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The craziest thing here is that online gambling has been legal in the UK and Ireland for many years, and it's been such an obvious negative for those countries

The craziest thing here is that online gambling has been legal in the UK and Ireland for many years, and it's been such an obvious negative for those countries — and had been optimized brutally like any other tech product. When I moved over to the US a decade ago, I remember thinking 'well at least they're smart enough to have banned online gambling'. I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to prey on a subset of humanity. I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired.

paulddraper 6mo ago
They’re the financial equivalent of recreational drugs. Not everyone gets addicted, but many do. Harms your own health/assets. Can destroy lives. Has spillover effects into general society. The libertarian/authoritarian argument is much the same.
- butlike 6mo ago
  Gambling is the only vice where the store doesn't close. Even the prostitutes go to sleep for a while. But you can drive to the casino and gamble it all away anytime.
  - mikeyouse 6mo ago
    It’s even worse on the phone.. there’s a running gag on IG with a lot of truth about “you might be at the bar with your friends at 12am but I’m locked in on German object splitting in half / other obscure betable ‘sports’“. It’s insane we let people do this to themselves and their families. https://youtu.be/sMDppu-X1mY?si=MK7JGHYjW3u4iyBy https://youtu.be/sMDppu-X1mY?si=MK7JGHYjW3u4iyBy
- ifwinterco 6mo ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted, you are absolutely correct. It's exactly the same problem. You can ban drugs/gambling, but some people are unfortunately just wired to seek them out and will do so regardless. So a ban results in fewer people using them in total, but all of the revenue going to the black market. In an extreme scenario (for example, you ban a drug used by a large % of the population), that black market revenue becomes a real problem and you get Al Capone driving around Chicago with a Tommy gun shooting at people, massive corruption etc. I wouldn't put gambling in that bracket but a significant minority of people are wired to enjoy it and historically when it was illegal it was a significant fraction of the revenue stream of organised crime, so completely banning it is not cost free - you will get a slice of violence and political corruption to go with it. Having said that I agree there should be restrictions on advertising especially anywhere kids might be exposed to it
willio58 6mo ago
I live in a state in the U.S. that’s had legalized gambling for decades. I grew up seeing gambling addicts walk around my city. It’s always been bad, but in my eyes it’s so much worse now that anyone can tip tap on their phone and gamble away everything they have. At least you used to have to fly to Vegas or something to bet (and lose) big.
- willturman 6mo ago
  Same. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been able to take a course on the Economics of Gaming from William Eadington [1] , who was the founder of Gambling Studies. Our final in 2008 consisted of two parts: predicting the electoral outcome of the Presidential election of each state where each state represented one percentage of our grade, and then a wager from 1-50 percentage points on whether the stock market would rise or fall the day after the election. I wrote on the class message board that the only way we could possibly "win" the outcome of the stock market wager was to collude as a class. I also argued that placing a wager on the outcome of something that was inherently unpredictable shouldn't be used to calculate a grade. He agreed that collusion was a reasonable approach to the problem, but didn't budge on the unfairness of introducing wagers into a grading equation. What was a university in Nevada going to do? Sanction the founder of the field of study for the source of a large part of their revenue? It was an excellent class, and I think a lot of the negative externalities of gambling that Nevada has reckoned with for nearly a century now are going to rapidly surface across the country as a whole unless this freight train is reined in somehow. Growing up in Nevada, I think my relationship to gambling seems to be a lot like Europeans' relationship with alcohol - one of familiarity and temperance. We have some hard lessons ahead, and an unbelievable amount of financial incentives against putting this cat back in the bag. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Eadington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Eadington
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    >Our final in 2008 consisted of two parts: predicting the electoral outcome of the Presidential election of each state where each state represented one percentage of our grade, and then a wager from 1-50 percentage points on whether the stock market would rise or fall the day after the election. Explain this more? Let's assume you're Nate Silver and predict the 50 state outcome perfectly - you have a 50% in the class, so failing? Then the only way to "win" is to wager 50 points on the stock market (doesn't matter which way it goes). Wagering less makes no sense, because you start at 50 and so going "up" 25 to 75% protects nothing as the downside is still way below failing. It sounds like a game theory question - you should be able to get 40 points on the states easy enough even if you get the toss-up ones wrong, and then gamble the full total on the stock market (which in general should go up, the market loves certainty and hates uncertainty).
