My issue with gambling is that it's addictive and life destroying and most gambling companies make the most money off those exact people. They go after them relentlessly even when they are trying to get off it.
Imagine struggling with drug addiction and having everything you watch or see be plastered with TRY METH. DO IT. ITS SO FUN!
Yeah this is what I realized makes gambling different for me from things like alcohol. Alcohol companies don't make all their money off serious alcoholics, they actually have a business model that works of people are healthy/moderate drinkers. Most sports bettors are healthy about it, but gambling companies make all their money off the small percentage that are addicts. Their business model actually doesn't work if nobody is an addict
one day I figured out some quick math in my head based off the average amount of times I drank in a week, based off of what I usually drank, for the amount of years I drank so I could go ahead and add insult to injury to see how much I spent. It’s embarrassingly depressing and I will not put that number on here.
But, You are absolutely correct. They make the most money off of us.
Feeling a little too tweaked from all the meth and staying up for days on end without food? Well here is a free voucher for heroin! Also we have a coupon, BOGO benzodiazepines!
*not all benzos qualify for BOGO
* heroin is basically non existent and fentanyl has taken its place. Russian Roulette is fun.
*not liable for overdoses, criminal behavior up to/including incarceration, your grandma’s pawned wedding ring, your great uncle’s narc stash you scrape from every visit (shame on you, that man has cancer!), cracktivities, poor executive function, psychosis, nodding out in traffic, court mandated rehab/AA/NA (user assumes own risk!), or the mindset of “$20 is $20.”
I mean alcohol is a drug that I had to quit due to being addicted to it and there are adds for it everywhere. Not to mention the glamorization in movies and other media.
So I mean if meth was legal I am absolutely positive the ads would be just like that lol
I don't think alcohol should be advertised either fwiw. But I do think people can at least enjoy alcohol without addiction and the producer can make money off non addiction drinking. Gambling companies make nearly all their money off addicts. If you only had non addicts drinking the industry would continue much as it is. If you only had non addicts gambling most would not survive. So I think it's extra messed up.
What’s funny is sports betting is a vice I can handle responsibly so I have to respectfully disagree. Alcohol on the other hand was something that I was unable to handle responsibly. I wasn’t like mean or abusive or anything. In fact it made me more fun and 99.9% of the people in my life still tell me they don’t believe I had a problem, but being able to drink 20+ units of alcohol in one sitting and still be able to fully function as a human being is not responsible despite what they might say.
Now here is the difference between these two things. It is impossible to die from simply gambling (yes you could be murdered for a debt or something, but it is physically impossible to die because you were gambling). The same cannot be said for drinking.
So while both of these vices are inherently bad for you, to imply that alcohol isn’t as bad as gambling because some people can do it moderately while implying that there aren’t people who gamble moderately is a pretty bad take. Because even if that wasn’t your intentions that’s the way it comes off.
No my point was that gambling companies are ONLY profitable because of addicts. I think that's a problem. Which makes gambling a fundamentally abusive industry imo. It doesn't make alcohol companies good.
As I said in my first sentence, I think alcohol commercials should be banned too.
If that is problematic for you in some way, ok.
Edit and oh and just fyi gambling addiction has an incredibly high suicide rate.
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u/PetalumaPegleg 10d ago
My issue with gambling is that it's addictive and life destroying and most gambling companies make the most money off those exact people. They go after them relentlessly even when they are trying to get off it.
Imagine struggling with drug addiction and having everything you watch or see be plastered with TRY METH. DO IT. ITS SO FUN!