“Museum industry”?
Is that what museum stores are for? Selling museums?
Maybe that’s the reason why education is being defunded
Happy to say I contributed zero to that, but jesus fuck regardless.
Yeah I’ve never even bought a lottery ticket, no interest whatsoever.
Okay, yeah sure. That looks bad. But how much did those Americans win back?
Handle is gross throughput, not consumer expenditure: over 90% of what is wagered gets returned to bettors in the form of winnings. That $1,000 in bets translates to roughly $100 in average losses per adult.
The market is big, but less than the more clickbaity headline would suggest.
over 90% of what is wagered gets returned to bettors in the form of winnings
As someone who has gambled once or twice, this seems like a wild overestimate.
You gotta remember rich people are cheating with insider info on Kalshi and Polymarket, so the numbers are skewed.
I would guess the mean and the median are very different. How many people taking out a mortgage on their house does it take to counteract a hundred grannies playing the penny slots?
I’m shocked that so little winds up with the house.
House taking 10% sounds about right.
10% vig is actually rather large.
You have to keep your clients thinking that they are almost there, maybe the next hand will be the one, that loss wasn’t so bad… You don’t gut the fish, you slowly raise the temperature.
Really an idiotic comparison. If I start an account with a hundred and regularly bet low stakes, moving ny account up and down without any crazy losses, are they gonna say I placed thousands in bets when my account was always near $100?
Well the IRS can say you won thousands for tax purposes so be careful. Gambling losses do not offset winnings.
Wait what? As a non gambler I have questions. Do the wins and losses per customer get summed up at the end of the night and reported to the IRS by the casinos? Does one self-report? If so, again would it be your net over a certain period or each hand/roll/pull/spin?
Losses were deductible until a few years ago. Now most people just pay on the winnings. Once the standard deduction was raised, that deduction went away. Losses maybe deductable if you itemize (?), but it’s a pretty high bar.
Winnings over a certain amount are reported to the IRS. W-2 G
That’s bonkers.
with the intellectual level they have displayed in the last few years, this is no surprise
This is a bit misleading in my opinion… 90% of the money is returned to the bettors per article.
Which is actually more than I expected and a pleasant surprise to me. I’m glad the USA is no longer imprisoning/fining gamblers, it’s a sin. Haha get it
House takes 10%.
I wonder how much bigger the overall numbers were after the World Cup this year. They certainly advertised the fuck or of gambling during the games.
Its also really not as insane as it sounds because it will also include all the state lotteries.
166 billion divided by roughly 300 million Americans puts it at about $500 a year. So if you buy a $10 ticket every week you are hitting the national average.
The insane amount, is that per capita, America is only second.
The graph of all countries average spending per capita on gambling is nice and straight, with America second at about $450 per capita. Then it jumps to the no.1, who spends $2400 per capita on gambling.
Australia
That does surprise me, I thought it would be one of those tiny tax haven countries.
500 a year on gambling is quite a lot. Though also not a crippling amount. If you really enjoy it then whatever, go throw away your money.
I spend money on arguably stupid things too. Got 5 games on GOG for £55 the other day.
Well losers lose and the winners win, with the house taking a cut from the middle.
Insane but unsurprising with how bad betting advertising is and prediction market scams.
I wonder what this figure is like not including the whales throwing around six figure paychecks. hard to spend 10k on a single book or movie ticket or song, ya know…
Apparently a lot of people (particularly younger generations) are increasingly getting hooked on gambling and are even psy-op’d enough to consider it as a part of their retirement strategy
Does the stock market count as gambling? 😂
Michael Burry invested more on gambling stocks and now I can see why.
For this article? No. For people with retirement accounts? Arguably no.
For people trading daily with an app on their phone? Yes.
With a retirement accounts it’s about gambling with other people’s money.
SpaceC was allowed on the Nasdaq super early specifically so they could raid our retirements.
Not entirely surprised, but surprised it is that high.
When I went there 10 years ago I met people in Vegas who go there every year as their main holiday with a few thousand euro budget to gamble.
I’m not pro-gambling but I think Vegas vacations are valid - they’re special occasions where you get a thrill for your money. What’s the difference between a $2000 cruise and a $2000 weekend in Vegas? Both are a waste to me but I see the appeal.
But this is different…it’s very much NOT about Vegas (which is struggling), it’s the apps. “Sports betting” aka gambling was legalized in 2018.
DraftKings and the rest have been fighting regulations since like…2012? And they won. Which is why there’s gambling ads everywhere with very little regulation. It’s why polymarket and kalshi exist.
Regulate these internet gambling companies back to the 2000s and the problem mostly goes away.
While I wholeheartedly agree with your statement about the app/site/sports betting, I don’t wholly agree with the travelling comparison.
Travelling and visiting places tend to open your horizons and enrich you culturally. It’s not easily generalized. Travelling to Disneyland probably won’t really broaden your horizons or teach you something culturally and neither will idly sitting on a cruise ship.
You are correct that the article is more about sports betting rather than casinos like in vegas. I merely meant that given what I experienced there, I’m not surprised the gambling in apps and sports is getting out of control. That’s on me though :)
Maybe I am against things like the Vegas vacations because I have such a large distaste for gambling in general. ( Loot box ‘surprise’ mechanics also do not help ).
I used cruises as an example because I don’t really consider that “traveling” for the most part. You’re on a floating box shuffling between touristy ports.
Very much not my idea of a good trip but some people LOVE that. I’d rather spend a week somewhere to soak it all in
My vices are many but thank god gambling isn’t among them.
I can make a gallon of mead for the cost of the minimum bet on a single horse race.
This makes me sad. =(
Well, look at it this way. This is only sports betting, and doesn’t include other forms of gambling like casino betting, crypto, day trading, art speculation, etc.
That’s about $553.33 each. Somebody else is def. carrying my share, ya wanna bet?
Woof, that’s depressing
The Supreme Kangaroo Court of the US legalized gambling a few years ago, since it was a way for the rich to extract more wealth from the working class.
So gambling should be illegal… when the law is a tool for the rich to extract more wealth from the working class?
Rethink your position, there’s no reason to create a gigantic gambling black market, which is what you do when you outlaw it. No exceptions.
Think back to 2015. Gambling was legal in a few select areas, like Las Vegas. It was fine. We weren’t INUNDATED with gambling apps and gambling sports ads targeting everyone 24/7, including children.
This is a brand new problem created by an idiocracy of bad laws, corrupt rulings, and worse regulations. And what’s terrifying is how fast this problem spiraled out of control: half a decade. That’s how fast it festered.
Your black market argument doesn’t apply for several reasons. Most notably we know what it was like 8 years ago and can directly compare the consequences of changing the law. Those consequences are absurdly bad.
Yeah, tbh my concern with it more is the advertising rather than gambling its self. Should be treated like porn advertising.
I wouldn’t even be overly against putting alcohol in that same category, and I happily drink.
