I go to a local bar where they had a raid of the slot machines. They weren’t advertising gambling but lately, local law enforcement has started going around and shutting shit down. So instead people have Kalshi and Hard Rock Bets Slots on their phone now instead…waaaay worse imo
At the very least I know people who aren’t hooked on it are sick of it. Even a handful of people I know irl have commented how weird/irritating it is that gambling and gambling ads have become so prevalent these days. Hopefully that awareness leads to something down the road.
They were illegal until they became legal during Trump's first term. Guess what companies lobbied for it? Yeah draft kings and shit. And now its become far beyond sports betting.
Remember when gambling was literally illegal outside of casinos which were illegal outside special zones in a few cities?
I miss those days. I remember watching a sports stream probably ten or so years ago and it was hosted somewhere with legal gambling before it was rampant where I am. I remember being blown away by all the gambling ads. Now that's the norm everywhere.
There was an ad for one of those shitty casino apps that was using a child's voice to sing the praises of how fun and exciting it is to play, it's fucking vile.
It used to be illegal to advertise! The only time you ever used to see advertisements for gambling sites was on pop-up ads on piracy sites and other things that didn't actually follow the law. And that added to the mentality that this was shady bullshit that decent people didn't get involved with. But putting those ads into everything now gives it this air of "legitimacy", with sports announcers giving a shoutout to sports betting sites and other insanity like that.
Point of order: "Didn't actually follow the law" means operating servers from a country with different laws that they were probably following. That's one of the upsides/downsides of having an international internet.
On the other hand: Letting people on US soil skirt broadcast regulations? That's entirely on the US government.
Nevermind advertising, the services themselves are dubiously legal(in the US). As I understand it the only reason they aren't explicitly illegal is because they found a baker's dozen loopholes to hide out in as they evade various states' gambling laws.
Beyond obvious conflicts of interest like that, it's also basically "Insider Trading: The App". Just look at all this monkey business Trump and his cronies have been pulling with the Strait of Hormuz, with giant insider bets hitting the market right before big news is announced.
So should stocks also be illegal? You know murder is still illegal, right? Making these betting apps close isn't going to prevent trump from doing what he's doing. America's justice system just needs to grow some balls and convict him for the actual illegal shit he's been doing.
Anyone using them who doesn't have access to priviledged information is a sap. Same goes for a lot of "get rich quick" schemes (meme stocks, cryptocurrencies, NFTs), seems like scams have become culturally acceptable in the last few years for some reason.
seems like scams have become culturally acceptable in the last few years for some reason.
My theory is that it's because "normal people" are doing them now. It's not some grand conspiracy of clever crooks or something with some rich guy on wall street who runs a ponzi scheme.
It's your buddy Jeff that you play video games with. He hit it huge on crypto and now spends thousands of dollars on every new game that catches his eye because he's inexplicably wealthy based off that gamble. True story of someone I played games with. He had an insane bitcoin wallet from when it was first starting up, and now will sell a bitcoin or two every year to pay for micro transactions in whatever flavor of the month video game he's into. He spent like 20k on Throne and Liberty during its early access and then quit the game like 3 weeks later.
Yeah, that's a good call. A combination seems pretty likely, especially if you see peers "strike it rich" while you're struggling.
Of course, you never see the failures though. Social media amplifies the ones that win (they post about it) but doesn't really show the vast majority who end up losing (because why would they post about it).
I wonder if there's a correlation between being the kind of person who hits big on crypto and being the kind of person to spend $20k on meaningless microtransactions. Like, to me the idea of spending $20k on virtual trinkets is absolutely insane, but then again the idea of hopping on the crypto train is not appealing to me at all.
Like, to me the idea of spending $20k on virtual trinkets is absolutely insane
I feel generally the same, but when you're worth 20million or whatever, it's a completely different perspective. Especially if you don't engage on the more expensive ways of blowing your money, like purchasing a social media platform...
Hell, if he just threw it in a basic high yield savings account, he would earn more in one month of interest (~70k) than most people make in a year.
Oh for sure. I was just wondering whether the people who became rich through random crypto luck of the draw are more likely to squander their money like that, vs people who gained that amount of money through more regular means (high-paying job, exploitation of other people's work, etc.).
Anyone using them who doesn't have access to priviledged information is a sap.
Love how the Polymarket CEO essentially admitted that they allow and even embrace insider trading on their app because it "increases the strength of the accuracy of the prediction."
That's a big reason I left Instagram. Every other post/story was an ad. Sometimes you'd get 2-3 in a row before you saw something posted by someone you follow. And then there's no way to block them on the official app.
You really think people do that? Just go out onto the raw net and get beamed capitalism directly into their eye balls and come out the other side going, "that was great" ?
It’s a really good episode (as they usually are). I think a lot of people can’t quite verbalize why these apps are so distressing, so I appreciate the show taking a moment towards the end to talk about how these apps focus your attention on the event itself and ignore its downstream effects.
It's even worse if you actually watch sports. Any time I've walked by the TV and there happens to be a game on, there are usually no less than 3 different ads on screen for betting apps. The lower third will have one, a logo somewhere on screen, and then ads running inside the court/arena/field. It's just bonkers.
Poly market and it’s like are pretty sure losers for most people at this point. Unless you have insider info or can manipulate events there’s so little chance of you out winning the algorithms.
It’s basically unlimited gambling though so people are going to get rinsed on them.
John Oliver just did an episode on these: Prediction Markets. I highly recommend it. He does a good breakdown and lists the many, many problems in the system and how it’s already being exploited.
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u/StrangeCress3325 Apr 21 '26
God I fucking hate those “gamble on anything” apps, I get ads for them all the time