bluetidepro 6mo ago
> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. Can't say I agree with that specific take (and find it a bit naive to be honest), unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has.
- kakacik 6mo ago
  Morals start and stop somewhere, please don't attack people when they actually show some proper morals on this forum despite the employment of many members here.
  - hunterpayne 6mo ago
    It depends, if the morals cause more harm than they prevent, then no, the people espousing those "morals" don't deserve respect. They should be treated as naive which is what they are. Also, this is why we have the phrase, "virtual signaling" which specifically means a "moral" which causes more harm than good and seems to exist mostly to make the speaker seem more ethical than they actually are. Ignorance isn't a virtue and it shouldn't be treated as such.
    - Eisenstein 6mo ago
      Can you provide examples of morals that cause more harm than they prevent? Why do you think virtue signaling causes harm? Can you explain the relevance of 'ignorance isn't a virtue'?
    - jmye 6mo ago
      > "virtual signaling" which specifically means a "moral" which causes more harm than good Literally not what that means, at all. What a ridiculous assertion.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 6mo ago
  [flagged]
teekert 6mo ago
If you're from a place like Malta it's basically the only way to do IT and perhaps "escape" it later.
Chris2048 6mo ago
> made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired As in, even a dev, HR, etc person having worked for an online gambling company? I feel this may be a slippery slope..
- adamandsteve 6mo ago
  Prediction markets are far, far more slippery. Anyone working at one of these places had other options & chose to sell their morals so I think it's perfectly reasonable to not hire them.
  - Chris2048 6mo ago
    Presumably you include anyone who worked at any FANG, or Chic-Fila, or Elon-attached corp etc etc?
- markdown 6mo ago
  Don't forget the janitors. They're all accomplices of the peddlers of misery.
- InsideOutSanta 6mo ago
  Everything is a slippery slope to somewhere. That doesn't mean you can't draw lines.
  - hunterpayne 6mo ago
    Doesn't mean it is wise to do so either. I promise you, 5 lines of your political beliefs and I can make you look like a hypocritical and ignorant a55hole to the world. And I can do so purely with data and various ethical guidelines. I doubt you have though through most of your "beliefs" or learned of the policy consequences of many of your political positions. If you had, you wouldn't be such an absolutist. You still think you should be judge, jury and executioner over others? What are you, 6? PS Your type of absolutist moralism has been the basis for most of humanities worst atrocities, stop it...you aren't more moral than other people.
nimbius 6mo ago
i live in a small midwest town and had the privilege of watching it slowly atrophy into near nothing over time. the steel mill closing, 2008 market crash, fentanyl crisis, covid, both shopping malls turning into liminal spaces frozen in 1994. The real nail in the coffin was watching the Sears in the mall turn into a casino about a decade ago. Having failed their people at all other prosperities and futures, politicians turn to the last grift in their arsenal and roll out legalized gambling before packing up and leaving town or retiring. having failed the digital future, ransacked it for every last penny, politicians again in 2025 turned to the supreme court to legalize online gambling and in doing so obliterate a generation of young adults. in another decade i expect a political movement to "hold these scoundrels to account" similar to Facebook, long after any meaningful reform or regulation could have been made and the industry itself is on the decline. just one last grift for the government that enabled it in the first place.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- holoduke 6mo ago
  So cyberpunk is a real outlook after all hearing your situation.
  - alphawhisky 6mo ago
    Bold of you to assume we'll get biological immortality and cybernetics before an extinction event.
kakacik 6mo ago
> anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired Respect for that. Everybody seems to give up to all-powerful corporations and greed for short term profits seem to blind many otherwise brilliant folks into amoral and/or outright stupid shortsighted behavior and moral 'flexibility'. Nice to see good reason to keep some hope for humanity. I do myself just a sliver of this via purchasing choices for me and my family, its a drop in the ocean but ocean is formed by many drops, nothing more.
- throwaway28731 6mo ago
  [dead]
littlecranky67 6mo ago
Care to disclose the company you work for? Is that the stakeholders stance too, or just your own? Did you disclose this policy to your bosses if any? EDIT: Due to the downvotes without comments, here is my point: As an employee, you manage someone elses money in that position. As such, you have to holdup morals of the company and follow the companies interest, not your own - unless you are the 100% owner of that company. If you are not, and impose your own morals using someone elses money, you shouldn't be taking the moral highground here.
holoduke 6mo ago
Here in the Netherlands we have a big building housing a pro gambling lobbyist organization. Their sole goal is to bribe politicians and spread misinformation on public tv channels. A typical example of rottenness inside the western society.
socalgal2 6mo ago
