The battle to stop clever people betting

https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2025/12/18/the-battle-to-stop-clever-people-betting

by zoenolan • 7 months ago

85 127 7 months ago

zoenolan• 7 months ago

Havoc• 7 months ago

I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"...all to chase a couple bucks is the height of folly.

Polymarket has me intrigued though. Especially stuff like their geopolitics section...as a measure of how good one's read of the world is. Still gambling in disguise though

timcobb2• 7 months ago

I used to think this but then developed the impression that quite the opposite is true, that a great many clever people live their lives betting on this or that (equities, derivities, sports, polymarket, often they call it "risk management" or other such things) and, unfortunately, that abstaining from betting (as I still do) is, unfortunately for me, an unrealistic maladaptive cope. I think the adaptive thing to do is to learn how to bet, especially if you're not a person who becomes pathological.

paulgb2• 7 months ago

an unrealistic maladaptive cope

I like betting myself, but I don't think abstaining from betting is maladaptive at all. Most of the bets we encounter in the real world are negative EV.

bpt32• 7 months ago

Smart people who are "gambling" for anything other than fun only would participate when they have an edge.

There are many ways to obtain such an edge, and the casinos are highly motivated to prevent that from happening.

mr_mitm4• 7 months ago

Not on polymarket or kalshi. They welcome what would be insider trading on the stock market.

dangus2• 7 months ago

I imagine there’s lots of money to be made on fools in polymarket, like “Will the US confirm that aliens exist in 2025?”

That topic had over a 10% “yes” chance in January. Betting no on that is better taking out a CD.

ismailmaj• 7 months ago

Maybe an extremely inefficient way to do money laundering?

amenhotep• 7 months ago

I can't remember the exact figures, but apparently if you'd taken the "insane thing does not happen" option on every Trump related contract over the past years, you'd have made a very tidy profit.

Not because he doesn't do insane things, obviously, the market is just not at all good at pricing it.

mmcwilliams• 7 months ago

After the platform takes its cut the actual percentage is not as appealing.

singron• 7 months ago

You can still make that bet at 10% "yes" for the next year. Previous years had similar patterns, so it's not a reaction to Trump.

To be fair, we don't need to find little green men in a UFO. It's sufficient to e.g. find fossils of extinct microorganisms on Mars, which is a slim possibility that's a goal of the Mars Sample Return mission.

These markets also have low volume at reasonable prices. If you bought $10K of "no" right now for next year, you would only get an 8% return, not 10%. You could execute better trades to get better prices, but the odds also become more sane over the year. The S&P 500 is also up 18% YTD (13% YoY for the last 5) and you can buy as much of that as you want.

ACCount373• 7 months ago

Polymarket's purpose was specifically to let the best of the best take the pot by predicting events with real world impact. So, ideally, it's "gambling" in the same way day trading is gambling.

Contrast that to normal "sports betting" - which aims to block skilled betters, and squeeze suckers for their cash.

airstrike• 7 months ago

Polymarket is an "insider trading" festival. Plenty of suckers getting squeezed there too.

watwut6• 7 months ago

A lot of day trading is pure gambling tho. And prediction markets dont even pretend to not be gambling, except for legal reasons.

piva002• 7 months ago

It's betting but even better for the house: they don't need to put anything on the pot to lose it, just taking a cut from the zero-sum game others are betting on.

That's why Kalshi/Polymarket don't care about winners, they don't lose money to them, others do.

It's all gambling, as most of day trading also is.

begueradj• 7 months ago

I'd venture that actually smart people don't go near this at all because they know telling yourself "I'm better than others and won't get addicted"

Being addicted is not an intelligence criterion because every human is addicted to something -good or bad.

That's actually a basic principle of how we function cognitively.

- https://psychiatryofscottsdale.com/psychiatrists-honest-take...

- https://psychiatryofscottsdale.com/were-all-addicted-to-some...

istjohn2• 7 months ago

Every human is not addicted to something good or bad. You're abusing the definition of addiction.

skippyboxedhero6• 7 months ago

The analogue that people have of betting is, for some reason, drugs. Addiction is an inherent property of taking drugs. Gambling is not like this in any way. It is not inherently addictive, 99% of people who gamble have no issue with it.

It isn't to chase a couple of bucks either. Billy Walter has made hundreds of millions. A recent court case leaked that Tony Bloom's syndicate was making £200m in profit per year. This activity helps make these markets more efficient.

There is nothing wrong with gambling. Fast food kills tens of thousands a year in the US, hundreds of billions spent on healthcare and life expectancy is still terrible because of obesity. Should we ban fast food? Why? Many other people don't have a problme. The idea of personal responsibility will always be completely abhorrent to some part of the population.

skybrian• 7 months ago

While it’s true that many (most?) people won’t have a problem, a minority have their lives ruined as well as family members, and the risk of that is reason enough to regulate it.

