Category Archives: Gambling

Europes biggest economy has finally regulated the field of online gambling. The new set of laws finally has power, and from what we can see, the field seems quite regulated. However, even though its still early for conclusions, some of the issues can already be seen. The main problem lies in the regulation of games and certain restrictions, which may negatively affect the playing experience. In other words, many believe that the new regulations will force players to turn to the black market. Weve also seen examples of casinos such as Unibet has left the market.

The main issue with the new regulations is that there are some restrictions regarding design and advertising. According to the lawmaker, the goal was to make a kind compromise with state authorities.

We have no doubt that these regulations make sense in terms of legal security and harmonization, but from the players perspective, they simply dont look right. These restrictions have a negative effect on users and their experience.

In order to gain the federal license, online casinos will have to meet these demands, and while that may not seem all that bad by itself, it puts licensed operators in a kind of inferior position compared to unlicensed casinos.

Furthermore, federal states have the authority to ban certain products, which means that even though theyve gained the licenses, online casinos may not be able to offer their service across the whole territory.

All this could lead to one thing players will rather choose unlicensed online casinos that do their business on the black market. Simply, licensed operators wont be able to keep the pace in terms of the quality of services, and many players will choose unlicensed ones, even though they wont have protection. For states, this leads to lower tax incomes from gambling, which is another potential issue.

Another problematic thing about the new law is that it requires comprehensive storage of data. In other words, central authorities and operators will share details about player deposits and all kinds of other data. Even though the intention of the lawmaker was to prevent things like parallel play across providers, this directly leads to violation of data protection rules.

So, the data of all players will be recorded, without any special requirement, such as problematic gambling behavior. Of course, some form of tracking is necessary, but the problem here is that there is no distinction between addicted and non-addicted players, for example. As a result, the authorities will track not just problem gamblers, but those who wager only occasionally as well. According to most experts, this is a direct and very serious violation of fundamental rights.

What we can conclude from all of this is that despite the new law is a big step forward in terms of online betting regulation, there are some parts that should be revised. Simply, they are not compatible with EU laws, nor with basic principles of human rights.

We expect the German Commission to review all the parts of the Act that seem critical and make required corrections. We presume that all the counterproductive measurements will be dropped and that Germany will follow the path of countries like Denmark or Italy, which are in accordance with EU laws and which practice an open permit model that allows online casinos to be more competitive.

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Germany After the Gambling Regulation Success or Fail? - TimesOfCasino

Must address youth gambling

I work with a group called Focus Youth Gambling Prevention a prevention program of the Illinois Association for Behavioral Health.

On average, youth are exposed to gambling at age 10, which is earlier than alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. The earlier youth are exposed, the more likely they are to have a gambling problem later in life.

Adolescent prevalence rates of problem gambling are two to four times that of adults. Youth who gamble are more likely to have mental-health challenges, more likely to partake in drinking, smoking and drugs, and more likely to be involved in criminal behaviors.

Here at Focus, we are trying to prevent youth from participating in gambling activities. Focus Youth Gambling Prevention is a statewide youth-gambling prevention program that provides students with many programming opportunities to build skills in advocacy, leadership, public speaking and youth-gambling prevention education.

Our mission is to prevent underage gambling and create positive change in communities through student advocacy, youth-leadership development and gambling-prevention campaigns.

This program is for youth leaders who want a seat at the table to share their own perspectives, and to use their voices. Youth groups can be at the forefront of this rising issue and participate in prevention efforts to create healthier and safer communities statewide.

Focus Youth Gambling Prevention is a program of the Illinois Association for Behavioral Health and is funded in whole by the Illinois Department of Human Services Division of Substance Use Prevention and Recovery.

BRANDON MORAN

Springfield

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Letter to the Editor | Must address youth gambling - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

Who wants casinos placed squarely in their backyards ones that are still the subject of ongoing litigation and are looked upon unfavorably by their state and local governments?

While no one would answer yes to this question, the House of Representatives Nov. 1 passage ofH.R. 1619 the Catawba Indian Nation Lands Act, a bill that would have been more aptly titled The Anywhere, Any Place Casino Act could soon make this hypothetical a dangerous reality.

H.R. 1619, which the Senate recentlyaddedfor consideration to the National Defense Authorization Act as an amendment, is a special interests special interest bill. If passed, it would represent the first time Congress ever approved an off-reservation casino.

For the last 30 years since theIndian Gambling Regulatory Actwas passed, states, city governments, and the Department of Interior have been the bodies to make decisions around the siting of tribal casinos not Congress with the courts intervening to adjudicate disputes.

To the dismay of many casino moguls, most communities in the country strongly oppose casinos in their backyards. One key reason is that casinos inflict severe financial and social damage not only upon gamblers and their families but upon the community as a whole. Thats because casinos prey on desperation, not hope, and it metastasizes across a region.

A highly cited report by Georgia State University found that roughlyone-halfof problem gamblers commit a crime, while the Department of Justice has found thatone-thirdof addicted gamblers get arrested for crime. Other studies have found that families where a parent gambles compulsively are more likely to experiencedomestic violence.

Localities should have every political and legal right to challenge casinos that developers plan to put in their neighborhoods; however, the sponsors of H.R. 1619 have their own agenda. Their bill serves the powerful gambling interests behind a South Carolina Native American tribe to force a casino into a neighboring state in North Carolina,against the peoples will, before anongoing court battlesettles the legality of the move. And that is just the short-term implication of the legislation.

