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The NHL embracing sports gambling was a major mistake

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I just wish North America wasn't so two faced about gambling.

We're force fed sports gambling which has unbeatable odds as well as online casinos (likely even worse odds somehow) yet the online gambling which requires skill (poker) is being slowly taken away if not outright banned already. To "protect" users.

That's what pisses me off. You can donk 10k on a 195-1 parlay with a click of a button. No questions asked.

Make it make sense.
 
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Svechhammer said:
It took a heavily coordinated advertising campaign to convince younger generations that tobacco use was dangerous and hazardous to your health combined with a lack of positive advertising from tobacco companies to get to this point. They didn't just miraculously start being healthier on their own.
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Agree to disagree. I think knowing what's in cigarettes and the harmful impact it has was key, but the actual process of people "convincing" eachother isn't something you can calculate. They did that themselves.
 
ZDH said:
I just wish North America wasn't so two faced about gambling.

We're force fed sports gambling which has unbeatable odds as well as online casinos (likely even worse odds somehow) yet the online gambling which requires skill (poker) is being slowly taken away if not outright banned already. To "protect" users.

That's what pisses me off. You can donk 10k on a 195-1 parlay with a click of a button. No questions asked.

Make it make sense.
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make it make sense?

Casinos don't want gambling to be a fair fight so they're lobbying to regulate and eliminate ways that skilled gamblers can have a leg up while greasing the wheels to make it easier to gamble on things where casinos have the scaled tipped in their favor.
 
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Dreakon13 said:
Agree to disagree. I think knowing what's in cigarettes and the harmful impact it has was key, but the actual process of people "convincing" eachother isn't something you can calculate. They did that themselves.
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Generally, convincing takes either rhetoric or evidence to be successful, so I'm not sure how you can discount the effect of education and marketing with regards to this.
 
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Dreakon13 said:
Agree to disagree. I think knowing what's in cigarettes and the harmful impact it has was key, but the actual process of people "convincing" eachother isn't something you can calculate. They did that themselves.
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Harm reduction ads sponsored by tobacco companies have been linked to higher self-reported numbers of teenage smokers, while giving the appearance to adults that those companies have become more socially responsible. That isn't to say that learning about the detrimental health effects of smoking didnt play a role in the decrease of smokers, but advertising those risks has been something tobacco companies have used to effectively get around tobacco ad bans.

The first published link between cigarettes and lung cancer was in 1950. In 1964, the US Surgeon General published a report outlining the link between cigarettes and lung cancer.

While there were moderate decreases in smokers in the decade before ad bans (lining up with those aforementioned published reports), there was a sharp increase in the years just before they took effect. The much larger decrease happened following advertisement bans beginning to be put into place.

Numbers tend to show that advertisement bans played a significant role in the decrease of smoking.
 
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🤷‍♂️I know we want to put numbers and stats on everything, but I just think this day and age it's more arbitrary and less predictable than that. Things are different than they were in the 90's and earlier. Kids aren't getting their ideas as much from the ads between hockey periods.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
Yes but that debt has been completely paid back, that's well documented too, so has zero relevance to this years cap.
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The CBA until expires says max 5% cap increase, ( they agreed to round up to nearest million), and 6% escrow.

Just read the MOU, you will get all the info needed.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
That 5% isn't set in stone.

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Yeah, which is why they went to $88M instead of $87.675M as 5% would dictate.

They still both agreed to stick to it because inflating the cap from $83.5M up to ~$100M in one year, as revenue dictates it should be, would be catastrophic.

It'd be a one-time spending spree for GMs to sign this summer's batch of UFA's to f***ing asinine contracts. Then next year's UFAs would want the same deals and they wouldn't be available because every GM didn't have ~$16.5M in cap fall into their lap.
 
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Dreakon13 said:
Is it a lot easier though? Basically anything you type into Google, you're two clicks from an article about some greedy, predatory company doing something toeing the line of illegal or immoral. Doesn't seem like it's working.
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Regulating advertisement is more difficult that having each and every parent moderate what their kid watches?

There hasn't been a cigarette ad on TV in the US in 50+ years...
 
ZDH said:
We're force fed sports gambling which has unbeatable odds as well as online casinos (likely even worse odds somehow) yet the online gambling which requires skill (poker) is being slowly taken away if not outright banned already. To "protect" users.
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I think it is one part that make sport gambling a pernicious entry to gambling.

It feels less like a pure game of chance than say the roulette and coin machines, making it feel less like gambling to some, even that once the line get good enough it become pure luck and gambling.

Svechhammer said:
Casinos don't want gambling to be a fair fight so they're lobbying to regulate and eliminate ways that skilled gamblers can have a leg up while greasing the wheels to make it easier to gamble on things where casinos have the scaled tipped in their favor.
Click to expand...
Usually poker (hold-em and other skill version) is not again the house too no ?, it is pure % going to the house with no risk for the work of the dealer and room. Having a dealer actually play poker without any possible rules to follow like blackjack or simple poker variant would be quite the mess. Casino are more like PokerStars and other poker platform in that regard.
 
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Silky Johnson said:
Wow, when did this site get populated by do many puritans?

Gambling, like all other vices are only a problem if you make them a problem and people who get in trouble with it will likely find another way to f*** up their lives.

I enjoy a bit of gambling much like I a good drink or the occasional evening joint. Just don't use any money you can't afford to use. I don't want the fun police trying to nerf the world.

