In Favor Of Sports Betting
Chris F. Masse May 17th, 2008
History is not kind with people who used to call themselves “the pragmatists”. Take a look at how contemporary historians and commentators treat the French state men who did act as “pragmatists” during World War II —they collaborated with Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, and, as you know, they had to pay the price, once WWII ended. (And some French women were even more pragmatic —they slept with the occupying Nazis.)
A self-described pragmatist is somebody who lost his/her political compass.
The real pragmatist is the one who tells the truth:
- Americans (including Robin Hanson, who signs Bob’s petitions) want to bet on sports.
- Betting on sports is not “gambling”. - (PDF file)
- There are ways to fight the problems associated with sports betting and Internet betting —see a little UK firm called BetFair.
- We should favor the development of for-profit companies operating in the prediction market industry.
- Adding sports prediction markets to the offerings is the only way to achieve profitability for prediction exchanges. What would be InTrade without TradeSports?
- Sport is good for one’s health; sports betting is good for sports.
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- Analysis (Industry) , Ethics
- Comments(16)
@2 quote: “Event markets do not constitute gambling. Gambling involves the deliberate creation of artificial zero-sum opportunities…”
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That’s a good way to describe it.
Betting = betting and could even be explained as a form of investing.
Betting = gambling for those who are unfamiliar with the concept of betting, who lack knowledge and experience and/or give in to their prejudiced beliefs.
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@3 No comment
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@4 Why not.
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@5 Probably, but who cares - sports prediction markets does not equal gambling.
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@6 Erm… yes, when you make sure you contain the risks. To saturate a society with uncontrolled betting activity and try to regulate it afterwards, is asking for trouble.
You should ask the average UK punter how he feels about the use of inside information or any other unfair advantage. First thing you will learn is, that he will not be able to make a distinction…..
@Medemi: Interesting point #6.
I think I’d hesitate to call a company with over 1 million customers that processes over 5 million bets per day with revenues averaging $5,000/minute, “little”, but I get your point
@Graeme Harker: It was a joke, man.
Hehehe, some fish don’t even need bait on the thing to sink their teeth into a hook…. even a nice friendly rubber hook!
I’ve, in the past, had some very interesting 1-2-1 discussions with A Lloyds of London Member regarding the differences between being an insurance company/Customer and being a bookmaker/punter.
In essence, we agreed that there isn’t any difference at all. Except that they make and take bets on slightly different “events”. We tried to rationalise the prejudice against gambling and gamblers by declaring it a “class” thing - gambling was for shady, poor people who think they might (via gambling) become rich people, quickly.
Unfortunately, we then tried to accommodate the fact that the highest echelons of British upper Class ( including our Dearest, departed Queen Mother) enjoyed a bet too!
So, maybe - we concluded - it’s just like sex: we all like it, we just don’t like admitting to it or talking about it.
The other conclusion we made was that, given the chance, both sides of both industries will do all they can to take more than they are due from their counterparty.
Thus, a car-collission claimant will have no problem adding the scratched paintwork from 3 months BEFORE to his claim. And the racecourse punter who gets overpaid (rare, but it happens!) buries himself in the crowd for the rest of the afternoon just in case the bookie spots his mistake, then him!
Similarly, if anyone tries to interfere with the Established Freedoms to cheat, fleece and generally behave outside the remit of what is now a REGULATED industry, they can expect to be dumped on in consistent, nasty and devious fashion. But someone has to stick their neck above the Parapet of Decency, sometime.
I know about these things……….I looked over the Parapet and viewed the Emperor.
IMHO, he’s naked! Unfortunately, I didn’t keep quiet about that…….
Adonis
Chris,
I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems your archive plugin (which I am using now)is all messed up.
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I will try and reproduce what happens.
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Yesterday I made 2 posts which never showed up in “Recent Comments”, until today, after logging in twice.
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Today, when I click “archives” it appears that I’m logged of. When I click another section of the menu from there, I’m still logged in. But when I click a link from the archive (100 last comments) it does appear I’m logged off, AND the information is outdated.
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So, I deleted all cookies and googled MO, logged in and didn’t click on archives. Everything seems fine now, and this is my workaround. Hopefully.
Your opinion is not so humble IMO, Adonis. Liar…
@Medemi: Will look into that later this afternoon. Could be the cache… Pages are cached… Let me see later…
Hehehe @medemi,
OK, I lied……….. my opinion is actually Truth (sometimes). It’s just that whenever I express it as Truth, some agent provocateur, poseur or ambulance-chaser complains that I’m making unsubstantiated accusations.
So now I express Truth as opinion. A bit annoying, but it keeps the ambulance-chasers flummoxed (English for deeply puzzled, in case it isn’t in your English/Dutch dictionary!)
Opinion has high qualities of charm, elegance, and sheer beauty: hard to quantify any part of it precisely, yet easy to appreciate completely!
It’s one of those “deep” Sundays…
Enjoy, old friend.
Adonis
@Medemi:
either
1. There is a natural lag time
or
2. It’s due to the catching process…
http://wordpress.org/extend/pl.....per-cache/
Adonis,
It ’s an interesting dilemma and the reason why I brought it up. I must say I’ve sort of become used to your “new way”.
I like the English language and how it can be applied a lot, and you must have gotten a taste of that.
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“Flummox” is in the 1500-page book, but again it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I haven’t used that dictionary for over two years now. Why should I, if it can’t even tell me the difference between “measures” and “measurements”.
This is one book I should burn.
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Deep sundays. Yes, the good old days… When I was preaching and you were fighting to keep the cyber-stalkers off your back.
We’re “all” preachers here in Holland. Watch what will happen when we play the Italians in our first soccer match. Usually they’ll “deceive” us, but not this time around IMO.
I hope you saw that movie “The Last Samurai”. You must have enjoyed it a lot.
Chris,
were you able to reproduce it ?
I did see some comments, more recent than my own ( which should have been there also).
not sure about that btw.
Seems to be working now. Up until this afternoon, when I clicked “archives” the top blue area (Dashboard/profile/sign out) would disappear, suggesting to me I was logged off. That could have resulted in static pages.
Anyway, should it happen again, hopefully I will better understand why.
@Medemi: All this is a mystery to me. I still not get what is the problem. Later…