The more concerning effect of passing H.R. 1619 is that casino developers could ultimately dictate gambling policy to the rest of the country. Its like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. All casino moguls would need to do to impose their will on localities throughout the nation is partner with an allied member of Congress to circumvent the courts and local governments. That would not take much effort because commercialized gambling companies are already some of the most well-connected to the legislative branch in the country, consistently feedingover $50 millionin annual federal campaign donations to Congress.

At a time when the American people are already losingmore than $225,000of personal wealth every minute to commercialized gambling, H.R. 1619 is a radical and dangerous proposal that would make the problem of wealth inequality dramatically worse. It would redistribute billions of dollars from low-income and middle-income families to the wealthy financial interests within the casino industry.

In a Nov. 2coalition letterorganized by the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles to Senate Indian Affairs Chairman Brian SchatzBrian Emanuel SchatzAlabama Republican touts provision in infrastructure bill he voted against Telehealth was a godsend during the pandemic; Congress should keep the innovation going Framing our future beyond the climate crisis MORE (D-Hawaii), Vice Chairwoman Lisa MurkowskiLisa Ann MurkowskiGraham emerges as go-to ally for Biden's judicial picks Man charged with threatening Alaska senators pleads not guilty Two women could lead a powerful Senate spending panel for first time in history MORE (R-Alaska), and the rest of the U.S. Senate, Stop Predatory Gambling joined 20 other religious, family values, and states rights-minded advocacy organizations in making this point clear. The coalition wrote that the rule of law and the careful checks and balances that come with it should never be traded in for the conveniences of political expediency and asked that they stand for federalism, fairness, and the independent judiciary and put the welfare of localities and the families living within them first by dismissing this bill.

H.R. 1619 is a naked money grab. The U.S. Senate needs to shut it down because people are worth more than money.

Les Bernal is the National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling.

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Congress should reject H.R. 1619's dangerous anywhere, any place casino precedent | TheHill - The Hill

From a tiny head office above a shoe shop in Tallaght to its recently refurbished seven-floor global headquarters in Clonskeagh, Conor Grant has seen it all with Paddy Power.

he UK and Ireland CEO for Flutter Entertainment, the global gambling giant formed by the merger of Paddy Power and Betfair, started his 22-year career in the betting industry at Paddy Power in 1998 on a graduate programme.

He recalls those early days fondly even if the technology wasnt what it is now.

It is a far cry from where we were,says Grant, pointing around the recently refurbished Dublin HQ. Paddy Power had no online business.

"There were 15 of us working in the telephone business and about seven or eight in the race room. The rest was the retail network. It was a very small head office above a shoe shop in Tallaght.

When PaddyPower.com started, we hadnt enough room in the head office, so we took a unit behind a nearby Spar shop, and we ran a cable across from the head office to behind the unit with an extension lead.

The lead came out, and PaddyPower.com was down, he adds with a laugh. This was back in 2001. It wasnt even live to the public, but it was just a completely different time.

Such technological challenges would be unthinkable now in the high-tech world of online gambling particularly at Flutter, which is now among the largest online betting businesses in the world with a valuation of around 19bn.

However, public scrutiny of the world of gambling has increased with growing demand to make it safer for punters. Could increased public scrutiny pull the plug on the sectors explosive growth in Ireland?

The betting industrysrecord on dealing with problem gambling has caught up with it. Regulation, which Flutter and Grant say they welcome, is on the way. There is also hope that a proposed gambling authority, an Irish betting regulator, can boost protections for punters.

With regulation coming in Ireland, Grant recognises the industry, including Flutter, has to embrace change.

I think the industry is at a hugely important juncture, and that is for a couple of reasons, he says.

We have got the regulatory and legislative process happening in the two key markets I operate in, and we think this is a fantastic opportunity to set this sector up for the next generation. The Government needs to get this right, and obviously, we want them to do too.

Is there stuff we did in the past that we cant do now? Yes, there will be, and that is the correct thing to do, he adds.

I think we have to acknowledge that what has happened in the past in some instances hasnt been right, and we have made mistakes but I think we have to move the discourse on. We have to be part of the solution.

Calls to update the regulations covering the gambling industry in Ireland have been knocking about for many years. Indeed, most of Irelands betting laws date back to 1931, barring some changes in 2015.

In October, junior justice minister James Browne published the General Scheme of the Gambling Regulation Bill.

The bill included prohibitions on the offer of inducements such as free bets, VIP or preferential treatment; spending limits where practicable; restricting payment methods (such as credit cards); requirements around warnings and messaging;and prohibiting children from gambling.

Grant says Flutter wholeheartedly welcomed the news that regulations, and a gambling regulator, were closer to being introduced in Ireland.

There is a serious misconception that bookmakers dont want regulation, he says. We want it. We want it in all of our markets. It levels the playing field.

While Grant says he welcomes news of regulation in Ireland, he does have some concerns.

It has to be evidence-based, he says. It cant be cosmetic. If it is cosmetic, it wont deal with the heart of what we want to do here. We all want to reduce customer harm.

Gambling companies do have some concerns about the Bill.

In September, Flutter joined the European Gaming and Betting Association. Following the announcement of the Gambling Regulation Bill in October, the EGBA was quick off the mark to note its concern over media reports of potential blanket bans on free bets.

We have seen instances where free bets caused some issues for some customers, and we definitely need to look at that but banning free bets seems an excessive measure, Grant says.

