this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2026
505 points (99.4% liked)

Today I Learned

31146 readers
411 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 53 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Okay, yeah sure. That looks bad. But how much did those Americans win back?

[–] radix@lemmy.world 54 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Handle is gross throughput, not consumer expenditure: over 90% of what is wagered gets returned to bettors in the form of winnings. That $1,000 in bets translates to roughly $100 in average losses per adult.

The market is big, but less than the more clickbaity headline would suggest.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

over 90% of what is wagered gets returned to bettors in the form of winnings

As someone who has gambled once or twice, this seems like a wild overestimate.

[–] TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 20 points 1 day ago

They didn’t say it returned to the same individual. Some people get the ocasional win and stop, others keep gambling the winnings until they lose it all.

[–] BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It depends on category of gambling.

For poker there's usually a standalone price going to the organiser, for betting it's often at 95% return rates.

Scratch cards tho, those fuckers goes low. Lotteries, 60% is not uncommon, but people like it at the very slight off chance they take the big price.

So it would require a pretty big breakdown of how many plays each category of gambling

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

Lotteries, 60% is not uncommon, but people like it at the very slight off chance they take the big price.

I think its more that you don't have the time or opportunity to play a hand of poker in the same way you have to buy a scratch ticket at a gas station.

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 day ago

I would guess the mean and the median are very different. How many people taking out a mortgage on their house does it take to counteract a hundred grannies playing the penny slots?

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm shocked that so little winds up with the house.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

House taking 10% sounds about right.

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

10% vig is actually rather large.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

You have to keep your clients thinking that they are almost there, maybe the next hand will be the one, that loss wasn't so bad... You don't gut the fish, you slowly raise the temperature.

[–] hash@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Really an idiotic comparison. If I start an account with a hundred and regularly bet low stakes, moving ny account up and down without any crazy losses, are they gonna say I placed thousands in bets when my account was always near $100?

[–] cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Well the IRS can say you won thousands for tax purposes so be careful. Gambling losses do not offset winnings.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wait what? As a non gambler I have questions. Do the wins and losses per customer get summed up at the end of the night and reported to the IRS by the casinos? Does one self-report? If so, again would it be your net over a certain period or each hand/roll/pull/spin?

[–] radix@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Losses were deductible until a few years ago. Now most people just pay on the winnings. Once the standard deduction was raised, that deduction went away. Losses maybe deductable if you itemize (?), but it's a pretty high bar.

Winnings over a certain amount are reported to the IRS. W-2 G

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

That's bonkers.