true Christian religion to thrive.

Prohibition of alcohol and gambling are violations of human liberty granted by God. They are an assault, therefore, on God, and Catholics must stand up for God and not let religious fanatics get away with imposing their evil and false doctrines as law.

So, we need legal gambling, legal alcohol, and the prohibition of abortion (because it's murder, not because the voters somewhere are "conservative" or whatever).

And we need robust and universal education and poverty relief so that prostitution is not necessary, and robust health care so that those who fall into drug addiction can be pulled out of it. And we need a focus on rehabilition and job training for prisoners, because they'll get out someday and they'll need to hold jobs. And we need to get rid of the death penalty, because our criminal justice system is absolutely corrupt, violent, pathologically and totally untrustworthy, and to execute the innocent is murder, no different from killing a baby.

We need strong, clear moral values, and those values need to be Catholic - focused on what is important: life, health, family and education, and not the lunacy of heretics (alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, interracial dating, gambling).

Yeah!

Alas, we're only 22% of the electorate, and we don't agree with each other, so it's all hopeless. Still, that's how it SHOULD be.

Gambling? Who cares? Nobody's business. Like private sex: nobody's business.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-16   13:50:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Vicomte13 (#1)

We need strong, clear moral values, and those values need to be Catholic - focused on what is important: life, health, family and education, and not the lunacy of heretics (alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, interracial dating, gambling).

Ah, the free-wheeling swingin' libertarian suburban Catholics.

Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-16   14:01:24 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: Tooconservative (#2)

Ah, the free-wheeling swingin' libertarian suburban Catholics.

Yeh.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-16   14:11:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: Tooconservative (#2)

California has so much solar power it PAYS Arizona to take the excess.

Why not use the excess to desalinate seawater and turn the desert green?

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-16   14:12:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Vicomte13 (#4)

Why not use the excess to desalinate seawater and turn the desert green?

Well, I like such ideas but the amount of power required really would require nuclear plants for the electricity. Desalination plants have gotten better but they are still very energy-intense.

Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-16   15:39:12 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: Tooconservative (#5)

22% of the cost of running a modern desalination plant is the energy cost.

California is paying money to Arizona to take its excess power.

Currently full ocean water desalination (as opposed to desalinating brackish estuarine water or salty groundwater), runs at $2131 per acre-foot at the desalination plant in operation in Carlsbad right now. (An acre-foot is the amount of water a family of 5 uses in a year, and the San Diego plant generates 56,000 acre feet per year - enough water for about 280,000 people.

Channel free electricity to that effort - right now the state is PAYING Arizona power to buy it - and the cost per acre foot could be cut by up to 22%.

That's a huge subsidy. In the desert, solar is essentially free, modern solar has become very efficient, and modern membrane desalination has become quite efficient also.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-16   16:18:53 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: Vicomte13 (#6)

(An acre-foot is the amount of water a family of 5 uses in a year, and the San Diego plant generates 56,000 acre feet per year - enough water for about 280,000 people.

And you think that justifies the expense of building these plants when you need fresh water for 40 million people?

I know you think you're being serious but the numbers don't match up so well. And desalination isn't so neatly cost-effective. No one builds these as for-profit water plants because they'd go broke, well, they would if anyone was crazy enough to lend them the money to build these plants.

Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-16   16:24:11 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: Tooconservative (#0)

This is an article with an interesting point of view. But, comparing the lottery and scratch off tickets to sports betting is a flaw IMO. Those first two are a complete game of chance. The sports bettor will consider odds, spreads and probabilities in his betting selections thinking he has an edge based on his self confident expertise.

I may bet 3-6 match-ups a year when this betting comes about.

Fred Mertz  posted on  2018-05-16   16:36:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: Tooconservative (#7)

And you think that justifies the expense of building these plants when you need fresh water for 40 million people?

Right now the plant in San Diego is cost effective.

San Diego County imports 90% of its water from outside of the county, and the cost per acre-foot of the water from the desalination plant is $100 to $200 less per acre-foot than the imported water.

The numbers work fine. You're just conservative in the conventional sense of the word, and not keeping up with the way that better energy and desalination changes everything.

Right now, there is a great deal of POWER in controlling water in California and deciding who gets it. Water control is political control.

Truth is, desalination in the coastal cities is cost effective RIGHT NOW, and the more that is done, the less scarce water becomes, and the less power is available for controlling it.

And THAT is why the politically minded out there pretend that it "can't be done". 20 years ago, it couldn't be done economically. But today, it's ALREADY economical, and all of the objections of the environmental nuts had to be overcome to build it.

The loss of power to government officials that plentiful water means that the thought of plentiful water in California is, well, unthinkable to them. Must be impossible.

Isn't.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-16   16:47:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: Fred Mertz (#8)

Also, organized crime will pressure athletes to arrive at certain pre- determined outcomes. But that happens anyway, so what of it. All casinos are rigged.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-16   16:50:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Fred Mertz (#8)

This is an article with an interesting point of view. But, comparing the lottery and scratch off tickets to sports betting is a flaw IMO. Those first two are a complete game of chance. The sports bettor will consider odds, spreads and probabilities in his betting selections thinking he has an edge based on his self confident expertise.