There will be different points where we agree and disagree. But fundamentally, we go back to the core points, are we moving forward here and are we reducing customer harm.

As the Government continues to press ahead with introducing regulations to ensuresafer gambling, an incident in the UK involving Flutter put insharp focus what can happen when the bookies get it wrong.

During the betting industrys annual Safer Gambling Week, Flutter-owned online casino Sky Vegas sent emails to recovering gambling addicts, offering free online spins.

According to The Guardian, one email carried the subject line: Take a peek at what your mystery bonus is.

It read: Here at Sky Vegas, we love the unexpected. Thats right. Simply opt-in, spend 5 and claim your 100 free spins. The best part? Whatever you win is yours to keep thats the fun in fair!

On the incident, Grant says Flutter identified it and contacted UK watchdog the Gambling Commission straight away.

It was a mistake. It shouldnt have happened, he says. It is something that personally I am very, very sorry about.

We will continue to make sure we invest in the systems to make sure these things never happen again.

Growing up in Newry, Co Down, Grant wasnt always interested in the world of gambling. Grant went to Queens University in Belfast to study history and politics. He joined the SDLP, where he worked with politician Seamus Mallon.

I thought I was going to save Northern Ireland, he says.

During that time, he was introduced to the head of Drury Communications in Northern Ireland. Then, following a short stint in the US playing Gaelic football, he joined the company while studying business at UCDs Smurfit Business School.

However, he soon discovered the world of PR wasnt for him.

I would go into Drury at 6am and do all the newspaper cuttings and have them all on the client director desks they used to get very excited by it, he says with a laugh. I thought, Nah, this career isnt for me.

Soon after graduating from UCD, a newspaper advert for a graduate programme caught his eye in 1998. The advert was for Paddy Power and eventually led Stewart Kenny, co-founder and former chairman of the betting company, to hire Grant.

Kenny was friends with Fintan Drury, founder of Drury Communications and former chairman of Paddy Power.

Grant stayed with Paddy Power until 2005, where he served several roles across its burgeoning online business. After that, his career took him across the betting industry, with positions at Blue Square in the UK, Boyle Sport and then Sky Betting and Gaming.

Im an operator, he says. I dread to think how many jobs I have done in this sector. I have seen entire phases, all the transitions.

In late 2019, while working with Sky Betting and Gaming, news of a merger between industry titans The Stars Group, which owned Sky Bet, and Flutter hit the headlines.

Flutter completed the transaction in May 2020 during the Covid pandemic. Grant was subsequently employed as Flutters UK and Ireland CEO, bringing him back full circle.

As CEO of the UK and Ireland, Grant is at the coalface as Flutter and its brands integrate. He says Flutter has already completed its first integration, pricing for greyhound racing in Dublin and then distributing it to SkyBet and Paddy Power Betfair.

From our perspective, the three brands will compete in their segments of the market, and we will complement behind the scenes, he says. We share technology, we share ideas, and thats the advantage of bringing these businesses together.

Grant is also focused on bolstering the UK and Ireland divisions performance.

In its recent Q3results for 2021, Flutter slashed its full-year adjusted Ebitda guidance to between 1.24bn and 1.28bn. Its UK and Ireland division also revealed a hit, with revenue down 5pc reflecting tough year-on-year comparisons

Flutters Group CEO Peter Jackson told analysts it would be difficult to imagine the online market in the UK would experience any real growth into next year. With the forecast cut, the share price tumbled.

Grant wasnt too concernedthough, believing Flutters position in the US, UK and Australia meant it would remain a robust long-term bet.

Flutters share price pain hasnt stopped it from going on the acquisition hunt either. Earlier this month, Flutter announced it is to buy online UK bingo operator Tombola for an enterprise value of 402m.

Grant says he has been a long admirer of the business, adding its appeal lies in the recreational nature of its customer base an area of the market we are targeting in the UK and Ireland.

As Flutter continues to grow, the importance of safer gambling remains a top priority,says Grant.

According to Grant, Flutter has been proactive on safer gambling in Ireland. This year it introduced new measures including a ban on customers using credit cards, a whistle-to-whistle advertising ban and it will also bring about a maximum monthly deposit limit of 500 for under 25s as part of its triple-step affordability checks.

Grant says Flutter will get more from its data to identify when customer behaviour becomes a concern.

For us, it is about how we get smarter, he says. How do we get our data to tell us more when we detect these patterns.

"We cant tell what is happening in peoples lives, but we can work through and identify a change in behaviour that is significant enough for us to act on. That is really crucial.

Given Flutters changes over the past year and moves by the Government toward introducing a regulator, the question is why the company and industry hadnt introduced more safety measures before.

It is a good question, Grant says. I think different business have been at different speeds on this.

"I think the sector has realised thatSorry, what has happened in the past cant [happen anymore]. There needs to be greater due diligence, the regulator has increased the standards in the UK, and that has driven higher standards.

Grant is among the believers that a regulator can benefit the industry and protect consumers in the long run.

As the industry moves toward its important juncture, Grant reflects on the considerable culture change he believes has taken place in the world of gambling.

He admits he is the only individual on the Flutter executive team with a background in the industry, with the rest newcomers eager to drive change and lead it.

If youd said to someone three years ago that a business like Flutter would introduce mandatory deposit limits for under 25s, the vast majority of people wouldve said no chance.

Thats where we are today, he adds. We did that.