> I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to prey on a subset of humanity This triggers thoughts. I don't like people being taken advantage of. At the same time, I like my personal liberties. It feels like you can spin this idea for nearly anything. Apparently 25% of alcohol sales are to alcoholics. That sucks and you could spin this has the liquor companies taking advantage, but I have tons of friends that enjoy drinking and tons of good experiences drinking with them (wine/beer/cocktails) in all kinds of situations (bars/sports-bars/pubs/parties/bbqs). I don't want that taken away because some people can't control their intake. Similarly the USA is obese so you could spin every company making fattening foods (chips/dips/bacon/cheese/cookies/sodas/...) as taking advantage (most of my family is obese (T_T)) but at the same time, I enjoy all of those things in moderation and I don't want them taken away because some people can't handle them. You can try to claim gambling is different, but it is? Should Magic the Gathering be banned (and Yugioh Card,Pokemon Cards, etc..)? Baseball cards? I don't like that video games like Candy Crush apparently make money on "whales" but I also don't want people that can control their spending and have some fun to be banned from having that fun because a few people can't control themselves. I don't have a solution, but at the moment I'd choose personal liberties over nannying everyone.
- stuffn 6mo ago
  The real litmus test for your beliefs is gun rights. Taken to it's logical conclusion you would think that you would be staunchly pro 2A.
  - socalgal2 6mo ago
    I'm not sure my position on 2A but it seems you're making a pretty big leap to connect them. Guns kill others. To me, that's a big difference. Gambling does not, only indirectly, you gamble your money away your family doesn't eat. But if you're going indirect than anything fits. Cars kill more than guns. You could argue the similarity is that some people can be responsible with guns and others can't but you're back the previous point. Irresponsible gun use directly harms others. Irresponsible gambling at most indirectly harms others.
tamimio 6mo ago
> and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. I encourage this concept but also to expand it further, including the ones who work on other evil schemes like the ones used to violate your privacy, sell your data, and participate in sketchy business and/or contracts. Just like how I don’t want to work with someone who develops a gambling platform, I don’t want to work with someone who’s building a cameras spying on public, an app that use facial recognition against strangers, an app that track people, an AI to automate killing, a cloud that host and process such systems. There should be an open source database that has lists of all people who worked/working in such companies, categorized by industry (gambling, privacy, etc.), where anyone can look up potential employees, getting the names is easy when you have the best OSINT goldmine out there (LinkedIn), plus manual submission. Some people have no morals or intrinsic values to prevent them from working in legal yet shady businesses, those however will double think their decision when they know there will be a consequences and they won’t be hired anywhere else.
- chasd00 6mo ago
  ...or you could look at their resume. btw, maybe i'm missing the joke, but working on the system you're describing would put you on the black list.
  - HKH2 6mo ago
    The paradox of the paradox of tolerance.
amarant 6mo ago
Anyone who worked in it? Like someone who needed a salary took a job, and now due to your grandstanding they're locked in to keep working in that industry because they can't get a job elsewhere? I'm not sure your virtue signalling has the effect you want it to have. In fact I think it has the exact opposite effect
- phil21 6mo ago
  The intended effect is to feel good about oneself, so I’m sure it’s working fine. What this tends to largely accomplish is ensure that those who come from non-traditional backgrounds are further locked out of mainstream high-end tech jobs. If you grew up in a rough area with shitty parents, didn’t go to college, and came into the industry entirely self-taught there aren’t that may decently paying jobs in the field willing to hire you. The “vice industries” are some of the few typically willing to take a chance, while also allowing such a person to level up on relevant cutting edge tech. It’s generally that or working for a small company on 25 year old IT gear and often getting pigeon holed in those (low paying) roles. And I’m not even saying that it justifies working for such places to many. That’s a personal choice of course. Just saying that it’s mostly a class signal vs moral one.
Aurornis 6mo ago
> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. I do not like gambling or the prevalence of gambling products, but this is not a good thing for you to do. You should not ban people from your job for reasons that are not relevant to the job you're hiring for. People take jobs for many reasons, including some times simply needing to take the first job they can get in order to pay the bills. People also change their minds. Working for a gambling product company doesn't mean the person is still pro-gambling.
- sjkoelle 6mo ago
  or even if they are pro-gambling jeez would you never be able to work with someone you disagreed with politically
  - Aurornis 6mo ago
    Having your job eligibility depend on your boss aligning with your personal morals on topics that have nothing to do with work is terrible I'm surprised there's so much support for this in these HN comments.
