[Balgair]

Friend of a friend does announcing online.

Like, you pay him a little (<= $20 ?) and he'll announce your game of NBA-2K26 on twitch. He does have a good radio voice. A good way to make a little in the off hours.

So, he got a gig to announce the opening of loot boxes at some show. I think it was Fortnite loot boxes. I guess it gives you the total value of the loot box spree you opened. So, 2 people buy a bunch of loot boxes, then open them up, then whoever has the higher value wins and takes both of the people's total haul.

Sounds like a strange thing to have to announce, but sure the guy says you pay and I'll say.

No, it was gambling for the watchers on polymarket [0]. People were betting on who would have the higher value. 'Like a lot of people' he said.

That's High Card. "A lot of" people were betting on games of High Card, essentially.

You know, shuffle a deck, draw 2 cards, whoever has the higher value one wins. Repeat.

It is the most Degenerate form of gambling out there. There is no skill, no human factor, no nothing. Just pure random numbers.

My lord, what a plague we have unleashed. We'll be dealing with this for decades.

[0] no idea if polymarket and the like do things this quickly, but he said they were gambling somehow with another site off of Twitch and then waved his phone, implying you can access it that easily.

[mapt]

> It is the most Degenerate form of gambling out there. There is no skill, no human factor, no nothing. Just pure random numbers.

Never go to Nevada.

[ceejayoz]

But you have to go to Nevada for that.

You don't have Nevada 24/7 in your pocket. Or you shouldn't.

[chimeracoder]

> It is the most Degenerate form of gambling out there. There is no skill, no human factor, no nothing. Just pure random numbers.

While I wouldn't use the word "degenerate", in terms of gambling, this isn't anywhere close to as bad as it gets.

At least this form is (psuedo)random, and the odds are statistically fair and published (by law).

Contrast to slot machines, which are not random, but are in fact preprogrammed to provide payouts in ways which maximize the earnings for the house and the addictive value for the player.

The house always wins, but there is no form of gambling where that is more guaranteed and manipulated than slot machine games (which includes the video arcade-style slot games).

[nemomarx]

One thing I saw in a study of slot machines is that really addicted slot gamblers eventually become irritated at the jackpot animations, because they break up the "flow" state of pulling the lever or swiping a touch screen continually. They might be the most evil form of gambling we've developed, basically brain jacks for hardcore gambling addicts.

[pasquinelli]

> Contrast to slot machines, which are not random, but are in fact preprogrammed to provide payouts in ways which maximize the earnings for the house and the addictive value for the player.

this isn't correct. slot machines are random. my first job out of school was, in part, making sure slot machines were random.

people think the machines are rigged because they don't understand the rules. the machines are fair, it's the pay tables that are rigged.

[Retric]

Odds of winning are rather meaningless for negative sum games, you’re going to lose anyway. While I find most forms of gambling rather boring, if you like the experience it’s little different than spending 50$ at an arcade.

My game of choice is the big state lottery and it’s simply for the fun mental space of the possibility of winning, actually checking your ticket is kind of depressing because the odds are so low. But look at it as paying for the experience of the possibility of a jackpot and realize when you buy one ticket or multiple so just buy one and it becomes a cheap thrill.

[xhkkffbf]

I have one friend who likes to gamble. I've tried the old math argument with him and he dismisses it out-of-hand. He says that, yes, he knows it's a negative sum game but sometimes he wins and that makes it worth it. Then he says, "You spend money on a symphony or an art museum or an expensive restaurant, right? Those are guaranteed to leave you a little bit poorer at the end of the night. Same thing as gambling, but with a bigger guarantee."

And I didn't have a response.

[seanhunter]

Hear me out: Whenever people try the "math argument" on a gambler they are basically wrong and are misunderstanding how recreational gamblers actually think, which is not irrational (for the most part) or at least not irrational in the way people think on the surface.

Take the lottery: The classic "math objection" is to explain to the person that the expectation[1] of buying tickets in a lottery is negative so over time they will (on average) lose money.

Most people who gamble know this. The thing is they are not trying to maximise expectation. They are trying to maximise "expected marginal utility"[2]. They know that the dollar they spend on the ticket affects their life far less than the payoff would in the unlikely event they get it. Because the marginal utility of -$1 is basically nothing (it wouldn't change their life much at all to lose a dollar) versus winning say $10mil would completely change the life of most people and therefore the marginal utility of +10mil is much more than 10mil times greater than the marginal utility lost by spending a dollar on the ticket.