Name:Conor Grant

Age:45

Position:Chief executive, Flutter UK & Ireland

Lives:York (originally from Newry, Co Down)

Family:Married to Elaine with three sons

Education:BA in history and politics from Queens University, Belfast; postgraduate diploma in business from UCD Business School.

Experience:Paddy Power graduate scheme and held several positions in Paddypower.com; head of product at Rank Interactive (BlueSquare) until 2008;head of online at Boylesports; held a variety of positions at Sky Betting & Gaming, including managing director of gaming, before becoming chief operating officer in October 2018.

Favourite pastime:Spending time with my family; avid sports watcher, particularly GAA.

Favourite film:The Usual Suspects

Favourite book:Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty, Football's Lost Genius by Oliver Kay

What is the best piece of advice you have received during your career?"Invest in your self-development.You have spent the vast majority of you career in the gambling industry across a variety of roles and companies. But what is the one lesson you have learned in your career thats stood you best?Embrace change and be positive, as nothing stays the same for ever.

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'The plug came out and PaddyPower.com crashed' but gambling veteran Grant is betting the house on Flutter - Independent.ie

The state grant money had since run out, and it was only now financial counsellors were starting to get more clients.

RWWA is the principal authority for thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing in WA, as well as the operator of the state-owned TAB which is marketed as TABtouch.

WA is the last state or territory to run its own TAB with most now operated by the privately owned Tabcorp.

While about half of the WA TABs revenue still comes through its more than 300 retail outlets, turnover from mobile devices increased in the past financial year by 40 per cent despite the number of phone users only going up 12 per cent.

The WA TAB recorded a $374 million margin from its wagering activities in 2020-21 which was $64 million higher than the previous reporting period and $35 million higher than the previous peak in 2013-14.

About $2.3 billion of cash passed through the hands of RWWA in 2020-21, which is mostly made up of bets, with $1.9 billion going back to customers. Overall wagering on WA racing across the country increased 17 per cent to $3.8 billion in the same period.

A RWWA spokeswoman said COVID had provided a significant uplift in the amount of national wagering turnover.

While its difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons for this, it is presumed that the reduction in other discretionary spending opportunities, most notably due to travel restrictions, is a significant contributing factor to the increase, she said.

The increase in advertising and promotions during the period positively impacted the performance of the WA TAB in line with expectations.

RWWAs advertising and promotion spend increased by $6 million in the past financial year in a significant jump from the previous three years when an average of $28 million was spent.

Greens MLC Brad Pettitt said the increase in marketing dollars coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic when people were vulnerable was appalling on several levels.

Encouraging gambling to support the racing industry self-perpetuate is not something a responsible state government should be doing, he said.

We all know gambling disproportionately impacts the less well-off sections of our community and this promotion just makes it worse.

But advertising the TAB is in RWWA and the racing industrys interest, with profits going back into the sport to keep the sector financially healthy.

About $175 million was distributed between the three racing codes in 2020-21 from RWWA.

The RWWA spokeswoman said profits from the TAB kept the industry sustainable.

The wagering market is highly competitive and it is important for the organisation to hold a prominent place in this environment to maintain funding for WA racing, she said.

All activities are in line with all relevant advertising laws and requirements.

We actively encourage our customers to ensure they stick to their entertainment budget and wager responsibly. Our support services are promoted to all customers at retail outlets and online.

About 13.5 per cent of the 109,000 TABtouch account holders used gambling help tools in 2021.

There was a 14 per cent increase from 2020 in the number of people who accessed gambling help tools compared to 12.6 per cent increase in the number of overall account holders.

Racing and Gaming Minister Reece Whitby said the state government took responsible gambling seriously and he wanted to increase efforts around the initiative, but this came with a caveat.

We need to keep the TAB viable, we need to make sure that its an asset that we can get the best return possible, he said.

WA Racing and Gaming Minister Reece Whitby.Credit:Facebook

RWWA makes those investment decisions in terms of advertising, its not something Im responsible for, but they want to make sure the TAB is as valuable an asset as possible so that we get the best return for racing.

The TAB is currently up for sale after negotiations to transfer the entity to Tabcorp fell apart last year as the latter had a $1 billion write-down.

Tabcorp is still the leading contender but several other companies have shown interest in the TAB, which could fetch upwards of $1 billion given the new owner will not have to underwrite WAs racing industry, which had previously been a condition of the sale.

The state government says it will find an alternative funding arrangement for the horseracing codes if the sale goes ahead.

Mr Whitby said he did not want to put a price tag on what the TAB would fetch but he wanted to see the sale go ahead with the best price possible for the racing industry and taxpayers.

Theres no doubt that over COVID that the betting has increased and the TAB is an attractive asset for many betting operators but we will only proceed with a sale if its in the best interest of WA racing, he said.

Although the percentage of Australians who gamble has been on the decline, WA still has the highest proportion of gamblers in all of the country with 62 per cent of the states population enjoying a flutter.

Even though the majority of West Australians will place a bet or buy a lotto ticket, the state has some of the lowest instances of problem or at-risk gamblers in the nation.

A report by CQUniversity gambling researchers, led by Professor Matthew Rockloff and prepared for the ongoing Perth Casino Royal Commission, noted there were fewer problem gamblers in WA compared to the rest of the country because not as many people played electronic gaming machines.

EGMs are only allowed to be used at Crowns Burswood casino and bear similarities to poker machines in the eastern states, which are associated with high levels of problem gambling and are banned in WA.

