Yes. Gambling goes a long way. I just recommended Natasha Dow Schüll and Addiction by Design.

That leads us to BJ Fogg's Persuasive Design Lab at Stanford and the addictive software design.

Tobacco industry owners figured out their time's out and bought food stock and put their addiction department to design food to be addictive.

Where should we head next?

At least those often fund things like state education so, over time, the pool of victims is maybe lessened by the success of the program? Maybe?

You have some numbers to check.

(“Elaborate thoughts” aren’t needed here - are more people spending less on the lottery? where does each state spend the money?)

The incentives driving state lotteries are not nearly as strong as those driving private companies like Draft Kings but yeah not great either.

Used to work at 7-Eleven and we would have people come in and out for hours on end pouring money into scratch tickets.

State lotteries are just a regressive tax targeting the poor.

unlike drugs, for example, which are inherently addictive to all humans

Define "drugs". Alcohol is a drug. Most users aren't addicts. So is tobacco. Most users are addicts. Cannabis? More like alcohol than tobacco in terms of addictiveness.

There may be some selection bias. Smoking tobacco is an unpleasant sensation. There's no reason to do it other than the addiction and the effects on your brain chemistry afterwards. Whereas many alcoholic drinks taste great in their own right and would be consumed even if they had no chemical effects.

I suspect gambling is like alcohol or cannabis. Engaging in it affects brain chemistry. For some people that's addictive. Most people are able to enjoy the activity without being hooked.

I've seen this "it only affects problem gamblers" thing so much that I suspect it's an intentional strategy to shift blame that takes advantage of people's natural tendency to believe the just world fallacy (bad things only happen to bad people).

Gambling is absolutely inherently addictive as it's essentially perfectly paired with your brains reward system and hijacks it. There's literally dopamine cycle and tolerance happening. And when compounded by algorithms and notifications which are designed to amplify this even further I'm not sure how you can think it's not inherently addictive.

Not just mobile games. Roblox is basically an online child casino, powered by child laborers being compensated in Robux scrip. Fortnite isn't much better. We'd do a lot of good by regulating these games better too. The gambling addicts who got hooked with these games will move on to DraftKings when they're older. DraftKings knows this is their pipeline and has been investing in esports and video games like Call of Duty.

“Let the passed be past” is ironically sage.

What usually happens is they talk about statistics rather than demographics. Eg “when doing x we’ve seen a 5% rise in engagement but a 50% rise in spend from those engaged”

Nobody is actually blind to the reality of the stats but this kind approach makes it both easier to dehumanise their actions as well as giving them plausible deniability when asked if they target specific demographics such as addicts.

This happens at every gambling company in regulated markets like the US or Europe.

For comparison, there are offline casinos who use targeted adverts saying that they do not comply with regulators, and their adverts are designed in such a way as to appeal to people with gambling addiction (usually showing some kind of live play, which is banned in every regulated market afaik).

You can be sceptical of the motives of individuals but there are very strong corporate incentives from state regulators (in the US, particularly those with physical casinos).

Again, the same mistake.

Yes, it happens to every gambler who spends a lot of money. That is how VIP tiers are defined, based on how much you spend. There is no way for them (or anyone) to understand the customer's state of mind. Should it be illegal for retailers to offer customers discounts? Compulsive shopping is significantly more common than gambling addiction, do retailers target those customers?

If you never want to gamble, you tell the state regulator you never want to gamble and you will be unable to use any site.

I think we should be able to expect a company to have ethics, just like we should be able to expect them to follow the laws, but we should also regulate them to ensure that they do and punish them meaningfully when they fail to.

companies are a fiction made out of people, they don't have anything, and regardless what the rules are I expect those people to behave ethically at any given time.

I'm not entirely sure when people started to have this idea that when they walk through a company door, as if this is some magical portal into the realm of amorality, give up their human responsibilities and faculties

I worked for the "gaming" (as they call themselves) industry.

They seem to have not gotten the memo that they're a legitimate business now.

Prevously on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49765288

Passive income? I need massive income.

