Thread

DraftKings is using AI to behaviorally target chronic gamblers

570 points · 432 comments · paimapi

tedivm · 1790700196 · focus · HN ↗
ProPublica had one of their reports work with gambling addition experts to see how DraftKings would respond to someone presenting signs of a gambling problem. It's a hell of a read, and makes it clear that this company is full of people with absolutely no ethics whatsoever.
<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/draftkings-sports-gambling-problem-vip-fanduel" rel="nofollow">https://www.propublica.org/article/draftkings-sports-gamblin...
1. WheelsAtLarge · 1790703876 · focus · HN ↗
  People in companies that are a negative public good are by definition unethical. I'm not surprised by anything they do. The real problem is how we've let these companies infiltrate so much of our society so fast. I can't consume any ad supported media without getting some ad about them. This company really defines the phrase "money talks"
  1. pfisch · 1790711713 · focus · HN ↗
    Is any form of entertainment or art a social good?
    People can get "addicted" to practically any type of entertainment in that they spend a massive chunk of their time on it to the point it stifles their development.
    Is sports gambling worse than f2p games? Are f2p games worse than regular video games? Is someone addicted to video games worse than someone addicted to reading fantasy novels? What about smutty novels?
    I'm not sure is disagree with you but I think it is hard to start drawing these lines without saying you are now the arbiter of good art and bad art and you can ban some forms of art if you don't like them and have decided they are bad.
    Now are you just banning things you don't like because you point to the societal harms as a fig leaf defense that could be applied to the art you do like as well?
    Is it the % of people who show addictive tendencies to a piece of art/entertainment how we define if it is good or bad?
    Is the morality of a form of entertainment defined by how many users show problematic consumption habits, such that in some populations an entertainment product is a moral good and in others it isn't? Is morality that flexible?
    TheOtherHobbes · 1790712598 · focus · HN ↗
    Do any of these industries maintain dossiers on the psychological fault lines of their victims so they can screw them out of extra cash until they're either insane, bankrupt, or both?
    pfisch · 1790714511 · focus · HN ↗
    Ok, so is it intent that matters then?
    So if they didn't keep those dossiers would that make them an ethical sports gambling company even if a high percentage of their users showed problematic usage patterns?
    unethical_ban · 1790712685 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes they can be, and gambling is definitely a different psychological mechanism with different financial outcomes than hobbies or collecting.
    Ferret7446 · 1790713720 · focus · HN ↗
    I have heard that boating and aviation have similar financial financial outcomes to gambling. Keep in mind that the majority (way more than 50%) of people can engage with gambling safely, it is a minority that get into trouble
    tavavex · 1790716493 · focus · HN ↗
    > I have heard that boating and aviation have similar financial financial outcomes to gambling.
    But is that because you're betting at the repair shop to pull a mint condition replacement engine for your plane, or because people find a way in by paying a bearable upfront cost and then find themselves drowning in unexpected additional expenses associated with these hobbies far beyond the price of a boat or plane? To me it seems like the second one, so it's not a very useful comparison to gambling, it's just a lack of knowledge, foresight and financial literacy.
    The gambling industry keeps refining their strategies all the time, new technologies have been a godsend to them. So I wouldn't rely on statistics all too much, because their goal is to use all psychological tricks that can be exploited in our brains to make us make the wrong decision and head down that path. Their effectiveness increases, and so are the depths to which they can get people to sink in their addictions. If you can engage with it safely right now, that is no predictor of how you'll react to the state of gambling in 3, 5 or 10 years. It's like as if the alcohol industry was allowed to invent brand new drugs and sell them without any oversight, targeting maximum potency and addiction and constantly refining their formulations.
    pfisch · 1790714798 · focus · HN ↗
    f2p games and tv shopping network addictions absolutely leave a significant number of people destitute.
    There are many other hobbies/forms of entertainment that can easily consume significant resources and leave some % of their userbase in serious financial trouble/ruin their lives.
    Also I'm not sure it is correct to define morality by trying to connect how expensive a hobby/form of entertainment to whether it is immoral.
    intended · 1790717021 · focus · HN ↗
    Not at all in comparison to gambling, and the F2P model is a scourge which gamers themselves pointed out was poisonous. Regulation has increasingly been catching up to it.
    We have an entire science built around gambling, and we know how to titrate the payoffs and reward schedules to get people increasingly addicted.
    Our movies/stories aren’t actively (yet) changing themselves to maximize their ability to keep you pressing coins into a slot, or when to string you along.
    JKCalhoun · 1790712914 · focus · HN ↗
    Bowling with friends?
    standardUser · 1790714124 · focus · HN ↗
    The difference between gambling and any other compulsion or addiction is that only gambling can leave you broke and destitute in a single day, without regard for starting wealth. Maybe findom, but going completely broke is generally not the purpose.
    The difference between drugs and other addictions is that (certain) drugs greatly increase the risk of death.
    So I say let's divide it in two - addictions that can kill you or leave you in financial ruin in a single evening, and those that cannot.
    pfisch · 1790714679 · focus · HN ↗
    f2p games and tv shopping network addictions absolutely leave a significant number of people destitute.
