Gambling is ruining sports. . .

[the miracle]

. . for me. This isn't a rant about gambling being evil or something - what other people do with their money is their business. My gripe is more about the oversaturation. I think every commercial break last night during the Blues game had at least one ad for a gambling site. Every sports radio station seems to focus a good portion of time on either shilling for some gambling operation or focus segments on parlays / over-under / betting lines / etc.

If that's where teams like the Blues and other mid market radio stations need to go to drive revenue, I get it. And maybe that revenue is more important than losing a viewer like me. But man, it's smothering. You know its bad when I'm hoping for a Dirt Cheap commercial during a Blues game rather than seeing Kevin Hart jump on his couch for the 87th time in 2 hours.

[SameOldBlues]

More importantly, gambling is ruining lives in alot of cases.

As a former alcoholic with 15 years of sobriety this Christmas, I’ll never understand the addiction to gambling. It seems like such a wasted empty addiction cause you dont get anything tangible out of it that I can tell. With drugs and alcohol, at least you’re getting something that alters your feelings and helps ya mask whatever problem you’re trying to solve to cope with, and I just dont see how gambling does that in any fashion.

Anyone have any experience with gambling, or knowledge about the addiction of it and can help me understand the allure to it?

My youngest brother is a multi millionaire who owns a large acoustical ceiling business, and he’s a hardcore gambler who’s thrown away so much money gambling that it’d make ya nauseous if it was one of your family members, and even he cant explain the high of it to me.

Dont get me wrong, all addictions are obviously terrible, and Im not trying to to rank them or anything approaching insidious, Ive just always been amazed by the attraction to it and wish I understood it better. Id be enraged if I went gambling just once and lost hundreds or thousands of dollars, much less doing it on a regular basis.

[Pierre McGuire]

I don’t know …I’ve got new respect for the gambling companies after they are the ones that reported the NBA scandal a few weeks ago. Seems like after all that went down it was the gambling companies that were honest party here.

[11WSChamps]

More importantly, gambling is ruining lives in alot of cases.

As a former alcoholic with 15 years of sobriety this Christmas, I’ll never understand the addiction to gambling. It seems like such a wasted empty addiction cause you dont get anything tangible out of it that I can tell. With drugs and alcohol, at least you’re getting something that alters your feelings and helps ya mask whatever problem you’re trying to solve to cope with, and I just dont see how gambling does that in any fashion.

Anyone have any experience with gambling, or knowledge about the addiction of it and can help me understand the allure to it?

My youngest brother is a multi millionaire who owns a large acoustical ceiling business, and he’s a hardcore gambler who’s thrown away so much money gambling that it’d make ya nauseous if it was one of your family members, and even he cant explain the high of it to me.

Dont get me wrong, all addictions are obviously terrible, and Im not trying to to rank them or anything approaching insidious, Ive just always been amazed by the attraction to it and wish I understood it better. Id be enraged if I went gambling just once and lost hundreds or thousands of dollars, much less doing it on a regular basis.

I believe it has to do with the chase.

Probably among folks who have been highly competitive in one endeavor or another and see gambling as an outlet for that.

As one who did this on a smaller scale many years ago I finally stopped when the gambling was taking the joy of just watching sports as a recreation away from me win or lose.

Haven't missed betting on sports at all for the last 30-odd years.

[Jatalk]

I find it ironic that sports leagues have bought into and promote gambling revenues but expect their players to be squeaky clean.

There is no way sports are clean with prop bets and very easy access to place bets. N B A is most obvious example but don’t think for a minute it does not happen in every professional sport and college.

What to do about it? I have no real idea.

[the miracle]

I don’t know …I’ve got new respect for the gambling companies after they are the ones that reported the NBA scandal a few weeks ago. Seems like after all that went down it was the gambling companies that were honest party here.

Wasn't the mafia ultimately behind that scandal? Not to sound crass - but I'd suspect a gambling company would be interested in exposing their competition rather than some altruistic motivation.

Admittedly though, I'm not well versed on the specifics of that case and welcome a correction if I'm mistaken.

[Pierre McGuire]

I don’t know …I’ve got new respect for the gambling companies after they are the ones that reported the NBA scandal a few weeks ago. Seems like after all that went down it was the gambling companies that were honest party here.

