undefined | Better HN

0 pointsStopDisinfo9107mo ago0 comments

Gambling is addictive because it gives you a dopamine rush. That’s why people gamble because it’s actually enjoyable.

I personally don’t see the argument for categorising it as immoral on the basis that’s it’s not useful. The same could be said about plenty of other enjoyable things.

However exploitation is clearly immoral. That’s where I have issue with gambling. Gambling operators don’t get rich thanks to the average users but because addicts give them much more than they should. That’s clearly immoral be it from a casino, a gambling website, or micro transactions in mobile game. Every companies which profit from that should be held accountable including Apple and Google which are clearly complicit.

0 comments

throw0101d7mo ago

> Gambling is addictive because it gives you a dopamine rush. That’s why people gamble because it’s actually enjoyable.

Cocaine also gives one pleasure when taking it, but at some point the enjoyable part is surrounding by suffering.

StopDisinfo910OP7mo ago

I agree and think cocaine should be legal.

That would allow us to better regulate it, treat addicts as they should, and end the networks currently profiteering from the flourishing black market and their exploitation of the addicts.

Prohibition just doesn’t work. We have tried dozen of times with various addictive substance from alcohol to tobacco. It’s nearly always a terrible solution.

tgv7mo ago

It was more to provide an alternative to the parent's remark that it isn't. I fully agree that its exploitation is by far the greater evil.

I do not concur on the dopamine argument. There's no solid evidence for it. The underlying mechanism is probably much more complex. But since we're not discussing a signal path to addiction, it's an unnecessary complication of the argument that instills the belief that there's a medical cure.

hollerith7mo ago

Most Americans regard as immoral any substance or activity to which ordinary people become addicted at a significant rate.

Addiction breaks social ties. For example, when an addict starts to struggle to continue to pay for his addiction, he often starts to steal from friends and family members.

The average view on this on HN is quite different from the American average. Personality psychologists have observed that people who do well in software development and entrepreneurship tend to be high in a trait called "openness to experience". Maybe HNers are more tolerant of addictive substances and activities than the American average because addictive substances and activities tend to be interesting experiences.

(I am restricting my universe of discourse here to the US only because it is the country I know best.)

LexiMax7mo ago

> Maybe HNers are more tolerant of addictive substances and activities than the American average because addictive substances and activities tend to be interesting experiences.

I think the more accurate lens would be that Hacker News likes money.

On the surface at least, it seems like running a gambling or sports betting company would be a dream job. You get to systemically rip off your customers through your house edge, you retain the right to back off skilled players that can bypass your house edge, your expenses go to infrastructure as opposed to creating anything of value, and you get to externalize the wider societal consequences by blaming nebulous mental illness.

"This guy wants to pay me for the privilege of gradually losing money to me, why should I stop him?"

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse