Sports betting has exploded across America, with a vast majority of states legalizing gambling in recent years. In fact, Americans gambled $150 billion through online sportsbooks last year. Far too many lost nearly everything. @RollingStone reports on the near-fatal consequences for a group of young men with a phone, app, and a growing addition:
gambling
Even when waiting in line at the grocery store you’ll be looking at lootboxes or lootbags in this case
And yes Pokémon card packs are the same thing back in the days
Kids don’t stand a chance
UK #gambling regulator accuses #Meta of lying about its struggle to spot illegal ads - https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/20/uk_gambling_comission_criticizes_meta/ "Labels Zuck’s ad library ‘a window into criminality’ and the Social Network as ‘happy to turn a blind eye’" so do something
A big shout-out to @gbhnews for another incredible podcast series! I'm midway through "Scratch & Win", which documents the meteoric rise of the Massachusetts State Lottery, and it's pure nerd catnip: organized crime, gambling, power, machine politics, combinatorics, computer science history! I can't believe the interviews they managed to get (and that the closing song is sung by the former state treasurer). All props to the production and editing team. Ian, Isabel, Lacy, and everyone involved should be really proud. Waiting for the inevitable HBO miniseries!
https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/scratch-win
Quote from episode 1 transcript:
The Massachusetts Lottery had already rejected nearly twenty prototypes by the time they settled on a final design -- the one with the paper flaps. Only to have John Koza, this recently graduated wiz kid with a dimpled chin and a combover, show up and tell them it was flawed. So on the spot they made a deal. Koza could take home 50 tickets and do his best to prove they could be hacked.
#MApoli #Massachusetts #History #Lottery #Gambling #math #podcast #PublicRadio #GBH #PRX
"Through her research, she uncovered four key features that, when combined together, help hold people on the gambling devices. These features trigger a trancelike or dissociative state, known as a "machine zone" or "dark flow," in which people lose track of their sense of time and place.
"To Schüll's surprise, around the early 2010s, the same features began to appear on phone and tablet apps, including social media, games and video-streaming platforms. "These are not normal products for kids like a pair of shoes or a toy," she says. "They create a relationship with kids."
"Here are four features that create that superglue…"
#addiction #gambling #SocialMedia #screens
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/21/nx-s1-5776665/surprising-origin-features-superglue-kids-adults-to-screens
New YT video is up!
My topic this week is about Polymarket using fake viral influencer videos in order to build up hype for their platform, as well as touching on the budding regulation of prediction markets and dangers of gambling on these platforms.
If you enjoy the video, please take a moment to give it a like. This is a great, free way to help a small creator.
#YouTube #Gambling #PredictionMarkets #Polymarket #Technology #Video #SocialMedia
Duolingo might be in violation of your country's regulation against "Gacha games" (AKA games which feature loot-boxes), but I need help figuring out if that's the case because I can't see whether the in-app activity is available to players in countries where such games are regulated.
Duolingo regularly issues "quests" to its users, in which they complete daily and multi-day quests to earn points. If you complete the target number of quests for a month then you earn that month's badge. As far as I know there are no regulatory risks to this sort of reward mechanic.
The problem is that they've also started doing other kinds of side quests, with the most recent one being Junior's Toy Hunt. For this minigame, users complete lessons for a chance to draw a random puzzle piece, with a maximum of four pieces issued per day. Users that gather the full set of nine pieces from one of six sets are rewarded with a cosmetic suit corresponding to the set they completed.
Pieces are drawn randomly, and five duplicate pieces are automatically traded for a new piece. Not all pieces are equally likely, but I've assumed they are and estimated that on average you should be able to get all the sets by drawing 108 pieces. At four pieces per day, this should take you 27 days. This should be achievable for consistent players, but it's not guaranteed. If my math is correct, the (incredibly unlikely) worst case scenario is that it will take you 266 piece draws, or 44 days, by which point the challenge will have ended.
The problem is that you can also spend "Gems" (Duolingo's in-game currency) to buy additional pieces at random. You can buy one piece for 400 gems, or five for 1600. The app issues gems as rewards for completing challenges, but you can also just buy them (1200 for €4.99, 3000 for €9.99, 6500 for €19.99). This means you can pay for a random chance to win in-game cosmetics, which is where I think they're starting to cross over into potentially violating various laws which are mostly intended to prevent minors from developing gambling habits.
I found a table of Gacha regulations by country on the Gacha wiki. If you live in one of the countries or economic regions listed on the table, have Duolingo installed, and can confirm whether this mini-game is available to you, please respond indicating your findings.
For the record, this is unregulated where I live, so I have no intent of following up on this with a legal case. I'm mostly just curious about whether they've screwed up by launching this feature. That said, if someone else does want to follow up on this in some meaningful way, please let me know and I can share my estimates of how the probabilities work out.
NEW: ProPublica’s Jake Pearson lost $10,000 mimicking the betting patterns of a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company’s “responsible gaming” safeguards.
One week in, he was invited to become a VIP — and faced little pushback as he spiraled.
https://www.propublica.org/article/draftkings-sports-gambling-problem-vip-fanduel?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Sports #SportsBetting #Gambling #Draftkings #Baseball #Basketball #Tennis #Football