Anybody seen those billboards? It’s disgusting.

and also blasted into your face at any opportune moment (TV, billboards, print media, in person conversations)

and upset at losing money—even if I net win, I’m irritated about the incremental losses.

While you don't appear to be susceptible, it is notable that this mindset is not something that makes you less likely to develop a gambling problem. It's actually part of how they drive addiction. A customer who is annoyed at every loss is a customer who will chase their losses with more/bigger bets, trying to get the winning high back.

I don't watch sports much, but the last times I did they filled the screen with ads for gambling in the middle of the games while they were being played

Legalizing targeted advertising was a massive mistake too.

At least where I live it is explicitly permitted as long as you get government authorization: https://igb.illinois.gov/sports-wagering/sports-authorized-o...

In my lifetime I've witnessed America accept new revenue sources by relaxing the moral code. First, it was allowing businesses to be open on Sunday. Then it was allowing liquor sales on Sunday. Then it was liquor ads on television. Then it was very controlled, state-run gambling (the lottery). Then it was casino gambling. Now it's online gambling and 'prediction markets'. Then it was recreational marijuana use. And so on. My point of reference is Missouri, where I grew up, but I think most states have followed a pretty similar path, all in search of new sources of revenue. I predict this trend will continue all the way to prostitution. Yes, that sounds crazy, but if you would've told me in the early-80s that Missouri would have casinos and legal weed, I would've considered that crazy.

And yet somehow education still doesn't seem to have enough funding, despite the lotteries raking in cash.

Well, aren't they though, technically?

Your $1 lottery coupon has extremely low chances of winning a million dollars, but they aren't zero. No one will sell you any stocks for $1, but even if they did what is a chance of a random $1 stock increasing in value one million times?

When widespread sports gambling was illegal before, there were not rich and powerful people whose ability to maintain and grow their wealth and power was tied to keeping sports gambling legal.

Now those rich and powerful people exist, and they will use their wealth and power to keep it legal. It is not easy to put the genie back into the bottle.

Sports gambling definitely existed 10-15 years ago. And it's hard to ban things on the internet with cryptocurrency being a thing.

It's pretty wild that we let it be advertised and boggles my mind that pro leagues jumped on the train.

I worked with a heroin distributor as well. They had very clear training for the dealers they worked with to identify and stop problem heroin use. There was space reserved in every text and on every dealer’s coffee table for stop heroin assistance.

Not equating your work for a lottery with dealing heroin, I’m just pointing out that to say you don’t want people addicted to heroin while still selling heroin isn’t sufficient, and I think the same applies to lotteries. If they acknowledge the problem stop even offering it as a product.

“Gambling company leans into its target demographic”

This was my takeaway as well. Is anyone surprised at this outcome?

I worked with a state lottery that did similar things. Their target demographic was the “every day players”

That's wild. Wasn't the whole point of having a state lottery to put the state in a better position to be able to discourage people from becoming addicted? The very idea of a "target demographic" seems contrary to that goal; the "target" should be to have nobody buying tickets.

I'm shocked. Shocked!

Ban this shit. Fuck anyone who works at these companies.

Why regulate the AI bit instead of the behavior itself? If you don’t want people to exploit addiction, then outlaw that, rather than saying you just can’t use AI to exploit addictions.

Cool, but you're not running people's finances at scale. It does not compare.

This should come as no surprise

We need a better way of responding to journalism evidencing what was previously suspected and accepted.

Hooray capitalism!

I frequently get DraftKings ad on YouTube featuring Kevin Hart and Nick Jonas, they're pushing the information that it is now legal in every state.

I also get loads Polymarket and Kalshi ads. Polymarket seems to have invested tons into featuring mega celebs like LeBron in one of their ads. Other ads feature influencers showing off how to trade and such. More obnoxious part is that these companies pay influencers to talk about trading and winning live on streams- without disclosing they're paying those influencers.

Polymarket even set up fake website where influencers showed they were winning hundreds of thousands of dollars. You wouldn't find those bets on the real Polymarket website.

