If we did not force every single wannabe pensioner to play in the stock market casino, we would not care about the players count cards or have bribed the croupier.
But here we are. In a casino. Us the dumb speculators against the skilled players.
You cannot convince people to stop going to casinos and play against the odds, imagine convincing them not to pick stocks. I agree 100% with the author but I'm still picking up my stocks and not ready to give up the fun
The smart people that go into a casino aren't expecting to come out ahead, they walk in knowing they're probably going to burn a couple hundred bucks. They also get to leave, which is why they're willing to play at worse odds for a short time. Given that, I don't think its safe for you to rely on an infinite supply of suckers.
What if they want to go to a different casino that gives them better odds, will you force them to stay? If they can't leave they'll figure out who they shouldn't play against because they'll lose. So now are you forcing them to play? Now you're either micromanaging which ones should play against each other to make sure nobody ends up broke, or you're actively forcing them into poverty.
I feel it is kind of sad to see old people in the casinos. They are mindless spending time. They don't even seem to enjoy it. There must be games that are more enjoyable than that. no skill needed, no creativity being developed.
These idiots (and their like) are the people in charge of our industry cause they control the purse strings. They have no vision, and are just degenerate gamblers with money and an appetite for risk.
> Casinos with all of their negative-expected-value (for players) games would not exist, nor would many lotteries, if not for the allure of "oh, but if I win big..." overpowering any rational decision-making.
This seems like a separate problem. According to my best knowledge, most people going to casinos know full well that the odds are not in their favour – i.e. they do understand the probabilities/expectations involved – they just don't care because it still entertains them.[1]
Not caring and not understanding are two very different things!
[1]: See e.g. A World of Chance, by Brenner, Brenner, and Brown.
But what percentage of those people are playing as anything other than a lark? I might go to the casino one time every three years. I can guarantee I am utilizing a sub optimal strategy
>Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it.
I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices...but putting that aside...
I think the emphasis is more about how there's no other game in town that can compete, not that gambling is new.
Interest rates are so low that there isn't a simple/safe investment entity to pull out a reliable 10%. We're all stuck gambling whether we want to or not.
Okay now that we got the intellectual argument out of the way.
Let's talk about the actual experience of gamblers: You're not playing against the house. You're playing against the other gamblers. This is highly prominent in Poker where you try to beat other players.
Some gamblers told me about their weird theories about which machine will give them the fattest payouts because they analyzed which machines have been used the most and how to minimize the opportunity cost of their current wager by taking advantage of free services provided by the casino. They clearly aren't in it to stick it to the house. They are trying to outcompete other gamblers with their strategies even with a slot machine.
But here we are. In a casino. Us the dumb speculators against the skilled players.
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