Ms Every said because there were not pokies in WA there was a perception the state did not have an issue with problem gambling.

But she said there was an issue with the easy online access to gambling and its glamorisation in advertising, which particularly targeted young men.

WAs gambling watchdog, the Gaming and Wagering Commission, manages the distribution of funds for the states main support services for problem gamblers.

The Problem Gambling Support Services Committee, which sits under the GWC, includes representatives from RWWA, Crown and several government departments and distributes funding for in-person and phone-in counselling.

About 55 per cent of the 316 clients who used face-to-face counselling services provided by Centrecare in 2019-20 preferred to gamble online compared to an estimated 5 per cent in 2012-13.

About 65 per cent of the clients were men aged 25 and older.

A national study released by Gambling Research Australia last month concluded there had been several notable sector trends including for interactive or online gamblers.

Rapidly growing participation, the emergence of new products, the rise of smartphone betting which has increased accessibility, prolific wagering advertising and inducements, substantial use of illegal offshore operators, limited use of consumer protection tools and help services, and increased rates of problem gambling amongst interactive gamblers, it said.

Funding distributed by the PGSSC for research and gambling support has decreased over the past three years based on reported spending by the GWC but more is set to go towards an awareness campaign which will run in 2022-23.

A Department of Local Government Sports and Cultural Industries spokeswoman also said members of the PGSSC had contributed $1.5 million to the committee in the past financial year.

The PGSSC has been around since the 1990s but has never conducted or paid for any of its own studies into the extent of problem gambling in WA.

The GWCs annual report, released on Wednesday, revealed the PGSSC now intends to conduct the local research with the first phase to be completed in May.

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Record $2.3b runs through WA TAB operator as spend on problem gambling drops - WAtoday

Gambling has become one of the defining pleasures of our time, the perfect accompaniment to an era of high-risk, rigged economies and a looming sense of collapse. Once there was Las Vegas; now theres a Las Vegas in every phone.

You can bet on almost anything today. Elections. Literary prizes. If you have a feeling that, say, Lapuan Virki is going to beat Porin Pesakarhut in the womens Superpesis, the top professional pespallo league in Finland, you can put your money where your mouth is. During the pandemic, as casinos and racetracks closed, you could wager on the evenings forecast in real time, or on the upcoming winter snowfall. There was serious action on the highest daily temperatures of major American cities. Then there are the ads. If you watch sports regularly, you probably feel, as I do, that the games have become interruptions in a more or less constant barrage of wagering promotion. Gambling is swallowing sports.

The most straightforward reason for the surge in gambling is a change to the law: In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, opening the door to online sports betting across 21 states. As a direct result, sports-betting revenues grew 69 percent from 2019 to 2020 and another 270 percent during the first quarter of 2021. Total gambling revenues in the U.S. are set to break the $44 billion mark this year, approaching the size of the market for movies, books, and music combined. For a certain kind of American bettor, yesterdays Thanksgiving celebration meant wagering on favorites as much as eating turkey or passing out in front of the game. (In the NFL, by the way, playing the favorites is usually a poor bet because they tend to be overvalued, but on Thanksgiving the opposite is true: Since 2003, favored teams have beaten the spread an absurd 73.2 percent of the time, not counting this years games. Please do not take this as betting advice. As they say, Ive always been lucky with gambling: Ive never won.)

For society as a whole, if such a thing exists anymore, there are benefits as well as costs to legal gambling. The chief benefit is that theres a lot of money to be made, for governments and businesses both. The primary cost is that many unlucky and vulnerable people are destroyed. American society has accepted that trade-offbig money now for social crisis lateron any number of fronts: in its banking sector, in its housing markets, in its health-care industry. The rise of gambling is simply one example of our boundless desire for risk.

Once upon a time, there was the concept of public morals. In New York City, of all places, there were squads that enforced bans on pornography, sex work, alcohol, drugs, and gambling. Law enforcement had an explicit mandate to impose collective standards of behavior. This was, consciously, a repressive mechanism with religious roots. Then, slowly, that all went away. The repressive mechanisms rusted and crumbled. Now theyre collapsing.

The end of Prohibition in the 1930s and the liberation of the 60s and subsequent decades amount to the abandonment of these various repressions; we are still in the middle of this trend. Permission to gamble has been more of a continuous process than a singular event, extending from 1961, when betting on horse racing was legalized, to the present. Prohibitions against alcohol, pornography, and marijuana have fallen. The legalization of sex work and the decriminalization of hard drugs are still to come. Liberalization has been slow but consistent because both sides of the political spectrum, even in this moment of extreme, violent hyperpartisanship, agree on the basic principle: Get government out. The left wants the government out of peoples private lives. The right wants the government out of their financial lives. There was, for a time, a kind of balance, weighing the public good against the desires of the market. Then the market won. For one thing, attempts at repression, like the war on alcohol or drugs, often did more harm than good, and regulated markets allowed those substances to be controlled in a much more sensible way than through law enforcement. For another, greed has a tendency to win against any other consideration. The end result is the same: You do you. If it kills you, thats on you.