    - munificent 6mo ago
      Do you really want your labor enriching someone you think is a bad person? Do you want someone whose values go against yours being in a position of power over you?
      - amarant 6mo ago
        Yes, I'm not so petty that I wish poverty upon everyone who holds a opinion different from mine! I'm a live and let live kind of guy
        duskdozer 6mo ago
        And if they're not live and let live people? If they're working to ban or destroy something you value highly? To harm you or someone you care about?
comprev 6mo ago
Gambling and weapons (or "defence" depending on perspective) are two industries I refuse to work on principle. On my deathbed I want to look back on life and feel I've made a small positive impact on the world.
- loeber 6mo ago
  If your deathbed is at the hands of an adversary that beat you because you didn't have any weapons, do you think your views might change?
matt_daemon 6mo ago
Same in Australia and only recently (that is, in the last year) has there been any restrictions on showing gambling ads during live sports events. It’s difficult to compare how normalised it is here versus what the US is currently going through. As for sportspeople throwing games, well that’s been happening for as long as betting has been around as well, see countless examples from football (soccer) and cricket.
- joe_mamba 6mo ago
  >Same in Australia and only recently AFAIK Australia is most gambling addicted western country, loosing the most money per capita at the pokies. >It’s difficult to compare how normalised it is here versus what the US is currently going through. I remember how Henry Ford was giving his employee great benefits to attract the best workers so the Dodge brothers bought Ford shares to become shareholders, then sued Henry Ford and won because he wasn't doing what's good for the shareholders. Similarly, I feel like if you'd try to regulate these anti humane businesses and practices you'd get sued because you're doing something that hurts shareholders.
- bluGill 6mo ago
  It has been going on in the US for years - even when it was illegal, there was still illegal gambling and more then one person has been caught throwing games. Sports beet was always legal in Law Vegas though (at least from what I can tell), but most states banned it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Rose#Betting_scandal,_permanent_banishment,_and_posthumous_reinstatement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Rose#Betting_scandal,_per...
- jaza 6mo ago
  Yep. Gambling is Australia's version of America's gun problem. We've recently banned kids from social media, yet we're apparently unable to ban gambling ads from kids content. Every time the (various levels of) government here talk about even the tiniest new gambling related regulation, somehow - definitely totally without any brown paper bags whatsoever going into any back pockets - it doesn't seem to actually happen. Magic!
skippyboxedhero 6mo ago
what do you mean legal "for many years"? it was never illegal. we have had telephone betting for decades, gambling for centuries...the reason online gambling was banned in the US was because the biggest donors to both parties requested it...there is no other reason because banning is a proven way to maximise harm (and even overly restrictive regulation has been proven to be very poor, as in Hong Kong). thanks for telling everyone you are in senior leadership
mrighele 6mo ago
> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. I appreciate your approach, but I wonder: would you hire somebody with a past in Meta, or ByteDance (to just name two)? They are at least as bad in pushing addiction to people, maybe worse if you think about the scale.
- ymolodtsov 6mo ago
  It's a very different kind of addiction. Working in sports bettings is like working on an online casino.
- boelboel 6mo ago
  They earn billions from pushing gambling as well, substantial portion of their ads.
- refulgentis 6mo ago
  A feed is optimized for engagement. A casino is optimized to take your rent money. The broader move, "you don't like X? so Y is good?," can extend forever. Defense contractors, payday loan apps, ad-tech...
spullara 6mo ago
So you want them to keep working on those products?
cauliflower99 6mo ago
Super surprised to see Ireland mentioned at the top comment here. I've always thought it catastrophic that betting companies could advertise on TV here, but never really considered how other countries compared to us. Is it really the case that we're outliers? Would love to see laws change here.
selcuka 6mo ago
> have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. That's a bit cruel. Sometimes tech workers don't have the luxury of choosing their workplaces. Also companies pivot. So, say, a cryptocurrency startup might have later become a gambling website.
- rvz 6mo ago
  Or an AI company acting as a casino with offers, boosted usage and limits to get you addicted into spending more tokens + credits on their digital slot machine which accepts 'tokens' as an exchange for 'promises of productivity' and 'intelligence'. If the output doesn't work, roll the dice again and spend more tokens.
  - hirvi74 6mo ago
    Reminds me of the US healthcare system.
bawolff 6mo ago
At the very least we should make it like smoking. Let people do it if they want but definitely dont allow advertisements.
0ckpuppet 6mo ago
God forbid some poor soul who needs a job to feed their family works for a casino. snob
darig 6mo ago
[dead]
jdub 6mo ago
Even at the best of times, the United States does not have a strong culture of observing or learning from other nations.

