[saucymew]

Many competitive games/sports where you are trading ELO or rankings (chess, RTS, boxing) are like this, but I wouldn't judge it outright as "not productive."

I'd reckon it's more about the journey, the stories and friends we made along the way, even though there may be few.

Whenever someone asks, "Why do they do that?" I always share the man who holds the Guinness World Records for rolling an orange with their nose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66xwQZuic3E

Why not?

[hnbad]

I find it hard to understand how you could argue it's productive when it is literally about exploiting other people's inexperience, naivety or honesty (lacking a "poker face") in order to take their money from them. It doesn't produce anything. At best you could argue it's a form of entertainment but it's not even good at that except as an observer sport.

Gambling, for most people, is ultimately a form of fraud. It's built on the narrative that you can get rich quick. Gambling is for the winners. The losers are just paying for it. The narrative hinges entirely on numbing the mark's rationality and making them not think about the odds, getting them to keep throwing money at you until they go bankrupt.

Rolling an orange on the other hand is something you can do entirely by yourself without harming anyone except the people you inconvenience if you do it somewhere public. Neither activity is productive but at least rolling an orange with your nose isn't actively anti-social unless you're a dick about it.