Really this is the entire economy now, giant companies that have billions invested in mass surveillance and heavily min-maxed dark patterns targeting the wallet of the average unsuspecting consumer. Nonsense subscriptions that are impossible to cancel, replacing ownership with "license", customized pricing, endless advertising, zero customer service, shrinkwrap licenses that change daily, etc etc etc.

Back in my day this was called machine learning.

"In the United States, to be considered an accredited investor, a natural person must have a net worth of at least $1,000,000, excluding the value of one's primary residence, or have income at least $200,000 each year for the last two years (or $300,000 combined income if married) and have the expectation to make the same amount this year, or must otherwise be a holder of a specific license in good standing."

Of course you can still lie but legally there is a line.

The standard may be higher, but the implementation is "This is what it means to be accredited: are you accredited? By the way if you say no, I can't sell you the thing I've been trying to convince you to buy."

If you had to take and pass a test, that might filter out more people; although I'm sure the seller would help you pass the test, so maybe not.

GP didn't say test. They said "self-reported knowledge [about yourself]". Which is correct.

I believe there are "casino games" on Apple and Android stores that are similar to actual gambling, you just buy "tokens" that can never be redeemed for cash.

Proof if proof needed of the complete pointlessness of casino gambling. Some people will still do it even when they know they can't win anything.

"You show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome"

They actually don't. That's the problem.

https://prospect.org/2026/07/07/economic-hit-men-for-gamblin...

Except online poker (here in the states)! Gotta keep that one prohibited. Now, betting on every freethrow Joe BBall takes in a game ... we're morally good there. It's those pesky immoral cards we have a problem with!

Some betting company made a partnership with my area's public bus system to put their ads on the side of the bus. There is no recourse for this, it seems, and this explosion of gambling ads is only going to get worse.

If you are vetting a romantic partner or a business partner, I would strongly urge you to check their phone. If they have DraftKings or FanDuel installed... run. Some might even say they lose some but it's for entertainment. I'd still trust them less than a social heroin user.

You will find a lot of people who will tell you they win at these things. They don't. How do I know this? Because if you win consistently, they kick you off. You're bad for business because the pigeons need to win occasionally to keep playing (and losing).

Gambling (and I include Kalshi and Polymarket here) shouldn't be this accessible. Back when you had to go to a casino, it was still bad but that barrier prevented a lot of harm. Being able to gamble away your future and your family's future from the comfort of your phone simply shouldn't be allowed.

What do you expect? They thrive on addicts. No different than NYSE:META, and NYSE:RDDT, and NYSE:BUD and NYSE:TAP and NYSE:(fill in whatever proven-to-be-addicting product you want)

I would be genuinely surprised if they weren't.

My data science graduate program had a class that analyzed major data science success stories. The very first one covered how Caesar's Entertainment built models and experiments to identify their "most valuable customers", figure out how to predict when they were getting ready to leave the casino, and intervene with incentives and perks designed to get them to stay and keep gambling. And also how all of their competitors rushed to implement their own programs in response.

Look at it from the casino's perspective: their entire business model is centered on exploiting quirks of human psychology to separate people from their money. Expecting prosocial behavior from them is like expecting a squirrel to ignore your bird feeders.

Distill it down even further: everything online that promises any kind of reward is a scam.

Another perfect example of why we don't need new laws, we "simply" need to enforce them. Supposedly, Dark Patterns are illegal. If the corporation had to tell you how they use your data, would you let them?

DraftKings: Hi we're going to give you extra incentives! User: Hmm, sounds like I might like that. How do I get them? DraftKings: You have to lose constantly! And then when you start winning, we take them away! You like that, don't you? User: No.

Dark Pattern. No new rules needed. "Just" enforcement.

They'll always do this. It's not even "AI" it's just a boring old ML model.

Money Stuff did a great bit on this a few days ago. There's 2 functions inside DraftKings:

- Fin the most lucrative customers, to keep engaging them.

- Finds addicted gamblers, to get them help to quit gambling.

These are the same people.

Sure, yeah, there's a nice little story about gambling within your means, blah blah. But if you're optimizing your gambling app, you're going to find and create problematic gambling as the core objective.

AI, ML, whatever. It's a gambling company. It targets gamblers. It probably shouldn't exist.