[Lio]

> It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So.

My worry is that social media surveillance could be combined with Polymarket to tailor bets to individuals.

This could be very subtle. You don't really need your punters to always be wrong either. Meaning that sometimes they'd win at the expense of other punters with the illusion they can make money.

You just need them to be wrong, say, 15% of the time and to keep coming back compulsively and consistently over time. The longer the better.

If you're ever around fruit/slot machines you'll notice that they do payout and when they do they make a lot of noise. That hides the fact they slowly cream off a percentage of the money that goes in. In the UK the legal limit is around 30%, keeping it low for new gamblers and ramping up when they're hooked.

With detailed information about punter's lives and no regulation you can weaponise that.

[gertrunde]

With "AWP" (Amusement with Prize, as opposed to SWP: Skill with Prize, i.e. quiz machines), they're often set to payout 80-85% of money taken in. (SWP's are usually around 30%).

And at that level they're still pocketing hundreds of pounds per week per machine.

The most lucrative ones I've seen (admittedly ~20 years ago now) were being emptied by the operator twice a week and taking out £600-800 every time, per machine, with 3-4 machines per location.

An eye opening industry - I'm sure there are businesses out there that pretend to be one thing (pub, club, etc), but their primary profit source is gambling.

[mschuster91]

> An eye opening industry - I'm sure there are businesses out there that pretend to be one thing (pub, club, etc), but their primary profit source is gambling.

Having worked in such a "business" - the problem is rents. When everyone else around you has a slot machine or two, landlords raise the rents (because they see what their neighbor landlord can get away with). And now, you as a legitimate pub owner have to choose, do you raise the beer prices yet again, or do you put up a slot machine yourself?

And sooner or later, depending on the greediness of the landlord, you have to choose between putting up a slot machine or closing down outright.

Gambling is an incredibly corrosive force. Not just to the gamblers themselves (wtf, I heard there are triple-zero roulette tables in Vegas these days?), but also to everyone and everything surrounding it.

I agree, some level of allowing gambling makes sense, gambling can even be observed in the animal kingdom, but it absolutely needs to be regulated.

[actionfromafar]

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