Arguments Wiki sample page: Gambling

Spend on gambling

• Gambling is a quick way to earn money.
  • Counterargument: Gambling is a quicker way to lose money.
• Addiction rehab can cost thousands of dollars, and you get $0 in return; by contrast, one more bet can earn you thousands of dollars, and you only have to spend $1-10 per bet.
  • Fallacy: Planning fallacy; strawman argument. This is not an accurate representation of the costs and benefits of addiction and therapy. I'll explain more later
  • Counterargument: Although you'll get $0 in return, you'll potentially save thousands you would have otherwise spent on gambling. It's called investing, and it often ruins projects by making unconventional elements risky, but you should try it sometime.
  • Counterpoint: See: there are free therapy services.
• Losing many times in a row increases your chances of winning because of the unlikelihood of a long losing streak.
  • Fallacy: Gambler's fallacy. Long losing streaks are obviously unlikely, but the tree of outcomes is fractal. Your likelihood of winning any particular round, including one that follows many consecutive losses, is the same as if you'd just arrived at the gambling session in the first place.
    • Further point: You probably would not have chosen to start a gambling session if you were short on money in the first place. What makes this circumstance any different? Psychological inertia. You are having a mindless rush. LOOK, YOU HAVE A BIT OF MONEY THERE. PLEASE SNAP OUT OF YOUR TRANCE AND STOP GAMBLING AND DON'T LOSE IT NOW.
• Making a net profit gives you more money to spend on gambling for more money.
  • Fallacy: Survivorship bias; special pleading. You were lucky to win that money in the first place. You're just not considering that because you're trying to repress the prospect of loss from yourself so you can focus on the thrill of gambling through risk-taking and the notion of free money.
• 99% of gamblers quit before they win big.
  • This is like the most common argument I've seen in the comment section. You can imagine why I'd rather just make an accessible wiki for all this stuff than get forced to sift through lots and lots of comments and sources
  • Fallacy: Sunk cost fallacy.
  • Counterpoint: Winning big is ambiguous. Standards being proposed may be unreasonably high.
  • Counterpoint: Winning big is less likely than losing everything.
  • Counterpoint: Running out of money forces you to quit, since you can't continue gambling with no money. Since the convergent outcome of gambling is running out of money, the better circumstance to quit in is while you're AHEAD.
• You can only lose 100% of your money, but you can potentially win infinite money.
  • Counterargument: You can lose more than 100% of your money by going into debt.
  • Counterpoint: You can't win infinite money, because eventually the gambling services will not be able to supply any more money, and they also reserve the right to halt your transactions. Not to mention, the amount of resources there are is finite.
• If you lose all your money, you can borrow more money from other people to continue gambling.
  • Counterargument: Ponzi schemes are just as unsustainable as gambling with your own money, with far higher stakes and exponential prospect of total loss. They're also far more risky with accumulating criminal charges and legal consequences.
  • Counterpoint: If you lose their money, it is no longer borrowing; it is theft.
• If you don't keep gambling after you lose your money, you'll have lost it all for nothing.
  • Fallacy: Sunk cost fallacy. You won't have lost it all for nothing unless you gamble all of it away. Quit while there's still money left.

Counterarguments

• Inversion counterargument: Winning increases your chances of losing because of the unlikelihood of winning; by contrast, making a net deficit gives you less money to spend on gambling to lose more money.
• Counterargument: If you don't want to spend money on therapy, there are still many things you could spend your money on that have far more value than gambling.
  • Further point: If you have enough money to become a gambling addict, you should reconsider whether you even need to gamble in the first place.
• Counterargument: If you're gambling for the thrill, you should invest in something that will give you an identical or similar thrill without draining your money. For example, you could buy a kid's toy if you like the colours and sounds (thanks, Kjartan Poskitt), or play a free downloadable game if you like the sensation of having tense moments in winning and losing.

Spend on therapy

• Therapy gives you peace of mind and cycle conclusion. Gambling is indefinite; you can choose to stop once you win a certain amount of money, but you will most likely not be satisfied, and you can always place another bet. By contrast, therapy has a much greater prospect of allowing for conclusion and satisfaction.
• Counterargument: Uh I dunno, I'll just read this comment out to you^[1]
  • "Addiction rehab? Just talk to a random stranger online, sharing [intimate] things with each other while still keeping privacy, it's nice, which is why it is by far a hundred times better than all therapy sessions."
  • Yeah I think we'll have to make some pages discussing the merits of therapy
• Counterpoint: There are free therapy services.