paulddraper 6mo ago

They’re the financial equivalent of recreational drugs. Not everyone gets addicted, but many do. Harms your own health/assets. Can destroy lives. Has spillover effects into general society. The libertarian/authoritarian argument is much the same.

butlike 6mo ago
Gambling is the only vice where the store doesn't close. Even the prostitutes go to sleep for a while. But you can drive to the casino and gamble it all away anytime.
- mikeyouse 6mo ago
  It’s even worse on the phone.. there’s a running gag on IG with a lot of truth about “you might be at the bar with your friends at 12am but I’m locked in on German object splitting in half / other obscure betable ‘sports’“. It’s insane we let people do this to themselves and their families. https://youtu.be/sMDppu-X1mY?si=MK7JGHYjW3u4iyBy https://youtu.be/sMDppu-X1mY?si=MK7JGHYjW3u4iyBy
ifwinterco 6mo ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, you are absolutely correct. It's exactly the same problem. You can ban drugs/gambling, but some people are unfortunately just wired to seek them out and will do so regardless. So a ban results in fewer people using them in total, but all of the revenue going to the black market. In an extreme scenario (for example, you ban a drug used by a large % of the population), that black market revenue becomes a real problem and you get Al Capone driving around Chicago with a Tommy gun shooting at people, massive corruption etc. I wouldn't put gambling in that bracket but a significant minority of people are wired to enjoy it and historically when it was illegal it was a significant fraction of the revenue stream of organised crime, so completely banning it is not cost free - you will get a slice of violence and political corruption to go with it. Having said that I agree there should be restrictions on advertising especially anywhere kids might be exposed to it

willio58 6mo ago

I live in a state in the U.S. that’s had legalized gambling for decades. I grew up seeing gambling addicts walk around my city. It’s always been bad, but in my eyes it’s so much worse now that anyone can tip tap on their phone and gamble away everything they have. At least you used to have to fly to Vegas or something to bet (and lose) big.

willturman 6mo ago
Same. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been able to take a course on the Economics of Gaming from William Eadington [1] , who was the founder of Gambling Studies. Our final in 2008 consisted of two parts: predicting the electoral outcome of the Presidential election of each state where each state represented one percentage of our grade, and then a wager from 1-50 percentage points on whether the stock market would rise or fall the day after the election. I wrote on the class message board that the only way we could possibly "win" the outcome of the stock market wager was to collude as a class. I also argued that placing a wager on the outcome of something that was inherently unpredictable shouldn't be used to calculate a grade. He agreed that collusion was a reasonable approach to the problem, but didn't budge on the unfairness of introducing wagers into a grading equation. What was a university in Nevada going to do? Sanction the founder of the field of study for the source of a large part of their revenue? It was an excellent class, and I think a lot of the negative externalities of gambling that Nevada has reckoned with for nearly a century now are going to rapidly surface across the country as a whole unless this freight train is reined in somehow. Growing up in Nevada, I think my relationship to gambling seems to be a lot like Europeans' relationship with alcohol - one of familiarity and temperance. We have some hard lessons ahead, and an unbelievable amount of financial incentives against putting this cat back in the bag. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Eadington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Eadington
- bombcar 6mo ago
  >Our final in 2008 consisted of two parts: predicting the electoral outcome of the Presidential election of each state where each state represented one percentage of our grade, and then a wager from 1-50 percentage points on whether the stock market would rise or fall the day after the election. Explain this more? Let's assume you're Nate Silver and predict the 50 state outcome perfectly - you have a 50% in the class, so failing? Then the only way to "win" is to wager 50 points on the stock market (doesn't matter which way it goes). Wagering less makes no sense, because you start at 50 and so going "up" 25 to 75% protects nothing as the downside is still way below failing. It sounds like a game theory question - you should be able to get 40 points on the states easy enough even if you get the toss-up ones wrong, and then gamble the full total on the stock market (which in general should go up, the market loves certainty and hates uncertainty).

bluetidepro 6mo ago

> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. Can't say I agree with that specific take (and find it a bit naive to be honest), unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has.

