
The NBA Wants You to Bet on Games That Never Happened - danso
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-19/nba-s-newest-gambling-product-betting-on-games-that-don-t-exist
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coralreef
At first I thought it was stupid.

But then I realized there is a market for people playing games of random
chance, like slots. It can be an entertaining and addictive experience. The
last minute of a 1 possession game really is the most exciting moment in
basketball.

You drop the bettor into a situation (defined roster, game time, team
possession, fouls), show them betting odds and game/player statistics. Place
bets, and then run the simulation.

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i_am_nomad
It’s a clever way to maintain the integrity of the game while still making
money off gambling. Once you make gambling an official part of the sport, the
sport quickly becomes corrupt. But synthetic games like this aren’t actually
basketball.

Still, it’s evil, and separately, the NBA has shown interest in monetizing
actual sports betting.

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basicplus2
What great opportunity to rig the outcome depending on bets as they come in

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chowells
Sure, but why would they want to? Even the slightest hint of that would sink
the product and end a line of revenue. If it's successful enough to be worth
cheating, it's also successful enough to be worth not cheating and just taking
the fees.

Of course, the incentives would be different for individual employees, and
possibly sufficiently so that the product would forever be tainted with
cheating.

Unrelated to all those considerations, I think the whole thing is kind of
disgusting. It smells like a play to exploit compulsive gamblers by producing
an always-available product, even at hours (or months) when there is no game
going on. Who does this appeal to, other than compulsive gamblers? All the
other reasons I can think of to wager on a sporting event vanish when it's a
fake event dressing up a virtual coin flip.

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cylinder
Alternatively, I invite a few degenerates into my home and run simulation
games on NBA 2k19 and take bets.

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keiru
>splice random highlights from real NBA games and combine them

This is the future of sports, cattering to the internet age and going for the
short attention span markey. I'm not even complaining, I wouldn't sit through
a whole game either.

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Steko
2021: NBA shuts down fake game betting after being taken to the cleaners by
algorithms.

