They're using this API to sell gambling services, but they're apparently required to check that it's legal for the user to gamble.
Unrelated, I hate how GIS systems built on text search are turning geometry problems which are easy to reason about into unpredictable database problems.
> It appears that the API might be following this process:
> 1. Takes the coordinates and identifies the nearest building + street address.
> 2. Performs a textual best match query across its datasets.
> 3. Returns the first record, mixing up the fields from different locations.
The fact that the first Google autocomplete for the address "3520 S State St" happens to be the State St. in Utah, not Illinois, has absolutely nothing to do with whether the lat/lon coordinates (41.8,-87.6) are in the geographical boundary which describes Illinois and Utah.
I've heard people want such precision for proximity based services, like buying something from a vending machine in front of you by solely interfacing with your location instead of establishing a link to it.
Those already exists, but people always want it to be more precise since then you can put them more densely.
Unrelated, I hate how GIS systems built on text search are turning geometry problems which are easy to reason about into unpredictable database problems.
> It appears that the API might be following this process:
> 1. Takes the coordinates and identifies the nearest building + street address.
> 2. Performs a textual best match query across its datasets.
> 3. Returns the first record, mixing up the fields from different locations.
The fact that the first Google autocomplete for the address "3520 S State St" happens to be the State St. in Utah, not Illinois, has absolutely nothing to do with whether the lat/lon coordinates (41.8,-87.6) are in the geographical boundary which describes Illinois and Utah.