kakacik 6mo ago
Morals start and stop somewhere, please don't attack people when they actually show some proper morals on this forum despite the employment of many members here.
- hunterpayne 6mo ago
  It depends, if the morals cause more harm than they prevent, then no, the people espousing those "morals" don't deserve respect. They should be treated as naive which is what they are. Also, this is why we have the phrase, "virtual signaling" which specifically means a "moral" which causes more harm than good and seems to exist mostly to make the speaker seem more ethical than they actually are. Ignorance isn't a virtue and it shouldn't be treated as such.
  - Eisenstein 6mo ago
    Can you provide examples of morals that cause more harm than they prevent? Why do you think virtue signaling causes harm? Can you explain the relevance of 'ignorance isn't a virtue'?
  - jmye 6mo ago
    > "virtual signaling" which specifically means a "moral" which causes more harm than good Literally not what that means, at all. What a ridiculous assertion.
UqWBcuFx6NV4r 6mo ago
[flagged]

teekert 6mo ago

If you're from a place like Malta it's basically the only way to do IT and perhaps "escape" it later.

Chris2048 6mo ago

> made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired As in, even a dev, HR, etc person having worked for an online gambling company? I feel this may be a slippery slope..

adamandsteve 6mo ago
Prediction markets are far, far more slippery. Anyone working at one of these places had other options & chose to sell their morals so I think it's perfectly reasonable to not hire them.
- Chris2048 6mo ago
  Presumably you include anyone who worked at any FANG, or Chic-Fila, or Elon-attached corp etc etc?
markdown 6mo ago
Don't forget the janitors. They're all accomplices of the peddlers of misery.
InsideOutSanta 6mo ago
Everything is a slippery slope to somewhere. That doesn't mean you can't draw lines.
- hunterpayne 6mo ago
  Doesn't mean it is wise to do so either. I promise you, 5 lines of your political beliefs and I can make you look like a hypocritical and ignorant a55hole to the world. And I can do so purely with data and various ethical guidelines. I doubt you have though through most of your "beliefs" or learned of the policy consequences of many of your political positions. If you had, you wouldn't be such an absolutist. You still think you should be judge, jury and executioner over others? What are you, 6? PS Your type of absolutist moralism has been the basis for most of humanities worst atrocities, stop it...you aren't more moral than other people.

nimbius 6mo ago

i live in a small midwest town and had the privilege of watching it slowly atrophy into near nothing over time. the steel mill closing, 2008 market crash, fentanyl crisis, covid, both shopping malls turning into liminal spaces frozen in 1994. The real nail in the coffin was watching the Sears in the mall turn into a casino about a decade ago. Having failed their people at all other prosperities and futures, politicians turn to the last grift in their arsenal and roll out legalized gambling before packing up and leaving town or retiring. having failed the digital future, ransacked it for every last penny, politicians again in 2025 turned to the supreme court to legalize online gambling and in doing so obliterate a generation of young adults. in another decade i expect a political movement to "hold these scoundrels to account" similar to Facebook, long after any meaningful reform or regulation could have been made and the industry itself is on the decline. just one last grift for the government that enabled it in the first place.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
holoduke 6mo ago
So cyberpunk is a real outlook after all hearing your situation.
- alphawhisky 6mo ago
  Bold of you to assume we'll get biological immortality and cybernetics before an extinction event.

kakacik 6mo ago

> anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired Respect for that. Everybody seems to give up to all-powerful corporations and greed for short term profits seem to blind many otherwise brilliant folks into amoral and/or outright stupid shortsighted behavior and moral 'flexibility'. Nice to see good reason to keep some hope for humanity. I do myself just a sliver of this via purchasing choices for me and my family, its a drop in the ocean but ocean is formed by many drops, nothing more.

throwaway28731 6mo ago
[dead]

littlecranky67 6mo ago

Care to disclose the company you work for? Is that the stakeholders stance too, or just your own? Did you disclose this policy to your bosses if any? EDIT: Due to the downvotes without comments, here is my point: As an employee, you manage someone elses money in that position. As such, you have to holdup morals of the company and follow the companies interest, not your own - unless you are the 100% owner of that company. If you are not, and impose your own morals using someone elses money, you shouldn't be taking the moral highground here.

holoduke 6mo ago

Here in the Netherlands we have a big building housing a pro gambling lobbyist organization. Their sole goal is to bribe politicians and spread misinformation on public tv channels. A typical example of rottenness inside the western society.