This isn’t all that different from alcohol.

piva002• 7 months ago

The idea of personal responsibility will always be completely abhorrent to some part of the population.

The idea of personal responsibility is also way overrated by some part of the population like you, gambling is addictive and a net negative to society. Problem gamblers ruin not only their life but of their families as well, it's an addiction with a very high rate of suicide.

Allowing it to be done through your phone is like supplying opioids at the candy store. Not everyone gets addicted but you certainly increase access to the ones in most danger of becoming one, and for what purpose?

Personal responsibility doesn't ever solve systemic issues, you are defending the increase of a systemic issue and blaming the victims which it's the actual abhorrent thing...

apothegm• 7 months ago

Ban fast food? No. Regulate it and find a way to re-internalize some of the externalities? Perhaps. The invisible hand is neither benevolent nor infallible.

woooooo• 7 months ago

Smart people can like sports, and there's a century long history of "sharps" who are better than most at sports gambling.

chongli2• 7 months ago

People who find an edge and actually make a lot of money aren’t really gamblers though, they’re hackers. The bets they’re placing are guaranteed to pay out as long as their edge is maintained. They often retire after the edge is discovered and fixed.

chongli2• 7 months ago

Since my friends gamble on sports and I enjoy sports a lot I’ve placed a few bets here and there. I don’t find it addictive at all. My sense of loss aversion must be just too high for it or something. Every time I lost a bet I wanted to uninstall the app it annoyed me so much. Once I lost the initial bankroll and bonus bets I uninstalled the app.

I think the folks who get addicted must have much lower loss aversion and higher thrill-seeking. People like me can’t become even regular recreational gamblers (betting small amounts without ruining their lives) because it’s too frustrating.

barnabee• 7 months ago

I know people who profitably run algorithms on Betfair, etc.

Smart people will treat it like any other “trading” or “arbitrage” opportunity, given half a chance.

wkat4242• 7 months ago

It doesn't really sound fair if they are allowed to ban clever people. Isn't that the point of a game?

ACCount373• 7 months ago

The point is to part gamblers with their money. Sport betting was never anything more than that.

ancillary• 7 months ago

Yeah, on the spectrum of ways to make money, running a sports betting site is pretty bad. It's zero-sum (unlike, say, founding a company and getting rich from shares that were initially worthless), doesn't really incentivize discovery of any truly valuable info (if you find out a player is injured an hour before everyone else ... ok?), and seems to disproportionately hit people who are already not doing very well.

Seeing the statistics about young American men's betting habits makes me feel old.

skippyboxedhero6• 7 months ago

No, it is a business, that business employs millions of people worldwide. There are some books where, for various reasons, that kind of business would destroy their ability to serve retail customers...which is the point: the ultimate point is entertainment, it isn't supposed to be a financial transaction, do people rage at the dead loss from eating food?

The market is moving towards a model that is more similar to financial markets with price discovery from informed participants. It enables higher volume, this business model is used by Asian books such as SBOBet...but the market is where it is now, and most places are also using beards to bet at soft books too, and those books will continue to try to protect their business as it is now.

Btw, one of the major issues that explain why books are soft is the use of marketing to fund growth. If that spending wasn't required, it would change the operating model completely to one where gambling companies took a spread. But the marketing spend is the main avenue of competition, not price.

SCdF• 7 months ago

Yes, it is not fair. The entire gambling industry is unfair and exploitative.

alex_duf• 7 months ago

Since when is betting supposed to be fair? The whole point is the middle man extracts money.

pfdietz• 7 months ago

Does Ozempic ameliorate gambling addiction, as it seems to do to alcohol and other drug addictions?

knallfrosch• 7 months ago

Yes

astura• 7 months ago

Yes, it decreases urges for a very wide range of compulsive behaviors, including (but not limited to) gambling, shopping, nail biting, and skin picking.

Someone1234• 7 months ago

There is likely a correlation between reductions in other addictive behavior such as shopping/gambling addictions and GLP-1s. That being said:

- Some people have reported no benefit.

- The effect may be lower than counteracting chemically addictive behavior (e.g. eating, drinking, smoking, drugs).

