In Norway, gambling is controlled by a state monopoly, same as our alcohol sales. Probably for the same reasons.

> Americans may be shocked to hear that in the rest of the world gambling has been a thing for centuries

People who write vacuous "America bad" comments online without understanding the topic may be shocked to learn that America has also had gambling for a long time.

The debate now is about the current changes to regulations and proliferation of apps and ads. Gambling now is objectively more accessible and less regulated than in the past.

In my European country gambling is very strictly regulated. Isn’t it the same in yours?

Can't speak for everyone here, but I (as a US citizen) am way less bothered by sports gambling specifically than I am by generalized Kalshi-type gambling being abused by powerful insiders in the federal government (or other institutions). Like yeah I don't think it's great that we've enabled yet another route for young men to completely ruin their lives, but civil liberties, personal responsibility, etc. etc. etc.

What really is scaring me is how transparently the current US executive branch has been basically running a Black Sox scam for the last year or so. This is not something that I think is really happening with eg. Ladbrokes. Seems more like an even more insidious form of insider trading which is already disgustingly prevalent across the whole US political system; except now it's even less traceable, and even easier to exploit for things like military actions.

edit: Like is this kind of stuff already prevalent in places where gambling is legal? https://readwrite.com/threats-israeli-reporter-polymarket/

All those other countries also have history of regulating it and body of literature (as in opinion pieces and stories) about observed harms of it.

Well, we were able to observe in the impact of legalization of online betting in real time, watching every other ad slot during sports games turning into gambling app ads designed to hook 20 something men into lighting their paycheck on fire for a brief dopamine hit.

Plus, prediction markets going from a harmless novelty where people would bet a few bucks on an election into a massive offshoot of gambling industry incentivizing manipulating outcomes/insider trading, once again leaving the average gambler left holding the bag and poorer.

You honestly couldn't design a better experiment to test the theory of whether open and legal vs. banned but underground gambling leads to better outcomes. So I'm not sure why it matters that other countries have different laws (that likely were more thoughtfully designed than basically just saying "it's legal now" out of the blue).

"Americans may be shocked to hear that in the rest of the world gambling has been a thing for centuries."

You've had online gambling for centuries? With phones, and apps?

Wherever you are from should really have tried selling this technology. While the US was still rolling out steam engines, you could have really cornered the cell phone market.

Americans would definitely not be shocked at the idea of gambling being legal, and I don't know why you'd think they would be. The US has gambling tourist destinations.

Nonsense!

This posh HN culture war has gotta end.