socalgal2 6mo ago

> I am very pro personal liberties, but this stuff is weaponized to prey on a subset of humanity This triggers thoughts. I don't like people being taken advantage of. At the same time, I like my personal liberties. It feels like you can spin this idea for nearly anything. Apparently 25% of alcohol sales are to alcoholics. That sucks and you could spin this has the liquor companies taking advantage, but I have tons of friends that enjoy drinking and tons of good experiences drinking with them (wine/beer/cocktails) in all kinds of situations (bars/sports-bars/pubs/parties/bbqs). I don't want that taken away because some people can't control their intake. Similarly the USA is obese so you could spin every company making fattening foods (chips/dips/bacon/cheese/cookies/sodas/...) as taking advantage (most of my family is obese (T_T)) but at the same time, I enjoy all of those things in moderation and I don't want them taken away because some people can't handle them. You can try to claim gambling is different, but it is? Should Magic the Gathering be banned (and Yugioh Card,Pokemon Cards, etc..)? Baseball cards? I don't like that video games like Candy Crush apparently make money on "whales" but I also don't want people that can control their spending and have some fun to be banned from having that fun because a few people can't control themselves. I don't have a solution, but at the moment I'd choose personal liberties over nannying everyone.

stuffn 6mo ago
The real litmus test for your beliefs is gun rights. Taken to it's logical conclusion you would think that you would be staunchly pro 2A.
- socalgal2 6mo ago
  I'm not sure my position on 2A but it seems you're making a pretty big leap to connect them. Guns kill others. To me, that's a big difference. Gambling does not, only indirectly, you gamble your money away your family doesn't eat. But if you're going indirect than anything fits. Cars kill more than guns. You could argue the similarity is that some people can be responsible with guns and others can't but you're back the previous point. Irresponsible gun use directly harms others. Irresponsible gambling at most indirectly harms others.

tamimio 6mo ago

> and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. I encourage this concept but also to expand it further, including the ones who work on other evil schemes like the ones used to violate your privacy, sell your data, and participate in sketchy business and/or contracts. Just like how I don’t want to work with someone who develops a gambling platform, I don’t want to work with someone who’s building a cameras spying on public, an app that use facial recognition against strangers, an app that track people, an AI to automate killing, a cloud that host and process such systems. There should be an open source database that has lists of all people who worked/working in such companies, categorized by industry (gambling, privacy, etc.), where anyone can look up potential employees, getting the names is easy when you have the best OSINT goldmine out there (LinkedIn), plus manual submission. Some people have no morals or intrinsic values to prevent them from working in legal yet shady businesses, those however will double think their decision when they know there will be a consequences and they won’t be hired anywhere else.

chasd00 6mo ago
...or you could look at their resume. btw, maybe i'm missing the joke, but working on the system you're describing would put you on the black list.
- HKH2 6mo ago
  The paradox of the paradox of tolerance.

amarant 6mo ago

Anyone who worked in it? Like someone who needed a salary took a job, and now due to your grandstanding they're locked in to keep working in that industry because they can't get a job elsewhere? I'm not sure your virtue signalling has the effect you want it to have. In fact I think it has the exact opposite effect

phil21 6mo ago
The intended effect is to feel good about oneself, so I’m sure it’s working fine. What this tends to largely accomplish is ensure that those who come from non-traditional backgrounds are further locked out of mainstream high-end tech jobs. If you grew up in a rough area with shitty parents, didn’t go to college, and came into the industry entirely self-taught there aren’t that may decently paying jobs in the field willing to hire you. The “vice industries” are some of the few typically willing to take a chance, while also allowing such a person to level up on relevant cutting edge tech. It’s generally that or working for a small company on 25 year old IT gear and often getting pigeon holed in those (low paying) roles. And I’m not even saying that it justifies working for such places to many. That’s a personal choice of course. Just saying that it’s mostly a class signal vs moral one.

Aurornis 6mo ago

> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. I do not like gambling or the prevalence of gambling products, but this is not a good thing for you to do. You should not ban people from your job for reasons that are not relevant to the job you're hiring for. People take jobs for many reasons, including some times simply needing to take the first job they can get in order to pay the bills. People also change their minds. Working for a gambling product company doesn't mean the person is still pro-gambling.

sjkoelle 6mo ago
or even if they are pro-gambling jeez would you never be able to work with someone you disagreed with politically
- Aurornis 6mo ago
  Having your job eligibility depend on your boss aligning with your personal morals on topics that have nothing to do with work is terrible I'm surprised there's so much support for this in these HN comments.
  - munificent 6mo ago
    Do you really want your labor enriching someone you think is a bad person? Do you want someone whose values go against yours being in a position of power over you?
    - amarant 6mo ago
      Yes, I'm not so petty that I wish poverty upon everyone who holds a opinion different from mine! I'm a live and let live kind of guy
      - duskdozer 6mo ago
        And if they're not live and let live people? If they're working to ban or destroy something you value highly? To harm you or someone you care about?