    There are many other hobbies/forms of entertainment that can easily consume significant resources and leave some % of their userbase in serious financial trouble/ruin their lives.
    Also you seem to want to define whether a hobby/form of entertainment is moral or immoral based on how expensive it is. So if a slot machine had a lower max bet it would become moral?
    tavavex · 1790716039 · focus · HN ↗
    F2P games can absolutely be made to exploit the same mechanics as real gambling, and are often designed to do so. But no matter what they do, they're just not as potent as real money gambling. The pull isn't the same when it's not done with real cash, they tend to be less ruthless and it seems that a smaller proportion of people is potentially susceptible to F2P addiction compared to real gambling. For the right people, they can be very wallet-draining but it doesn't seem many go into homelessness like with gambling.
    What's a "TV shopping network addiction"? I tried searching it, and I can only find isolated news articles from 5-15 years ago that report on it purely because of how unusual this is. Going to file this under 'people can get behaviorally addicted to anything', what a strange example. Do you even know anyone who has bought anything from a TV shopping network, let alone a 'significant number' that are left destitute?
    The reason why people disagree with you is because the hair-splitting between different types of addictions seems very pedantic. Clearly people think that gambling addiction is not even on the same scale of addiction than the other examples. If F2P games are cocaine, then gambling is heroin. There is a reason why gambling is taking over Western economies so rapidly, but not any of those other things - it's just too good at exploiting people's brains. So when gambling addiction is so potent that it goes off the chart compared to any of the dozens of other things that can be psychologically addictive, people aren't particularly interested in finding the exact point where it's too much for society to bear - they just know that gambling is far beyond that point.
    pfisch · 1790747210 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_addiction" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_addiction
    I'm not splitting hairs. It seems like we are just talking about outlawing things if we decide too large a % of the population engages with something in a problematic way.
    This is certainly pragmatic, but not a framework based on morality or freedom. We're just being a nanny state forbidding the vast majority of people from doing something because a small minority of people don't have self control.
    Maybe that sounds harsh, but it is accurate.
    I'd prefer people were honest about it instead of trying to wrap it in the clothing of morality, when it has nothing to do with any kind of morality that makes sense.
    10u152 · 1790715862 · focus · HN ↗
    You’re setting up lots of straw men here but it’s not a complicated argument.
    Most people feel this is deeply wrong at a gut level and I agree with them. Targeting and squeezing addicts is not moral behaviour.
    pfisch · 1790746422 · focus · HN ↗
    I agree with that, but if you don't have a coherent set of rules for why we are doing what we are doing, you just become an arbiter of right and wrong that can't be questioned.
    Which is a whole lot like saying your preferences are legal and if you don't like something you can arbitrarily make it illegal because you dislike it and therefore it is immoral. That kind of rationale could be used to ban television or videogames outright.
    intended · 1790716589 · focus · HN ↗
    Heck no. This is a version of the slippery slope fallacy.
    People can’t get addicted to practically any type of entertainment. There is a range of susceptibility to gambling, amongst “people”.
    We have an extensive range of rules and regulations that apply to gambling, and to things that have odds and payout schedules.
    It took a while, but eventually lootboxes in games were recognized as a blight, and regulation is addressing their impact.
    Generalizing entertainment from gambling is a huge stretch.
    pfisch · 1790747678 · focus · HN ↗
    It's really not a slippery slope, we just don't recognize addictions as such when we see them.
    People engage with social media in an addictive manner every day. People sit around watching tv for 5+ hours a day. People do the same with videogames.
    There are even people who cluster themselves away reading books in a way that is harmful to their lives and well being.
    The only reason we recognize gambling is because the impact is so much more intense and visibly harmful.
    All of these things are addictions though, so is qanon and conspiracy rabbit holes and those do have serious and rapid effects, and even that gets a pass.
    You can see serious addictions in tons of people, even workaholics, and we just look the other way because it is less immediately harmful to society. Not because any of these addictions are more or less immoral.
    UpsideDownRide · 1790744536 · focus · HN ↗
    To give you some perspective. When I was in drug rehab beside people addicted to substances there was a handful of people with gambling problems. And it was very clear that those are the same kind of issue even if delivery mechanism is different.
    Gambling rides on the same pathways that make substances fucking with dopaminergic system addictive.
    It's not "addictive", it's addictive.
    pfisch · 1790746099 · focus · HN ↗
    No. It isn't.
    They don't get physically ill if they stop gambling to the point of needing hospitalization for the extreme pain it causes.
    They don't have to gamble even when they don't want to in order to stave off getting very sick.
    medications that are addictive for real vs really wanting to play a game and feeling the dopamine urge....
    They aren't the same thing at all, because one of them is something you want to do, and one of them is something you maybe don't want to do but you need to do it because the consequences of not doing it are so extreme.
    mathgeek · 1790754644 · focus · HN ↗
    You’re drawing a line between physical and emotional/mental addiction. You are correct that they differ. That doesn’t imply one is not an addiction. It’s similar to comparing the levels of Maslow’s hierarchy.

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