Read: The great American gambling boom

But the ban on gambling was more than a prohibition on a form of pleasure that has social costs; it was also a regulation of a predatory economic practice. The ban on sports gambling, in particular, was about retaining the purity of the game, which is just an idealistic way of describing market integrity. Ordinary people would not watch fixed games, just as ordinary people would not invest their money in fixed stock markets; in both cases, fairness is a prerequisite for future investment. The endemic corruption of boxing is one of the reasons its popularity has been in decline for 50 years. Baseball survived the Black Sox scandal of 1919 only by taking extreme measures, creating a commissioner role and making the faintest taint of gambling unacceptable. (Pity Pete Rose.)

Gambling produces corruption the way salt water produces rust. You can fight it for a while, but it wins in the end. Since the opening of Asian online gambling in the 2000s, soccer has been plagued by various scandals. Italian and South African soccer have been particularly corrupt, and they have paid the price. Another fixing scandal will rock American sports eventually; its only a matter of time.

What used to be a somewhat skeezy sideline to the entertainment dimension of sports is now front and center. Even a few years ago, for a commentator on a major sports network to mention gambling would have been unheard of. Now its commonplace for the announcers to discuss the odds. Charles Barkley, at TNT, has an endorsement deal with FanDuel. Jalen Rose, at ESPN, has one with BetMGM. Fox has its own betting platform, Fox Bet. Disneyyes, Disneyowns a small stake in DraftKings and is pursuing other options to increase its share of the market. Gambling is now firmly ensconced in the sports matrix. The same companies own the right to broadcast the games, the journalism about the games, and the betting markets for those games. What could go wrong?

Sports is just another economic activity now. And the righteousness or unrighteousness of any economic activity is no longer a question that anybody demands answers to, or even ponders much. Transactions once considered the purview of the Mafia have been mainstreamedcredit lines with 23 percent APR, extreme pornography, and legalized gambling all available from a device in your pocket. Remember that the greatest drug pusher of our era is not some Mexican cartel; its the family with their name on the wings of museumsthe Sacklers. The medical community and government regulators went right along because there was money to be made. Gambling relies on addiction for its business model to function; everybody knows that. But addiction is also the business model for a huge chunk of Silicon Valley. Gambling ruins lives by way of soul-crushing debt; everybody knows that too. But so do the American educational system and the health-care and real-estate markets, which have been rigged by the people at the top to extract as much as possible from the suckers otherwise known as regular people. For most Americans, to participate in the economy in the most basic ways requires engaging in existential risk. In a world where Squid Game cryptocurrency managed to fleece investors of $3 million in an afternoon, gambling on a sporting event can seem comparatively harmless.

Gambling as a pastime is part of a dismal trend, the inevitable result of market fundamentalism, the belief in the power of capitalism above all, and the collapse of faith in institutions generally.

Betting tends to surge during periods of social breakdown. Russia saw a gambling orgy from 1905 until the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. The Communists believed it was a ploy by reactionaries, associated with the revolutionary movement in the country and even referred to as government measures aimed at distracting the society from political rallies and meetings. A similar wave of gambling roiled the French Revolution. By the revolution of 1789, the four-story, quadrangular Palais Royal in Paris had become the most glittering tourist center of Europe, with 180 shops and cafes in its ground floor arcades, according to a report in the Journal of Gambling Studies.

By 1791, its basement and secondary story contained over 100 separate, illicit gambling operations featuring the most popular dice and card games. The mania for gambling had been transferred from defunct, monarchical Versailles to the thriving, bourgeois Palais Royal, where the five main gaming clubs throbbed from noon till midnight. During the Revolution, Prince Talleyrand won 30,000 francs at one club, and after Waterloo in 1815, Marshal Blucher lost 1,500,000 francs in one night at another.

Gambling is an entertainment of uncertainty, a way of turning instability into play, of pretending that the structures of life dont apply to you, that you are exempt from statistics. Its also a way of avoiding reality, avoiding the future. When the wheel is still spinning, the fall hasnt come.

Will Leitch: Sports gambling is a disaster waiting to happen

Gambling is a symptom, almost an allegory, of American decay. What are we gambling with? What are the stakes? The man who invented poker was smart, the old expression has it, but the man who invented chips was a genius. Gambling is fun because it makes money seem like a game, a trifle. But fiscal silliness has been spreading more broadly recently. Crypto, with a market size that recently exceeded $2 trillion, has caused a widespread questioning of the very nature of money. Since 2008, the Fed has made quantitative easingprinting more casha part of its regularly scheduled programming. The U.S. money supply grew by $5.5 trillion, a 35.7 percent increase, from December 2019 to August 2021. Inflation is now rising faster than it has in 20 years. The number in your bank account does not mean today what it meant a month ago. Is currency itself now just the house money of the biggest house in the world? Who isnt gambling now?

The consequences of the drastic increase in online betting are largely unknown. Gambling leads directly to increases in state revenuesthat much is known, and is the primary reason for the ever-growing availability of legalized betting, from scratch-off lotto cards at the corner bodega to the apps on your phone. Gambling also leads, indirectly, to increases in violent crime, suicide, divorce, and bankruptcy. Problem gambling is a significant social cost; the pain of the lives that are ruined spreads to whole families. The rough social cost of a single problem gambler is about $10,000 a year. Gambling can also be, like many vices, quite a bit of fun for the people whose lives it doesnt destroy, which includes myself. I once bet (and won) on a crab race. The bet seemed bizarre at the time, not to mention risky; estimating form in hermit crabs can be difficult. Now I think I was only slightly ahead of the curve.

