zlacker

>>jimbob+(OP)
Sports gambling, like all gambling, ruins lives. It's certainly worth having the discussion about whether people should be able to run a train through their life and the lives of their families via app.

But a much easier argument against sports betting is that it ruins the sports. Players throw. They get good at subtly cheating. The gambling apparatus latches itself to the sport, to the teams and players, the umpires and judges, the sporting organizations. With this much money on the line, it's not a matter of if but when games are thrown, cheated -- the bigger the game, the bigger the incentive. It's even easier now because of the amount of side/parlay betting that is available. It exhausts the spirit of competition.

Sports gambling is diametrically opposed to sport itself.

>>mlsu+wN1
same argument can be made about excessive athlete salaries and really any sports related business ventures. Athletes go after specific stats to hit contract goals, get their bonuses and live good lives. Gambling industry is just one of the hundred detractors to the sport itself.

>>alm1+tP1
US sports is surprisingly "socialist", with systems like drafting ensuring that a team can't just buy up all the best players, so the league stays interesting. It seems obvious that player wages are kept lower in a system like this ... But I think they do pretty OK anyway.

Amateur sports (college and high school sports) is also much, much bigger in the US than most other places.

Both these trends I would guess have to do with the US's traditional ban on sports gambling.