There's no hope for this place. May our children forgive us.
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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Bread and games...
healthy society, good economy
What a deranged headline.
Its comparison is nonsensical.
No sane person gambles for entertaining purposes.
People gamble because they are addicts or in need of money.
The sports gambling apps will be the number one cause of divorce in the US one day. The sheer number of married men betting on them..
Americans love the surprising new hobby of shooting up fentanyl, spending more on it than food or housing!
Gambling should be banned. And not just the prediction markets and sports-book, but the lottery too.
It's just theft with extra steps.
Yea it’s one of the few things I’m like nope, should be illegal fully don’t give a fuck.
I call lottery the math tax
Don't forget the stock market.
Yeah in part that is because it isn't a pastime it's a full blown life crippling addiction for a lot of people.
The language they use in this article pisses me off too.
This shit isn't healthy and talking about it like it is a healthy behavior is very irresponsible on the part of the media.
Well... you don't get money back from movies, arts, museums, or music, but there is a miniscule chance you could from gambling.
With the economy the way it is, it's more likely people are just desperate. And some are definitely addicted, of course.
Yeah, this unfortunately. Too real
To make everyone feel even more awful, the "commercials before the movie" will probably start to have "financial engagement opportunities" as the theater houses look to try to stay alive. Pro sports venues will make it more "in your face" and offer discounts on food if you are wagering or better seats or free game tickets or some shit. Books, well most Americans don't read as adults so I think that'll continue it's current state at least. Live theater could wager on what color Hamlet's scene two entrance clothes will be....at the end of the day they'll probably hop on for survival since many of their patrons or past donors are similarly disengaging.
Currently most are doing 50/50 raffles, but it's still gambling.
I hate this country more every day
The word is 'lose', not 'spend'.
No, spend is right. The number being compared against is the amount spent on gambling. Obviously some of those bets won, so the amount lost would be far less.
And 'addiction', not 'favourite pastime'.
yeah, they would be better advised to throw their money into the garbage, at least that way they wouldn't make some rich asshole even richer.
Nice try big garbage industry man
I don't gamble but at that same time, I can't pirate gambling.
We dumb.
This is a very American thing.
Measuring popularity in terms of money spent.
By this metric, spending time with loved ones or going for a short walk has zero popularity.
Spoiler: This is how GDP works too. Didn't make any money? It's not considered real work. EVERYTHING in the US serves capital - not people.
I think it's relevant when comparing to other popular entertainment like going to the movies which is another big capitalist institution.
Not really. The time to money ratio is so different for all of them and there's no way to compare.
I spend $20 and go to the movies and that's it. I'm there for 2 hours no more money spent.
I spend $20 on sports betting and ten minutes later I can do it again and ten minutes later I can do it again and again and again. I know people who drop hundreds every weekend on it. I literally can not spend enough time in a theater to drop the same amount of money.
Well that's a different question, which one is more dangerous to personal finance or something like that, but in terms of macro economics what matters is dollars spent. Depends what question you're trying to ask, yes I think corporations should be categorically banned from touching anything relating to gambling because as you alluded to, it's one of the most destructive "recreational" activities.
The amount of money spent doesn't really accurately represent how much a past time is "liked", since money (obviously) isn't distributed evenly. A more useful metric would be how much time people spend doing this in comparison to the other options, which is impossible to measure. Also in theory it could be literally 1 or 2 people doing the gambling if they have enough money, while everyone else goes to museums and listens to music.
It's even more true with the other options not being exactly expensive (in particular museums, but the other options are will). Try spending 50k $ gambling: no problem. Try spending 1k $ going to museums: you'll be busy for 2 years or something.
Basically the whole premise is just dumb.
thats a good point. this could all be an effect of wealth disparity which would make sense.
If that's all you're taking from it, you're completely missing the real points:
The basic premise of the headline is already incredibly flawed. It suggests gambling is the "favorite passtime" becase that's where most noney was spent. Is that true for you? It sure isn't for me... I have more hobbies than I have time for, some are cheap/free, some cost money, some cost more money, but the money they cost isn't correlated with how fun they are or my appreciation for them.
Secondly, even if money spent on something would represent peoples "rankings" of them somehow, go try and spend 1000$ on museums. I sure this is different from country to country, but most museums here are either free or "cheap", no matter how long you stay, and will entertain you for hours or a day for whatever that small fee was. Even if you did have the time, how many weeks or even months would it take you to use up the 1000$? Even movies, assuming it mostly means going to a cinema is less cheap, but far from expensive per time spent there, too. Even including popcorn or snacks, breaking 50$ for a single movie is gonna be a stretch, so how long for 1000$? Music could mean concerts, which can be hundreds of dollars in some cases for a concert, but those don't even happen daily. Could also mean digital streaming, but that's like capped at let's call it 20$ per month. Buying digital albums/music is not capped like that, but assuming you are buying them to actually listen to it, you're again limited by time.
The point is the whole comparison is grotesque: Money spent on gambling is unlimited. I can spend 1000$ right now on some online poker chips, or betting on horses, or whatever else with absolutely no issues. The amount per time unit is only limited by how much you have (and/or your credit). All other mentioned examples are limited by your time or rather the money you can spend on them for per hour you enjoy them. Don't you think that basic fact might somewhat skew the comparison?
Anything but vote for somebody to tax wealth instead of work.
Who can I vote for that would actually do that?
Sign of a real healthy society, that.
Yup. More people are desperate and are trying for a chance to “win it big” and get out of the situation they’re in. Whereas art, museums, etc. doesn’t help an immediate living situation and gets deprioritized
Elysium
I can hear Ronnie Chieng and Michael Kosta: "Brought to you by Gambling. Gambling! The fun way to sell your house!"
Gambling always goes up as the economy gets worse for the average worker.
The headline hurts my head.
Not a murican, but recently we wanted to visit a museum on Saturday. We expected it to be a nightmare. And we were the only ones. Saturday before we were in a gigantic mall and it was a literal nightmare. Like an antfarm of workerants spending their weekend.
That museum made me sad, it didn't even cost money and had tons of interesting things to offer. But people prefer anthills and spending bigtime on silly brands.
Another generation further and we probably can close the museums.
Well, yeah i gave up on being impressed by humanity a long time ago, all you can do is choose to do things you think are nice and if everyone else thinks it's too nerdy, that's their loss. The museums are there for people, can't force them to enjoy it unfortunately.
True. Though what I fear is that they'd just close. Why hire people to watch the entrance when noone comes anyway. Why do anything at all.
And it's all museums here. They're never really full or even remotely close to being crowded.
Not that we wouldn't enjoy bring alone in there in absolute silence...we totally did 😁
Yeah for sure, keeping these spaces open for us to enjoy is absolutely important when society seems like they just want us to get drunk and go clubbing with them.
A joy I never really understood nor practiced. Not my idea of a mating-ground 😁
But yeah, keeping them open is paramount. At least ours are mostly state-run, so being profitable is not a thing. But still...
Join me at the table if you'd like to place a bet
All the cash that's filling your pockets is waiting to be spent
I know you've never played but drinks are free, its so bizarre
And even if you lose a few chips, it's cheaper than the bar