The marketplace will only expand from here, and grow more byzantine. One of my teenage sons friends recently described a scene at his high school to me: boys, in class, on their phones, parlaying German football, Ping-Pong, and F4, making 27-way bets with enormous potential payoffs. Once gambling was limited to a series of games of chance, with players taking risks against set odds. Now any event, any contest with a measurable outcome, is an opportunity to gamble. And were only at the beginning of online sports betting. The law changed in 2018. No one can say what the fallout will be, but life will be riskier.

The citizens of the United States have accepted their radical precariousness as a way of life. The rise of the gambling industry is just a symptom of our acceptance. Gambling expresses, through entertainment, the basic truth of the moment: Everythingevery little thingcan be converted into a marketplace with winners and losers, and the house always wins. The only vice left is being broke.

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Americas Gambling Addiction Is Metastasizing - The Atlantic

Screenshot: Heart of Vegas

A woman has plead guilty to fraud charges, after using her position as the accounts manager at a veterinary hospital to steal around $680,000. She spent the money entirely on a mobile gambling game that did not and could not ever pay out with real cash.

As the ABC reports,Rachel Naomi Perri, from Tasmania, Australia, appeared in court on Monday facing 25 counts of computer-related fraud and one count of fraud, over allegations she made 475 fraudulent transactions during the three years she was employed at the hospital (2016-2019), stealing a total of AUD$940,221 (USD$680,000).

Those transactions were made to support her addiction to the gambling game Heart of Vegas, which incredibly was not an online gambling portal paying out real cash, but a video game that simulated real slot machines. It paid out its winnings in virtual, in-game currency. Meaning that no matter how much money Perri spent, nor how much she won, she would never see a cent of actual cash she could withdraw from the game.

Here are Heart of Vegas terms, listed on the games website and store pages:

The games are intended for an adult audience. The games do not offer real money gambling or an opportunity to win real money or prizes. Practice or success at social casino gaming does not imply future success at real money gambling.

Perri, who has been diagnosed with a severe gambling disorder, had also fraudulently taken out a $30,000 credit card in her husbands name without his knowledge, tallying an additional $24,000 of Heart of Vegas debt on the card. The court was told she had also taken out multiple credit cards and personal loans to further deepen her losses. She plead guilty to her charges almost instantly, saying she had been waiting for a knock on the door.

For three years, Perri had successfully gotten away with the transactions. It was only when she was made redundant in 2019 that the animal hospital discovered anomalies with their banking statements, in which Perri had ciphered money into a variety of bank accounts, credit cards and personal loans in her name. Shell be sentenced next month.

Originally posted here:

Woman Steals $680,000 To Spend On Gambling Game That Never Paid Out - Kotaku

Jason White| Special to the Courier & Press

NFL power rankings: Are the Cardinals the top team in the NFC?

SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports' Mackenzie Salmon breaks down the latest NFL power rankings heading into Week 12.

USA TODAY

Tightly contested matchups decided in the final moments continue to be a major betting trendfor this NFL season.

With both the Chicago Bears andLas Vegas Raiders ending with game-winning field goals on Thanksgiving Day, there have now been 25 games decidedon the final play this season.

Thats already the most such finishes since the NFL merged with the AFL in 1970.

Two-team teaser:

TITANS (-10) vs. Texans:In one of the biggest upsets of the season, the Texans stunned the Titans, scoring a big win for sportsbooks. Texans 22, Titans 13 (LOSS)

VIKINGS (+1.5) vs. Packers:The Packers tied the game at 31-31 with twominutes remaining, butthe Vikings kicked a game-winning field goal as time expired. Vikings 34, Packers 31(WIN)

CARDINALS (-2) at Seahawks:Seattlewas held to sixpoints during the first threequarters as Arizona dominated. Cardinals 23, Seahawks 13(WIN)

OVER (49.5) Buccaneers vs. Giants:The Giants were expected to contribute to the point totalin this wager, but the Bucs shut down the New York offense. Buccaneers 30, Giants 10(LOSS)

Prop bets:

OVER (311.5) Passing yards by PatrickMahomes:He finished 23 of 37 for 260 passing yards. (LOSS)

OVER (115.5) Rushing + Receiving yards by Christian McCaffrey:he had 59 rushing yards, 60 receiving yards, equalling 159 total.(WIN)

Two-team teaser:

COLTS (+3.5) vs. Buccaneers:Tampa Bay once again has the look of a championship-caliber team while the Colts have won fiveof their last sixand have the best running back in the league. The Colts also are 7-4 against the spread this year and are 4-0 against the spread in their last fourgames as an underdog. Tampa Bay is 0-5on the roadagainst the spread.

CHARGERS (-2.5) @ Broncos:The Chargers are coming off a thrilling shoot-out win over the Steelers, and the Broncos have quietly reached the .500 mark with a record of 5-5. The Chargers are 5-0 in their last five games against the AFC West and will have more than enough offensive firepower to earn the road cover.

Prop bet:

OVER (103.5) combined rushing and receiving yards by Dalvin Cook - Vikings @ 49ers:Cook has eclipsed this number in sixof his eightstarts this season. The 49ers have a stout secondary, and the Vikings will look to pound the rockand hit Cook underneath when the 49ers bring pressure.

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The Commish's gambling picks are in for Week 12 of the NFL season - Evansville Courier & Press

Happy Thanksgiving one and all.

We have three games today and if we are going to watch those, why not enjoy with a little money on them?

Lets take a look at one or two bets in each game with lines and odds according to DraftKings Sportsbook!

