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Addiction Markets

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384 points toomuchtodo | 4 comments | 31 Oct 25 17:42 UTC | HN request time: 1.272s | source
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Humorist2290 ◴[31 Oct 25 23:50 UTC] No.45777973[source]▶

  But if you want to outlaw this harmful activity [licensed gambling], you have to find a way to replace 6.4% of Maryland’s budget, which is slightly less than the entire amount the state brings in from corporate taxes.
A fraction of the proceeds of losing bets from a fraction of Maryland's citizens contributes almost the same to state services -- EMS, education, road maintenance, etc -- than the total corporate taxes levied on all businesses.

Do I misunderstand, or is this just actually incredible?

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1. kurtis_reed ◴[01 Nov 25 10:57 UTC] No.45780719[source]▶
Not losing bets, all bets
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2. soVeryTired ◴[01 Nov 25 11:48 UTC] No.45780932[source]▶
In one sense, winning bets. If you lose, you lose: your money is gone either way. If you win, the fact that the probabilities sum to about 1.05 means you win less than you would have in a fair game. The state just takes a cut of that extra 0.05.
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3. jakelazaroff ◴[01 Nov 25 15:00 UTC] No.45782157[source]▶
The probabilities sum to less than 1, not greater than 1, right?
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4. soVeryTired ◴[02 Nov 25 09:33 UTC] No.45789031{3}[source]▶
If it's a win / lose outcome and both win and lose have a probability of 1/100, I'll make 99x my stake by betting on both win and lose at the same time.

If both outcomes have a probability of 0.999 (summing to almost 2), I'll barely make any money if I'm right, and lose my money if I'm wrong.

So when probabilities sum to less than 1, it's good for the gambler, and when they sum to more than 1 it's bad for them (and good for the bookkeeper).