comprev 6mo ago

Gambling and weapons (or "defence" depending on perspective) are two industries I refuse to work on principle. On my deathbed I want to look back on life and feel I've made a small positive impact on the world.

loeber 6mo ago
If your deathbed is at the hands of an adversary that beat you because you didn't have any weapons, do you think your views might change?

matt_daemon 6mo ago

Same in Australia and only recently (that is, in the last year) has there been any restrictions on showing gambling ads during live sports events. It’s difficult to compare how normalised it is here versus what the US is currently going through. As for sportspeople throwing games, well that’s been happening for as long as betting has been around as well, see countless examples from football (soccer) and cricket.

joe_mamba 6mo ago
>Same in Australia and only recently AFAIK Australia is most gambling addicted western country, loosing the most money per capita at the pokies. >It’s difficult to compare how normalised it is here versus what the US is currently going through. I remember how Henry Ford was giving his employee great benefits to attract the best workers so the Dodge brothers bought Ford shares to become shareholders, then sued Henry Ford and won because he wasn't doing what's good for the shareholders. Similarly, I feel like if you'd try to regulate these anti humane businesses and practices you'd get sued because you're doing something that hurts shareholders.
bluGill 6mo ago
It has been going on in the US for years - even when it was illegal, there was still illegal gambling and more then one person has been caught throwing games. Sports beet was always legal in Law Vegas though (at least from what I can tell), but most states banned it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Rose#Betting_scandal,_permanent_banishment,_and_posthumous_reinstatement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Rose#Betting_scandal,_per...
jaza 6mo ago
Yep. Gambling is Australia's version of America's gun problem. We've recently banned kids from social media, yet we're apparently unable to ban gambling ads from kids content. Every time the (various levels of) government here talk about even the tiniest new gambling related regulation, somehow - definitely totally without any brown paper bags whatsoever going into any back pockets - it doesn't seem to actually happen. Magic!

skippyboxedhero 6mo ago

what do you mean legal "for many years"? it was never illegal. we have had telephone betting for decades, gambling for centuries...the reason online gambling was banned in the US was because the biggest donors to both parties requested it...there is no other reason because banning is a proven way to maximise harm (and even overly restrictive regulation has been proven to be very poor, as in Hong Kong). thanks for telling everyone you are in senior leadership

mrighele 6mo ago

> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. I appreciate your approach, but I wonder: would you hire somebody with a past in Meta, or ByteDance (to just name two)? They are at least as bad in pushing addiction to people, maybe worse if you think about the scale.

ymolodtsov 6mo ago
It's a very different kind of addiction. Working in sports bettings is like working on an online casino.
boelboel 6mo ago
They earn billions from pushing gambling as well, substantial portion of their ads.
refulgentis 6mo ago
A feed is optimized for engagement. A casino is optimized to take your rent money. The broader move, "you don't like X? so Y is good?," can extend forever. Defense contractors, payday loan apps, ad-tech...

spullara 6mo ago

So you want them to keep working on those products?

cauliflower99 6mo ago

Super surprised to see Ireland mentioned at the top comment here. I've always thought it catastrophic that betting companies could advertise on TV here, but never really considered how other countries compared to us. Is it really the case that we're outliers? Would love to see laws change here.

selcuka 6mo ago

> have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired. That's a bit cruel. Sometimes tech workers don't have the luxury of choosing their workplaces. Also companies pivot. So, say, a cryptocurrency startup might have later become a gambling website.

rvz 6mo ago
Or an AI company acting as a casino with offers, boosted usage and limits to get you addicted into spending more tokens + credits on their digital slot machine which accepts 'tokens' as an exchange for 'promises of productivity' and 'intelligence'. If the output doesn't work, roll the dice again and spend more tokens.
- hirvi74 6mo ago
  Reminds me of the US healthcare system.

bawolff 6mo ago

At the very least we should make it like smoking. Let people do it if they want but definitely dont allow advertisements.

0ckpuppet 6mo ago

God forbid some poor soul who needs a job to feed their family works for a casino. snob

darig 6mo ago

[dead]

jdub 6mo ago

Even at the best of times, the United States does not have a strong culture of observing or learning from other nations.