It is fundamentally this difference that the gambling companies are arbitraging. And for people who become addicted to gambling it is like any other addiction. The companies are just exploiting people who have a disease and are ruining their lives for profit. There are studies which show that addicted gamblers don't actually get the dopamine hit from winning, they get it from anticipating the win (ie the spin). So actually winning or losing just keeps them wanting to come back for another hit.

[1] Ie the average payoff weighted by probability

[2] Ie the average difference in utility weighted by probability. This could be seen as how much of a difference the payoff would make to their life.

[GuB-42]

All people who go to casinos are not pathological gamblers.

They have some disposable income, and spend it at the casino for a bit of fun. Sometimes, they come out richer, and they are happy, sometimes, they lose, they come out a bit disappointed, but that's the cost of of entertainment.

[temp84858696945]

Some fraction of people that start out that way end up addicted and spending way more money on gambling then they should.

[matwood]

Gambling can be entertainment, and as long as it's viewed as consumption it's fine IMO. I enjoy playing craps whenever I'm in a casino, and have great memories with friends playing the ups and downs of the table.

[temp84858696945]

The response is probably that gambling is designed to be as addictive as possible, and while your friend might think they will not get addicted, is it really a good risk to take?

[urikaduri]

Well, you can win the big state lottery if you really khow what you're doing. But you might need to hide in a remote island if you win too much. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/how-to-win...

[frumplestlatz]

How is this not degenerate?

You know you’re going to lose.

You know the money is wasted.

You do it anyway — and knowingly just pretend those first two facts aren’t true.

Then you lose your money. Which you knew was going to happen.

[Retric]

Go to a movie and you are going to be put the ticket prices, it’s a money losing proposition clearly there’s no reason to do so. Obviously, people place value on some experiences so any argument which fails to consider that is flawed.

If you happen to be at a casino, make exactly one bet in your lifetime and there’s a significant chance you’ll end up ahead. On average you’ll be out money but we don’t live out every possibility and average them. It’s just one event and you could easily end up ahead, it’s only as you repeat it with minimal gains and negative returns that things quickly become a near certainty.

With Powerball the odds are low but not astronomical that you buy 1 or 1000 tickets and end up ahead. It’s the most likely outcome by a massive margin but due to non jackpot prizes a long way from zero.

However again the odds of breakeven just reduce the cost of play they aren’t the only thing people get for their money.

[MaxfordAndSons]

If they're actual flips, you don't know you're going to lose? You know your EV is 0. As others have noted, in the hierarchy of gambling a truly 0 EV game is fairly high up in the rankings if you're looking for less harm.

[bryan_w]

How would you define degenerate?

[bee_rider]

I don’t play the lottery but I’ve never really understood the math against it. It’s a negative expected value, sure, but it also produces a (small) probability of a high return. The math against it seems to hinge on the idea that people should maximize the expected value of their wealth.

But, an alternative goal is to maximize your probability of qualitative changes up, and minimize the probability of qualitative changes down, for your living conditions. If somebody is in a situation where they can spend a qualitatively inconsequential amount of money on lotteries, then playing the lottery is a rational way of maximizing this metric, right?

Of course, it does add the hard-to-quantify risk that they’ll become addicted to gambling and start spending a qualitatively meaningful amount of money gambling!

OTOH if we as a society all started putting a small percentage of our wealth toward the lottery we’re essentially misallocating whatever that percentage was. So it produces a somehow less efficient economy I guess. So maybe there’s a social bias against it.

[moregrist]

> if you like the experience it’s little different than spending 50$ at an arcade.

If you spend $50 at the arcade you usually develop a little more skill at the game. Depending on the game and player.

$50 at a slot machine develops no skill. At best you’ve broke even or made a little money. At worst, it just feeds an addiction. But there’s no skill here; the odds of any outcome are fixed regardless of what the player does.

[Projectiboga]

Two or more tickets in the same draw have a lower expected value. Yes it is a very small change to your payout while having an extra chance. In some way you're betting against your self with a second bet in the game relative to the jackpot .

[eloisant]

Unless you do insider trading, which can be pretty easy on prediction markets depending on your job...

[glitchc]

> At least this form is (psuedo)random, and the odds are statistically fair and published (by law).

Only fair until the manufacturer of said lootboxes gets in on the action. This is why gambling is so highly regulated in all jurisdictions.

[thayne]

> It is the most Degenerate form of gambling out there.

I don't think so. At least you have a 50% chance of winning. Unlike say a lottery or a slot machine.

[eloisant]

It's not the chance of winning that matters, it's the mean expected value.

If you have a 50% chance of losing $2 or gaining $1, you have a negative expected value and that's bad.

