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
In Australia gambling and poker machines have so deeply parasitised themselves into local sports clubs, that they can now _no longer operate without the poker machines_. They’ve co-opted sport so thoroughly, that gambling is now basically an ingrained part of organised sports from local level up.

It’s heinous.

>>Fridge+kS1
The local sports clubs need the revenue from the machines, otherwise they'd not make any money at all, and might even cease to exist.

How do you propose to solve this problem? Higher fees from club members? or somehow get more gov't funding via taxing?

I don't see the issue with gambling revenue funding a club.

>>chii+ET1
because the gambling machines mainly fund the people who own these machines, not the club. the club could hold a single bingo evening and raise more money than a month of gambling machines would bring.

>>lodovi+vU1
If the club holds the license the club owns the machines. Clubs are not for profits and need to return 100% of profits to the club & facility.

In practice this takes the form of Club Board members giving themselves generous contracts to renovate/clean/manage aspects of the club (via services companies that they or a family member own).

There are sports leagues clubs in NSW that rival small Las Vegas casinos in facilities and amenity.