Wasn't the mafia ultimately behind that scandal? Not to sound crass - but I'd suspect a gambling company would be interested in exposing their competition rather than some altruistic motivation.

Admittedly though, I'm not well versed on the specifics of that case and welcome a correction if I'm mistaken.

The gambling company noticed the under bets on Terry Rosier and alerted the FBI! I find that absolutely hilarious. You don’t mess with the gambling companies. Somebody broke down his play from that game in question on YouTube and it’s so obvious what he was doing.

[bluecalgary]

I think every commercial break last night during the Blues game had at least one ad for a gambling site. Every sports radio station seems to focus a good portion of time on either shilling for some gambling operation or focus segments on parlays / over-under / betting lines / etc.

I think this just shows how stacked the odds are against the bettor, and how much money the gambling sites are making off of them, if they can afford all the advertising time.

[Hooking]

I miss "You outta go to AutoTire!"

[Harry York 37]

More importantly, gambling is ruining lives in alot of cases.

As a former alcoholic with 15 years of sobriety this Christmas, I’ll never understand the addiction to gambling. It seems like such a wasted empty addiction cause you dont get anything tangible out of it that I can tell. With drugs and alcohol, at least you’re getting something that alters your feelings and helps ya mask whatever problem you’re trying to solve to cope with, and I just dont see how gambling does that in any fashion.

Anyone have any experience with gambling, or knowledge about the addiction of it and can help me understand the allure to it?

My youngest brother is a multi millionaire who owns a large acoustical ceiling business, and he’s a hardcore gambler who’s thrown away so much money gambling that it’d make ya nauseous if it was one of your family members, and even he cant explain the high of it to me.

Dont get me wrong, all addictions are obviously terrible, and Im not trying to to rank them or anything approaching insidious, Ive just always been amazed by the attraction to it and wish I understood it better. Id be enraged if I went gambling just once and lost hundreds or thousands of dollars, much less doing it on a regular basis.

Congratulations on your sobriety,

From what I gather, the gamblers get a very big high. Not from winning and losing- that seems to be incidental. They experience the high as the wager hangs in the balance, while the game is being played and when the roulette wheel is spinning.
My guess is they feel a danger/risk/thrill flood of good and positive chemicals.

[callitwhatyouwant]

I don’t know …I’ve got new respect for the gambling companies after they are the ones that reported the NBA scandal a few weeks ago. Seems like after all that went down it was the gambling companies that were honest party here.

Wasn't the mafia ultimately behind that scandal? Not to sound crass - but I'd suspect a gambling company would be interested in exposing their competition rather than some altruistic motivation.

Admittedly though, I'm not well versed on the specifics of that case and welcome a correction if I'm mistaken.

The companies have to protect the integrity of the bet. The lines they set are very thought out and have extremely meticulous processes. When the players do something goofy it make their product more of a gamble instead of the idea that you can do your own research and "outsmart" the system. That's why people sports bet. They chase the high and the competitive side. Gambling has very addictive properties just like any other thing that gets your dopamine levels up. It's a huge rush and it's hard to emulate that. The better gamblers take the emotion out of it completely and try to math it out. There's a reason why card counting isn't illegal but it will get you banned from a casino. It's someone taking the emotion out of the game and flipping the previous bad odds into your favor. Sure you still will get more loss hands dealt to you than winning hands, but you get to manipulate the scales you are betting at which should ultimately turn the overall odds in your favor. You will lose more hands than you win, but you will win bigger on your win hands than you lose.


Anyways, I started a thread on this a few weeks ago. My opinion is gambling should be legal. But the barrier should be more difficult than it is. I am OK with gambling being at your fingertips. But there needs to be regulation on it. You can only bet on outcomes of games. Prop Bets should be illegal. You can bet prop bets at the ball game or at the casino. There needs to be some level of entry for those things and the bets should be unique to that establishment. Poker should also be legal online. It makes no sense that a mainstream thing like Sports betting is being pushed, but a game that requires skill like Poker is illegal. There seems to be a solid amount of hypocrisy there.

[netboy65]

. . for me. This isn't a rant about gambling being evil or something - what other people do with their money is their business. My gripe is more about the oversaturation. I think every commercial break last night during the Blues game had at least one ad for a gambling site. Every sports radio station seems to focus a good portion of time on either shilling for some gambling operation or focus segments on parlays / over-under / betting lines / etc.