I think we can speculate with what we know today that there is SOME effect, but more data/studies are needed to see how large effect really is. Particularly as the overall effect is lower, you need more data to separate it from noise/placebo.

m4ck_2• 7 months ago

I would love to see the gambling industry beaten back into whatever holes they slithered out of. If you want to gamble it should be in some smokey back room at a liquor store. I'm surprised the christian right isn't making more of a fuss about gambling, but I guess they're getting greased to look the other way.

watwut6• 7 months ago

It is not gay, it is masculine, it does not hurt women, so christian right likes it. That it also hurts playing men does not bother christian right either, they will blame women and gay for that anyway.

gspetr• 7 months ago

it does not hurt women

Why make assertions that even a cursory search can disprove?

https://bettingladies.com/articles/super-bowl-2024

UncleMeat• 7 months ago

Domestic violence incidents go up when hometown sports teams lose. This effect is amplified with gambling. Women might be less likely to lose their wealth than men, but they are still likely to be victims of the ecosystem.

blell• 7 months ago

Lately it feels like more and more people who are not religious invoke Christ to tell believers what they must do.

billy99k• 7 months ago

This is what many evil people do.

azan_• 7 months ago

Yes, because more and more Christians are becoming hypocrites.

robhlt• 7 months ago

Lately it feels like more and more religious people invoke Christ to tell non-believers what they must do, so I think it's only fair.

m4ck_2• 7 months ago

Well, us non-believers are always told how we should live, what we should believe, how horrible we are for living our lives the way way do, etc, under penalty of eternal torture - why shouldn't I hold them to their own standards? It's their game and they can stop it any time they want.

beAbU• 7 months ago

Yes, because the vast majority of self proclaimed and vocal so called "Christ"-ians have completely forgotten about (or conveniently abandoned) the teachings and philosophy of Christ the man.

Nobody can claim with a straight face that the "Christian Right" movement in the US can be classified as wholesome love-thy-neighbour Christianity. Because from where I'm standing, it's far from it.

anthony100• 7 months ago

Believe it or not but I'm a Christian and a Libertarian.

adrianN• 7 months ago

You don’t have to be religious to know and support the moral teachings of a religion

BrandoElFollito8• 7 months ago

Yes we do because some religious people have the annoying habit to stick their nose in other people business (and laws) so they should be faced with their hypocrisy when the pure, "natural laws" get in their way. Or the rulings of their book of choice.

subjectsigma• 7 months ago

Just spent the holidays with my family who fit squarely within “the Christian right”. I would say they are mostly uninformed on the topic. They don’t understand why digital sports betting is worse than a casino.

Simulacra• 7 months ago

I don't look at gambling in a religious or moral perspective at all, but rather as a predatory business. It's like any other dopamine hit, the casinos manage joy and expectation, just enough, so that people keep coming back until they are hopelessly addicted, broke, or broken.

The problem with gambling is that the house never loses, and when they are losing, they can kick you out and call you a cheater. At the very least, there needs to be severe restrictions on what casinos can do to people who are winning, and rein them in so that they don't use their money, power, influence, and heavy-handed security, in ways that are grossly unfair to the consumer. The power is too much in the hands of the casino, and really needs to swing back towards the consumer, otherwise people get taken for a ride, literally and figuratively.

brador• 7 months ago

This is not true. The player can turn a profit, it’s just the probability of that tends closer to house advantage as they play more.

Which is why the optimal play is usually to bet it all on the first play. Then walk away, win or lose.

voidmain0001• 7 months ago

This podcast episode addresses sports betting and touches on why religious groups condone it.

RickJWagner8• 7 months ago

Right side Christian here.

There are much bigger fish to fry at the moment. Gambling does wreck families, though.

BrandoElFollito8• 7 months ago

What are those fish? And do they interfere in any way with the fish of us atheists?

We do not have any fish to fry. We want to live free from opression from the ones that beieve they should turn others to the Truth.

paleotrope• 7 months ago

I'm sure there are strong humanist arguments against gambling. Don't need a religious argument against it.

xcskier56• 7 months ago

Seems like a great opportunity to curtail betting. You want to leach money out of people, well you have to leave yourself open to let the pros do it to you.

deadbabe2• 7 months ago

Why wouldn’t you ban clever people?

Isn’t the point to let all players have a fairly equal chance? Someone’s going to win the money regardless, so it’s not like you’re saving money.

If the same data savvy people are just going to win most of the time, why would people bother playing? Ultimately you would not have enough players and the industry collapses. I don’t understand why this makes the casinos the bad guys.

shlant• 7 months ago

Isn’t the point to let all players have a fairly equal chance?

Do you genuinely think this is why clever players are banned?

Someone’s going to win the money regardless, so it’s not like you’re saving money.

What? banning people who have a better edge vs. the house won't save money?

deadbabe2• 7 months ago

Most money being lost isn’t being lost to people with better edge.

pama4• 7 months ago

Per the article, the intelligent bets are typically against the house (unpopular/early), not other people. The organizers wouldnt care if other people lost their money. Addicts would still bet somewhere.

ekjhgkejhgk4• 7 months ago

If you want to bet, you could do so in regulated markets like financial markets.

