zlacker

> surely you've figured out how to become fabulously wealthy

You mean, by starting a big casino, hiring thousands of people, advertising all over, etc.? A small investment like that?

> The best you can do is move the needle a few percentage points across a statistically large number of humans.

That may be true, but a "few percentage points" is enough to create enormous profits, if you do what I said above. Giving the house a 54% advantage instead of 51% makes a big, big difference.

>>Albert+(OP)
It's obviously not that easy. Casinos go bankrupt left and right. Hell, one famous former president is responsible for three of them.

>>stickf+97
Yes, but those casinos didn't go bankrupt from players collecting too many winnings. It's still a business and if you don't get enough customers in to keep the lights on you fold.

Customer acquisition and retention is still hard. Especially when you're not the only gambling parlor in town. You're selling an addictive product which is extremely effective over a population but you don't have a moat to make sure they're addicted to specifically you.

But government and society don't care about a specific business, they're counting the number of people addicted by the industry in total.

This thread is fun because the kind of black and white thinking neuro-spicy internet commentator on HN doesn't have an intellectual framework that can capture why alcohol, cannabis, and Oxy might be allowable but not heroine. And then an analyze gambling and sports betting in that framework. It's why the arguments keep circling forever.

>>Spivak+e82
Thanks. Having a good average profit over a player's bets gives you a head start, but (a) the amount of their bets, (b) the number of players, and (c) their loyalty all determine your gross profit. All of those are factors you have to work on.

And then your costs have to be less than that.