Chicago Bears (-2.5) at Detroit Lions

In this game, there is one bet that is quite enticing and one long shot that could be a fun flier.

Darnell Mooney over 57.5 yards receiving

Mooney averages 57 yards per game but also had 125 yards in his first game against the Detroit Lions.

$25 to win $20.83

The other bet I would throw $10 on is Mooney over 150 yards receiving. It is +2000, so that $10 would win $200.

Las Vegas Raiders at Dallas Cowboys (-7.5)

This one is all about the Cowboys there are two bets I like in this game.

First, Dak Prescott over 2.5 touchdown passes.

$25 wins you $42.50

Ezekiel Elliot first touchdown scorer at +450 is a nice wager in this one.

$10 bet to win $45

Buffalo Bills at New Orleans Saints

Deonte Harris over 35.5 yards receiving

$25 to win $22.72

One more long shot, Josh Allen over 75 yards rushing and one TD scored (not a passing TD) +1000

$10 to win $100

Enjoy the games today and enjoy Thanksgiving with your family.

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Week 12 NFL gambling best bets for Thanksgiving day football - Revenge of the Birds

How gambling entered into sports, and today sports gambling is easier to access, but can quickly become an addiction

By KATHERIN RAYGOZA sports@theaggie.org

The United States has a very long history of betting and gambling in sports. There are numerous types of bets that people participate in for enjoyment and there are other types of gamblings that are restricted or have become illegal.

Sports gambling was influenced by early American settlers when they began selling lottery tickets in the 17th and 18th century before income taxes existed. It was a colonists duty to buy lottery tickets to fund libraries, churches, colleges and even the Revolutionary War.

Then in the 19th century, as lotteries and casinos popularity grew in the U.S., gambling entered sports through horse races. Horse racing is an ancient sport that began in 4500 B.C., and was one of the most common sports in the world even during the 1800s. People found it less difficult to arrange bets, although they werent as organized as they are today.

Lotteries were not the only form of gambling during [the 17th century], Roger Dunstan said in a report on gambling for the California Research Bureau. Wagering on horse racing was a popular form of gambling. Not surprisingly, it was not quite as organized nor as elaborate as modern horse racing. Rather, the gambling was limited to a few friendly bets between owners of horses and their partisans. The first racetrack in North America was built on Long Island in 1665.

Once the American Stud book was published in 1868, horse racing developed into an organized enterprise. Then in the early 1900s, bookmaking was outlawed which nearly ended the entire sport of horse racing. A bookmaker is someone that takes money whenever they lay a bet to a customer, and they pay money out every time one of their customers wins a bet, according to gamblingsites.org.

You start out with a general premise that in most states, gambling of any type was, by legislative pronouncement, deemed to be illegal, Dan Etna, co-chair of the Sports Law Group at Herrick Feinstein LLP, told SB Nation. Some of this stuff was rather deeply embedded in the states DNA, if you will. It wasnt just the law. Like for instance, at one point in time, New York State, its constitution outlawed gambling of any type.

Due to these historical events, sports gambling in modern day has been transformed into an entire new era for younger generations since betting is more accessible through the internet. Saul Malek, 23, for example, played multiple sports as he was growing up, and during his teen years he joined a fantasy baseball league which he describes as a game where people manage rosters of real players and compete against each other using players real-life game statistics; the players are scored by category; and the person with the highest cumulative point totals at the end of the season wins.

Later on in college, Malek took his first bet for $10 betting that the Kansas City Royals would beat the Toronto Blue Jays. Malek won that bet and he said it made him feel like a big shot. This was the beginning of his horrific betting addiction.

Soon enough Malek discovered that he needed nonstop action. Nonstop action means that your sportsbook or bookie (a company or individual who accepts bets from individual sports bettors) has canceled all wagers on a particular line and no bets will proceed, whether they are winners or losers.

He would find an online sports book and maybe win enough to pay a former bookie back, Marie Fazio, a writer from The New York Times, writes. More than often, though, hed lose. Then he would block the bookies number, find a new sports book and repeat.

Melek would make many bets, typically lose, and wouldnt be able to pay the bookies back. His parents had to give him hundreds of dollars to bail him out of any trouble.

He never considered that sports betting could escalate to an addiction that would lead him to lie, cheat and manipulate people for money. And yet technological advances have made it easier than ever to wager money on sports, Fazio said.

Similar cases like Maleks are strictly emphasized by analysts and bookies so that the risks of addiction decline, especially for young adults since they are the most vulnerable. According to americangaming.org, Americans wagered over $13 billion in legal sports betting in 2019, making the Super Bowl one of the sporting events to have the most bets placed on. Also in 2019, The Gaming Association was expecting over 47 million Americans to place bets during the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament.

Considering how many people in the U.S. make bets, only 1% of adults have a gambling disorder. The core symptom is to continue gambling despite knowing the harmful consequences. With gambling being easily accessible with sites like FanDuel, DraftKings among others where one could place bets from an app, sports gambling is a high risk, and that is why laws have been put into place.

Were now in a phase where the nation has an appetite for sports betting, Dr. Timothy Fong, a professor of psychiatry with a specialty in addiction at the University of California, Los Angeles, said. It created this new form of entertainment that society has approved, but that form of entertainment does have a potential for addiction.

Written by: Katherin Raygoza sports@theaggie.org

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Sports gambling: The rise and dangers - The Aggie - The Aggie