I may bet 3-6 match-ups a year when this betting comes about.

For a gambler, sports or event betting is the only way to go. I've done it all my life (moderately). -- The hard part is finding a local trustworthy bookie, willing to take on the occasional moderate player.

During the football season I'd bet several times at !east on the over/under for $100 or so. -- But since the Niners started loosing, I've lost interest..

My last bet was on Trump to be elected.. My friend the bookie quoted me 4 to 1, so I called him up, and bet $250.. -- He gave me $1000 a day or so after the election, which of course, I paid income tax on last year.. ;-)

tpaine  posted on  2018-05-16   20:06:10 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: tpaine, Fred Mertz (#11)

He gave me $1000 a day or so after the election, which of course, I paid income tax on last year.. ;-)

ROFTL

buckeroo  posted on  2018-05-16   20:14:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: tpaine (#11)

What’s the Vegas odds on you willingly moving from kookifornia and shedding those chains you wear?

lol

I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح

GrandIsland  posted on  2018-05-16   20:15:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#14. To: buckeroo (#12)

... and before you flap your shit spreader, unprovoked, I’ll provoke ya.

lol

I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح

GrandIsland  posted on  2018-05-16   20:16:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#15. To: GrandIsland, tpaine (#13)

I am winning in the stock market again. It is a mind blower, isn't it?

buckeroo  posted on  2018-05-16   20:17:44 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: GrandIsland (#14)

I’ll provoke ya.

LOL ... With 50,000 primers attached to boots?

buckeroo  posted on  2018-05-16   20:19:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#17. To: GrandIsland (#13)

What’s the Vegas odds on you willingly moving from kookifornia

--- and shedding those chains you wear?

EVEN money, --- strange you should ask, seeing how dumb you are normally.

The only chain I wear is jealously imagined by you and misterwrong, that California's silly laws on guns etc, bother me. -- They don't, by and large, -- I and millions of others, ignore them..

tpaine  posted on  2018-05-16   21:23:39 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#18. To: Vicomte13 (#9)

Right now, there is a great deal of POWER in controlling water in California and deciding who gets it. Water control is political control.

Despite the obvious need for it, we don't see desalination plants dotting our coasts or most others.

Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-16   22:22:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: Tooconservative (#18)

No, we don't. Again, the world isn't good enough to do the pragmatic things that would massively improve human life.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-16   22:30:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#20. To: Vicomte13 (#19)

No, we don't. Again, the world isn't good enough to do the pragmatic things that would massively improve human life.

The technology simply isn't good enough yet.

It isn't a sin if we haven't managed to build more efficient solar cells or more efficient desalination plants. If the tech is lacking, it just is.

Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-16   22:34:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: tpaine (#11)

My friend the bookie quoted me 4 to 1, so I called him up, and bet $250.. -- He gave me $1000 a day or so after the election, which of course, I paid income tax on last year.. ;-)

300-1 odds and you might have to worry about it. I would have given you 10-1 if I were a bookie.

Leave it to the IRS to complicate things...

www.forbes.com/sites/tere...-the-bettor/#1e808f38374f

Fred Mertz  posted on  2018-05-17   0:03:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#22. To: Fred Mertz (#21) (Edited)

Until this week, bettors were required to sign IRS tax forms whenever they collected a wager that paid at odds of 300-1 or greater. For example, if a bettor cashes a $2 trifecta ticket worth $1,200, she’d have to pay over the applicable tax before receiving any of her winnings…regardless of how much money she’d actually invested in the wager. If her tickets contained $100 of various trifecta combinations, she’d nonetheless be subject to the tax, because one of those combinations paid out at odds of 300-1.

The above is from the site you posted..

I bet at Bay Meadows a lot, till it closed. -- Had to pay the IRS once for an Exacta I hit for over $600 once. --- They made me sign the form before collecting.

It cost me close to $100 to bet every $2 combination in a five horse Exacta, and I got real lucky when two real long shots came in 1st and 2nd... (Or, it could've been fixed) ---- Those were happy days.. -- I think it was back in the '70s..

tpaine  posted on  2018-05-17   0:29:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#23. To: tpaine (#17)

laws on guns etc, bother me. -- They don't, by and large, -- I and millions of others, ignore them..

I don’t wanna hear you bitch when your cell mate takes all your commissary, and plows your asshole, for protection on your housing block.

I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح

GrandIsland  posted on  2018-05-17   19:34:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#24. To: GrandIsland (#23)

I don’t wanna hear you bitch when your cell mate takes all your commissary, and plows your asshole, for protection on your housing block.

Suspicions confirmed, you aren't a cop, you're a prison guard, ain't ya...

Or maybe just a wannabe phony.. -- In any case, you're a joke.

tpaine  posted on  2018-05-18   11:17:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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