This isn't a smartass remark "stock market is gambling". I literally mean that the financial markets went through all this bullshit 100 years ago, and came up with rules to make them fairer. For example, you won't be blocked from the stock market just because you do really well.

jbstack• 7 months ago

It's a bad analogy because the incentives are totally different. With sports betting (of the type in the article) you're betting against the bookmaker. If you win, they lose, and vice versa. Obviously it's better for them that you lose.

With financial markets you are betting against other users. The ones running the market take fees on each transaction, so they don't care whether you win or lose. Their incentive is just to keep you making transactions.

wbshaw• 7 months ago

I always understood bookmaking as the house making money on the vig. They don't care who wins or loses. They just want to make sure there's an equal number and they take their percentage off the top of all the bets. Too many people betting the over? Move the line.

ekjhgkejhgk4• 7 months ago

With financial markets you are betting against other users.

Learn what a "broker" is.

quickthrowman• 7 months ago

A book maker and market maker offer the same service: liquidity. The only difference is the market they offer liquidity in.

integralid2• 7 months ago

Stock market is not gambling, but you can definitely gamble on the stock market. Considering it's a zero sum game (instead of negative sum, like in casino) and it's taxed favorably I have no idea why anyone still does sports betting.

pama4• 7 months ago

The financial markets are only near-zero sum at the level of large finanical institutions. For everyone else there is a cost per transaction (either a direct fee or your info gets shared with a favored sharkpool first). Limit orders give away information and market orders pay the spread between buy and sell. Not exactly zero sum at a technical level, but definitely much closer to it than casinos.

ekjhgkejhgk4• 7 months ago

Stock market is not gambling

I don't like picking on definitions, because then we start discussing the definitions instead of the underlying points. But if you're going to make such definitive statements, then I have to reply with "depends on your definition of gambling".

gambling: the practice or activity of betting : the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet

mr_mitm4• 7 months ago

Neo brokers offering highly leveraged index funds securities with very low trading fees and convenient mobile apps are absolutely indiscernible from gambling. Some people bet on the NASDAQ like other people bet on race horses. It might be even worse, because how can you stop people from trading securities?

Youden3• 7 months ago

Neo brokers offering highly leveraged index funds securities

These, eToro and the like, aren't "brokers" so much as online betting platforms for the stock market.

A typical broker like Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab etc. acts as a gateway to the market, other traders act as counterparties, and is bound by strict regulation

These "neo brokers" as you call them don't. Those "securities" you're buying are offered by the broker, at a price set by the broker, the broker may be the counterparty and they can't be transferred. Just like a casino.

This is all laid out in the terms and conditions for anybody who cares to read them, e.g. [0], sections 7.1 and 17.

If you want to gamble based on stock prices using leverage, at least do it right: use derivatives. They're leveraged but thoroughly regulated and traded on central exchanges.

[0] https://www.etoro.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/eToro-EU-Te...

int32_642• 7 months ago

As the middle class continues to shrink in the West the gambling crisis will only get worse.

It has to be understood by older people that for many young people the only way to afford a lifestyle previously achievable in many cities with a basic job is to win the lottery.

integralid2• 7 months ago

Gambling addiction is a pretty certain way to become poor though.

int32_642• 7 months ago

The new age gambler logic would be if you know you can't afford a house through saving, the goal will always be out of reach, so you are already poor and will always be, so you might as well gamble. It's the age of "financial nihilism".

tsoukase• 7 months ago

There are two motives for gambling: one is to win but a bigger one is to harm yourself in a quasi suicidal mood. Gambling hides a state of depression.

istjohn2• 7 months ago

Gambling disorder was the first behavioral addiction to be officially recognized alongside chemical dependencies; the DSM-5 reclassified gambling disorder from "impulse control disorder" to "substance-related and addictive disorders."

recursivedoubts• 7 months ago

remember when gambling was mostly illegal?

OutOfHere• 7 months ago

There is a simple and honest way to deal with it. It is to inform the dumb users before they place a bet that the historically smart winners have stacked up against them. If done well, it should substantially help even the odds.

Anyhow, this is why a better should stick to platforms that are unbiased.

jaybrendansmith• 7 months ago

Gambling is legalized crime. We are living in the future the dystopian novels warned us about.

dgrr192• 7 months ago

Betting places like polymarket even the playfield. The gambling industry is rigged. Decentralized venues make it fair for everyone to bet

e40• 7 months ago

This isn’t about an even playing field. It’s about spending too much money on gambling.

The battle to stop clever people betting

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