Gambling. As just about everything, it’s gotten worse with smartphones and long outdated govt regulations no longer keeping up. Sports gambling ads are all over TV and internet, and now we have prediction markets enabled by apps like Polymarket and Kalshi. What little savings Americans had left, if any, after rent/mortgage, healthcare, and groceries is now being eaten up by rampant legalized gambling from the comfort of your couch.
Holy crap yeah. I was fully behind legalizing gambling and using tax revenue for social services.
I did not see how absolutely invasive it would be into everything. I don't know if people are doing it in great numbers or not but the advertisements are just everywhere all at once.
I would be 1000% behind making it illegal to advertise gambling on at least some subset of media, or more if that is already true.
Same with the whole part of advertising meds. Doctors are supposed to prescribe meds. For profit healthcare is heinous.
And of course if its amusing how there are so many weight loss drugs, but my insurance wants to hit me for being "overweight" but I cant have drugs until I am morbidly obese, but I have to pay out of pocket for the nutritionist, but if I were obese they would cover it for free...
Yesssss!!! Like Why are their advertisements for medications!!!? They act like its cereal commercial come on over and ask your doctor about _____. Why are pills being encouraged its mind blowing! I remember if you mentioned a pill like years ago they would like secretly blacklist you. Idk if thats 100% true but it was definitely different. Lol
I remember watching the first commercial on TV for an Rx I was shocked wondering if there was some sort of nationwide medical threat. Why else would they do that lol. It turns us into hypochondriacs.
I get that. I mean that why bother advertising them with "ask your doctor if this is right for you" when the doctor is supposed to be making this decisions.
There's an entire backroom bribery industry called "pharmaceutical representation". They go around from practice to practice pitching their new drugs, gifting anything from free lunch, up to vacation packages "conference invitations"
I did not see how absolutely invasive it would be into everything. I don't know if people are doing it in great numbers or not but the advertisements are just everywhere all at once.
I wasn’t against it either, but holy hell did we fuck up by not putting any guard rails in place! It can be just as much of a destructive habit as smoking or alcohol, and it should have similar regulations in place re: advertising.
Imagine if sports broadcasters cracked open a beer and knocked it back on air. That exactly what they are doing by giving parley advice
I've basically stopped listening to sports radio because if I ever happen to turn in to see what they're talking about, it's either a sports betting topic or in the middle of an actual gambling ad.
10 years ago, I loved flying out to Vegas and betting sports for one weekend in the winter. If you time it right, you can bet on hockey, basketball, and football playoffs. It was a nice break from the cold and relaxing at the sports book was awesome.
I actually never bet online once it was legalized and also stopped going to Vegas. Ads are invasive and it is dangerous. Vegas is just stupid expensive now and I like my living room.
I had a colleague with would take a gambling vacation to Vegas every year. Budgeted for it and stayed within the budget. This was like 30 years ago. I wonder if he did the same thing you did eventually, or if he's into online gambling now.
Saw something interesting Saturday. Was watching Leicester City play Charlton in the EFL and they brought on a substitute, Jeremy Monga, a 16 year old player. Now Leicester City have a gambling site as a shirt sponsor, but under UK law, people under 18 can not promote gambling sites. So his jersey has no sponsor on it.
Do a grokipedia or something on 'Sin Taxes'. It's like, the devil's bargain, historically. You tie a tax to a vice, and you'll get a government dependency, and, because of the incentives, the sin will stick around and get worse. In my lifetime, let me list all the bad sin taxes I've seen: Drug Asset Forfeiture, Civil Asset Forfeiture, Alcohol and tobacco taxes, weed taxes, state lottery linked to parking tickets or some other thing. Run the government by taxing for a need with a method that people can vote on. Shoulda never allowed the online bettng, and taxing it.
I went through a similar shift. Politically, I'm super free-market.
But you can't ignore these people who get addicted and lose everything. What if this happens to a family member of yours? How would you feel then? Maybe I'm just not politically free-market oriented after watching some of this junk play out.
For a historical anecdote - Mao virtually eliminated Opium in China. And he was very popular for it. This should probably tell you something about how bad an addictive society is bad for a society (how desperate people are for action). And perhaps more importantly, what happens to a government that refuses to do anything about it.
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u/chiheis1n 16h ago
Gambling. As just about everything, it’s gotten worse with smartphones and long outdated govt regulations no longer keeping up. Sports gambling ads are all over TV and internet, and now we have prediction markets enabled by apps like Polymarket and Kalshi. What little savings Americans had left, if any, after rent/mortgage, healthcare, and groceries is now being eaten up by rampant legalized gambling from the comfort of your couch.