If that's where teams like the Blues and other mid market radio stations need to go to drive revenue, I get it. And maybe that revenue is more important than losing a viewer like me. But man, it's smothering. You know its bad when I'm hoping for a Dirt Cheap commercial during a Blues game rather than seeing Kevin Hart jump on his couch for the 87th time in 2 hours.

Not to overstate the obvious, but the Blues games are on FanDuel network. It’s kind of already baked in.

[Aesa]

. . for me. This isn't a rant about gambling being evil or something - what other people do with their money is their business. My gripe is more about the oversaturation. I think every commercial break last night during the Blues game had at least one ad for a gambling site. Every sports radio station seems to focus a good portion of time on either shilling for some gambling operation or focus segments on parlays / over-under / betting lines / etc.

If that's where teams like the Blues and other mid market radio stations need to go to drive revenue, I get it. And maybe that revenue is more important than losing a viewer like me. But man, it's smothering. You know its bad when I'm hoping for a Dirt Cheap commercial during a Blues game rather than seeing Kevin Hart jump on his couch for the 87th time in 2 hours.

Not to overstate the obvious, but the Blues games are on FanDuel network. It’s kind of already baked in.

If you check out the boards at home, without the CGI, you will notice a different betting app being prominently displayed. It isn't FanDuel.

[netboy65]

. . for me. This isn't a rant about gambling being evil or something - what other people do with their money is their business. My gripe is more about the oversaturation. I think every commercial break last night during the Blues game had at least one ad for a gambling site. Every sports radio station seems to focus a good portion of time on either shilling for some gambling operation or focus segments on parlays / over-under / betting lines / etc.

If that's where teams like the Blues and other mid market radio stations need to go to drive revenue, I get it. And maybe that revenue is more important than losing a viewer like me. But man, it's smothering. You know its bad when I'm hoping for a Dirt Cheap commercial during a Blues game rather than seeing Kevin Hart jump on his couch for the 87th time in 2 hours.

Not to overstate the obvious, but the Blues games are on FanDuel network. It’s kind of already baked in.

If you check out the boards at home, without the CGI, you will notice a different betting app being prominently displayed. It isn't FanDuel.

Which is probably why they CGI over it. Blues sell the space to whoever. I’m just wondering what the OP expected given where the games are broadcast.
Another factor now is with the sports betting in Missouri kicking in on Dec 1, all these companies are going all out to attract customers.

[the miracle]

. . for me. This isn't a rant about gambling being evil or something - what other people do with their money is their business. My gripe is more about the oversaturation. I think every commercial break last night during the Blues game had at least one ad for a gambling site. Every sports radio station seems to focus a good portion of time on either shilling for some gambling operation or focus segments on parlays / over-under / betting lines / etc.

If that's where teams like the Blues and other mid market radio stations need to go to drive revenue, I get it. And maybe that revenue is more important than losing a viewer like me. But man, it's smothering. You know its bad when I'm hoping for a Dirt Cheap commercial during a Blues game rather than seeing Kevin Hart jump on his couch for the 87th time in 2 hours.

Not to overstate the obvious, but the Blues games are on FanDuel network. It’s kind of already baked in.

If you check out the boards at home, without the CGI, you will notice a different betting app being prominently displayed. It isn't FanDuel.

Which is probably why they CGI over it. Blues sell the space to whoever. I’m just wondering what the OP expected given where the games are broadcast.
Another factor now is with the sports betting in Missouri kicking in on Dec 1, all these companies are going all out to attract customers.

I had no expectations of anything, to be frank. I didn't stop watching the NFL when the Rams left town, I stopped watching years earlier when there were commercial breaks nonstop and during every one of those breaks I had Dennis Leary telling me how Ford tough everything was. NFL games started to feel more like a 3 hour long Ford commercial with football in-between.

I fully understand advertisers are going to advertise, TV stations are going to sell time to make money, and the Blues are going to try to capitalize off of it. My post was a lament about being beaten over the head by it. I have no expectation that anything is going to change - this is a "man yells at cloud" post. (I'm not an old man yet).

[DawgDad]

The explosion of gambling is eroding trust in the integrity of the games and players. Similar to PEDs. Teams and leagues being business partners with gaming interests is already a bridge too far, conflict of interests.