If you have a 10% chance of gaining 100$ and 90% chance of losing $1, that's an expected value of $9 and it's a great deal.

[thayne]

Yes that is bad, but it isn't as bad as the expected value of a Powerball lottery ticket.

I didn't say it isn't bad, just that it isn't the worst.

[HWR_14]

50% chance of winning, but there is a rake from the site.

[uncletammy]

How does someone break into that field. I have a buddy who used to announce pro sports ( he's sort of famous for it ) that wants this kind of work.

[Balgair]

He just kinda hustled I think. I don't know him all that well. But from what I do know, he started announcing for his buddies who referred him to other people and so on. Eventually he had a website going and would schedule when he was available for announcing (dude has a family and day job so not all the time). Made a niche in online basketball games and was open to really anything.

If your buddy is somewhat famous, then get on the socials and network with the players in the files already, they all seem really open as it's still a big and unaddressed market. Payouts are gonna be small at first, think beer leagues and largeish friends groups. And from what I can tell the competition for big gigs is tougher as you go up in the field.

Honestly give it a try, seems like a great side hustle.

Edit: be a great idea for AI in the low end, but it's the human touch that really makes it. The guy I know is pretty funny and I assume his wisecracks help him

[bombcar]

As mentioned in the other comment, scout out local events - bars that have trivia nights, bowling contests, etc. Find the ones where it's obvious the bartender is also the MC, and offer to do it for them for free/drinks/small fee.

Have business cards ready to go and have them laying out.

[virgil_disgr4ce]

Reminds me of the cheap bets casino from National Lampoons Vegas Vacation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byfewcZsug4

[thrance]

In my heart of hearts, all gambling is equally degenerate: from stock markets to assasination markets.

[12_throw_away]

Economics sort of works ok when money transfers are used to mediate, y'know, the exchange of goods and services. Nearly everything else turns out to be a pretty obvious moral hazard.

[MattGaiser]

> It is the most Degenerate form of gambling out there. There is no skill, no human factor, no nothing. Just pure random numbers.

How is this any more degenerate than slot machines? At least it is truly random, rather than rigged.

[pasquinelli]

slot machines are truly random. the rigging is in the pay table.

[pwillia7]

How is that different from roulette?

[xandrius]

The regulation behind who can operate such establishments legally and who can participate, etc.?

[gosub100]

Roulette uses a physical process and is not compromised.

[Projectiboga]

I know roulette is random enough but here is a fun book by some physics whizzes who tried to make money off the game.

The Eudaemonic Pie is a non-fiction book about gambling by American author Thomas A. Bass. The book was initially published in April 1985 by Houghton Mifflin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie

The book focuses on a group of University of California, Santa Cruz, physics graduate students (known as the Eudaemons) who in the late 1970s and early 1980s designed and employed miniaturized computers, hidden in specially modified platform soled shoes, to help predict the outcome of casino roulette games. The players knew, presumably from the earlier work of Shannon and Thorp, that by capturing the state of the ball and wheel and taking into account peculiarities of the particular wheels being played they could increase their odds of selecting a winning number to gain a 44 percent advantage over the casinos.

[gosub100]

Yes if you hold a camera and capture the speed and position of the ball and wheel you can gain an edge, people have tried it. Good point.

[kqr]

It literally has to be compromised to work. If the roulette machinery was perfect, you would be able to predict the outcome with Newtonian physics at the start of the spin. It has to have irregularities and asymmetries to trigger chaotic behaviour – and those same irregularities and asymmetries make the outcome biased!

[CobrastanJorji]

But if that physical process were somehow complicated, why, you could break the bank at Monte Carlo!

[soerxpso]

I don't see how this is more degenerate than betting on roulette at a casino. Prediction markets usually provide more efficient odds than casinos because the house profits from trading volume instead of from the spread, so it's essentially just a way to bet on a game of complete chance with a much better average-loss than you could get on games of pure chance in the past. If people want to bet on coinflips, it seems objectively better that they have access to a way to do that in a way where they only get fleeced for 1% of their bet rather than 5%+ of their bet.

For sporting events, for example, the alternative to prediction markets 5-10 years ago was to use a website where you bet against the house directly, and they'd usually take around a 15-20% spread, and they'd ban you and keep your account funds if they decided you're winning too much. Now you can bet on the same events on prediction market sites, with around a 1-5% spread, and the house doesn't care how much you win (so there's actually an argument that you're playing a game of skill, compared to the old format where you definitely weren't, since you'd be banned for being too skilled).