Interesting, is sports betting plausibly as bad as tobacco/alcohol in low-income countries?
Like, I think sports betting is plausibly one of the “worst businesses” for the US, comparable to alcohol/tobacco—but my impression is that the EAs that care about tobacco/alcohol don’t care very much about interventions in high-income countries relative to low-income countries.
Gambling interventions could be cost-effective, in some situations. Especially for larger countries yet to liberalize gambling/betting (like Brazil, India)? Also, now might be a window to lobby for stricter regulations on prediction markets.
Random fun fact: Indonesia has banned gambling, but is the only country where tobacco advertising is still legal.
I don’t have any data to back this up but I wouldn’t be surprised if in Sub-Saharan Africa sports betting was worse than tobacco and on par with alcohol, it being incredibly widespread and normalized.
Interesting, is sports betting plausibly as bad as tobacco/alcohol in low-income countries?
Like, I think sports betting is plausibly one of the “worst businesses” for the US, comparable to alcohol/tobacco—but my impression is that the EAs that care about tobacco/alcohol don’t care very much about interventions in high-income countries relative to low-income countries.
BOTEC: 4.2 percent of suicides in the state of Victoria in Australia were gambling-related. 19.4 percent of suicides in Hong Kong were gambling-related. 720,000 suicides happen every year. Let’s say 10 percent of all suicides globally are related to gambling. That would be 72,000 gambling-related suicides.
Tobacco causes over 7 million deaths per year, while alcohol kills 2.6 million people per year.
Gambling interventions could be cost-effective, in some situations. Especially for larger countries yet to liberalize gambling/betting (like Brazil, India)? Also, now might be a window to lobby for stricter regulations on prediction markets.
Random fun fact: Indonesia has banned gambling, but is the only country where tobacco advertising is still legal.
Random tangent: tobacco advertising also legal in Andorra
I don’t have any data to back this up but I wouldn’t be surprised if in Sub-Saharan Africa sports betting was worse than tobacco and on par with alcohol, it being incredibly widespread and normalized.
It’s bad but I don’t think that bad. Tobacco and alcohol are far worse than most other realize.