Gambling adds seem to be a good source of revenue for the league and are helping keep the NHL the dominant hockey league in the world.

I am very aware that this will be an unpopular opinion but I don't really don't really care what the pearl-clutchers think. Frankly I am sick of people telling others what to do and hope for a culture of individual freedom and accountability.
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Yawn.
 
Dreakon13 said:
🤷‍♂️I know we want to put numbers and stats on everything, but I just think this day and age it's more arbitrary and less predictable than that. Things are different than they were in the 90's and earlier. Kids aren't getting their ideas as much from the ads between hockey periods.
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I put numbers to it because you were saying things you "think" to be true to which those numbers tend to add much needed context.

I mostly took issue with the idea that parents shouldn't need help in protecting or educating their kids. The old saying about it taking a village to raise a child should be held in higher regard as far as I'm concerned, and a large part of the reason parents simply don't have as much time to guide their children can be traced to the kind of greed that leads the NHL to sell itself out to gambling ads. However, that doesn't absolve parents of their duties as parents either. Kids will be exposed to all sorts of things that are bad for them, and parents should do what they can to guide them away from those things. I just happen to think a responsible business shouldn't be part of that exposure.
 
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FriendlyGhost92 said:
Regulating advertisement is more difficult that having each and every parent moderate what their kid watches?

There hasn't been a cigarette ad on TV in the US in 50+ years...
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On a personal level, yeah it (should be) easier to care for your own family than to care for all families.


JPT said:
I put numbers to it because you were saying things you "think" to be true to which those numbers tend to add much needed context.

I mostly took issue with the idea that parents shouldn't need help in protecting or educating their kids. The old saying about it taking a village to raise a child should be held in higher regard as far as I'm concerned, and a large part of the reason parents simply don't have as much time to guide their children can be traced to the kind of greed that leads the NHL to sell itself out to gambling ads. However, that doesn't absolve parents of their duties as parents either. Kids will be exposed to all sorts of things that are bad for them, and parents should do what they can to guide them away from those things. I just happen to think a responsible business shouldn't be part of that exposure.
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I said that educating about the harmfulness of smoking was key, though I disagree that people are smoking less now solely because of any particular marketing campaign. Not sure what else you want from me.
 
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Dreakon13 said:
On a personal level, yeah it (should be) easier to care for your own family than to care for all families.




I said that educating about the harmfulness of smoking was key, though I disagree that people are smoking less now solely because of any particular marketing campaign. Not sure what else you want from me.
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Agreed... But from an overall societal standpoint it's way more effective to ban certain advertisement than to say, "Be a good parent" and expect that every single one will.

Rabbit trailing onto your smoking conversation... I work bar security as a side job on the weekends and it blows my mind how many people my age (Early 30s) or younger will venture out multiple times a night, even in the cold, to light up.

I get people in their 50s and 60s getting hooked before they truly understood how shitty it is for you, but 20s and 30s is mind-numbingly stupid. We all knew when we were kids it was bad.
 
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FriendlyGhost92 said:
Agreed... But from an overall societal standpoint it's way more effective to ban certain advertisement than to say, "Be a good parent" and expect that every single one will.

Rabbit trailing onto your smoking conversation... I work bar security as a side job on the weekends and it blows my mind how many people my age (Early 30s) or younger will venture out multiple times a night, even in the cold, to light up.

I get people in their 50s and 60s getting hooked before they truly understood how shitty it is for you, but 20s and 30s is mind-numbingly stupid. We all knew when we were kids it was bad.
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I'll admit I'm not the most worldly guy, maybe smoking more prevalent than I realize. I know more people that don't smoke than do. I also know people on weird fad diets and making other health related decisions good or bad, that I assume wasn't because they saw it during a hockey game.

I think there was a massive drop off in smokers once word spread just how bad it is because it's not particularly obvious... like losing all your money in a night or killing someone drinking and driving. And since then it's just more the circles you run with than ads on TV. Probably like most things. Though I have no numbers to back it up, just my gut. Take it or leave it.
 
Dreakon13 said:
I'll admit I'm not the most worldly guy, maybe smoking more prevalent than I realize. I know more people that don't smoke than do. I also know people on weird fad diets and making other health related decisions good or bad, that I assume wasn't because they saw it during a hockey game.

I think there was a massive drop off in smokers once word spread just how bad it is because it's not particularly obvious... like losing all your money in a night or killing someone drinking and driving. And since then it's just more the circles you run with than ads on TV. Probably like most things. Though I have no numbers to back it up, just my gut. Take it or leave it.
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It's pretty obvious to me every time I hear a smoker talk or cough up a lung lol.
 
FriendlyGhost92 said:
It's pretty obvious to me every time I hear a smoker talk or cough up a lung lol.
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Lol, there's a disconnect though. That takes many, many years to have that kind of impact usually. I know people who have smoked their whole lives and talk fine and never cough. I know people who never smoke and cough all the time because they're so damn unhealthy in other ways.
 
Dreakon13 said:
Lol, there's a disconnect though. That takes many, many years to have that kind of impact usually. I know people who have smoked their whole lives and talk fine and never cough. I know people who never smoke and cough all the time because they're so damn unhealthy in other ways.
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OK dude. Smoking is great!
 
Dreakon13 said:
My point isn't smoking is great... :rolleyes: It's that educating was more necessary than other vices since the long term impacts are less obvious.
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The most recent bit of mass education I can remember on smoking was, "Switch to vaping kids, there's way less harmful effects!"

... That went well. :laugh:
 
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