Hey, everybody. Today we're debating whether or not gambling should be illegal and we are starting right now with David's opening statement. Thanks so much for being with us, David. The floor is all yours. Hey, everyone. First off, I want to thank James for giving me the platform and opportunity to discuss a topic that's near and dear to my heart. My name is David T. And secondly, to Matt, especially for taking the time to participate in much needed discourse on this topic, a quick bit about myself. I'm a gambling addict six months into recovery and my position on this topic is that on a state level gambling in person and online should be illegal. This would include horse racing, state lotteries, online and in person sports betting, slot machines, blackjack, and most if not all games against the house, quote unquote. Games such as fantasy football and poker, I would not include in this ban as it can be considered games of skill and not against the house. And there's precedent for that as DraftKings had daily fantasying before the widespread legalized sports betting in 2018. In order to better understand this topic and stance, I'd like to walk us through how we got to this point in 2022. I'll highlight the progression from legalized betting and state run lotteries for tax revenue purposes and cover where we see unregulated and regulated casinos, both online and in person using predatory tactics to attract and indoctrinate new adult and adolescent customers in the United States, UK and abroad. I'll also highlight the social, cultural and quality of life costs to the primary population that a gambling affects, which is in a sense a regressive tax on the poor and middle class problem gamblers. In response to economic downturn after the Great Depression in 1931, the state of Nevada legalized most forms of gambling. To make this point clear, gambling was first legalized as a tool of the government to increase state revenue leveraging, at least in 1931, economic hardship in the false hope of hitting it big to fat and state coffers. This trend would continue to today where states like Maryland and New York would go as far to additionally promise that large portions of gambling revenue would go directly toward education in their states. A 2017 article in Bloomberg highlights that through advertisements and political advocacy, the state of Maryland was promised hundreds of millions of dollars that from gambling revenue would be poured into education. However, despite $4.5 billion in overall profits from 2010 to 2017 and $1.7 billion earmarked for education, Baltimore schools were forced to lay off hundreds of school employees and teachers do a $130 million deficit. In 2020, Baltimore laid off another 450 temporary workers and halted hiring due to budgetary concerns. Can someone please explain to me where this money went? The same situation can be seen in New York. From January 1st to July 8th of this year, New York state garnered over $300 million in tax revenue from mobile sports betting alone. However, in the same month that Governor Kathy Huckle announced an initiative to divert the entirety of these funds to education, youth sports, and gambling addiction resources, hundreds of teachers are being cut from New York City schools because of a $200 million budget deficit as of July of this year. Can't make it up. In short, where's this revenue going? Conveniently, it's almost impossible to find public audits on appropriations of these funds as promised by elected officials. And education systems around the country are suffering as a result. The social and mental health costs of gambling and specifically problem gambling can be exorbitant. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, 60 to 80% of high schoolers, adolescents, have reported gambling in the last year in the United States. 4 to 6% of high scores are considered addicted to gambling. In the UK, one recent study estimated 55,000 problem gamblers between the ages of 11 to 16. Back to the United States, anywhere from 2 to 10 million Americans, depending on the study you're looking at, are considered high risk bettors or problem gamblers. Problem gambling has the highest suicide rate among those with addictive disorders with one in five attempting suicide. Approximately 220,000 residents of Ohio engage in at-risk gambling with 30,000 engaging in problem gambling behaviors. Casinos are shown to have negative effects on local communities. For example, when gambling was introduced and legalized in Atlantic City in 1977, unemployment was at 18.1%. Since then, as of 2022, unemployment is still at 18%, basically unchanged. The poverty line is at 30%, almost 20% over the national average and a 6% increase from 1977 from when they legalized gambling. And crime has almost doubled in the last 20 years and remains six times the average in the state of New Jersey as a whole. The impact of casinos on local property values is unambiguously negative, according to the National Association of Realtors. Casinos do not revive local economies, they act as parasites upon them. Communities located within 10 miles of a casino exhibit double the rate of problem gambling and unsurprisingly, such communities also suffer higher rates of home foreclosure and other forms of economic distress and domestic violence as well. In terms of now prevalent predatory advertising and gambling in the forms of loot boxes in gaming, CSGO and Diablo Immortal, for instance, I do want to touch on those topics tonight, but I will leave that to the conversation portion. That should be about five minutes a little over. Thanks, James and Matt. Appreciate it. You got to thank you very much for that opening statement. And folks, we're very excited. If you have not heard modern day debate con, part two is happening November 19th in Plano, Texas. You don't want to miss it as an example of some of the huge debates and dialogues that are going to be happening at the bottom right of your screen. You can see Kenny Bomer and Matt Dillahunty will be debating whether or not there is good evidence for Islam. It's going to be a huge one, folks. The link for that event in terms of tickets, if you want to see it in person, is down in the description box, as well as we have a crowd fund and you can see the meter on the far right of the screen. We've already raised 23% of our funds to help cover the venue costs. So that's encouraging, exciting. Want to let you know that link is in the description box as well for that Indiegogo campaign. And with that, we're going to kick it over to Matt. Thanks so much for being with us, Matt. The floor is all yours for your opening as well. Thanks, James. Thanks, David. I will start off by saying I feel like there's been a bit of a bait and switch here because I was told David wanted all gambling made illegal and I was going to ask what was included in all gambling. I was specifically told that he thinks all gambling, including online sports books, draft kings, lottery tickets, brick and mortar casinos and everything else, we shut down. So consider that if parts of my opening seemed tailored to the all gaming thing, which I found just patently absurd. I could talk about revenue from gambling, other 53 billion dollars in the US alone in 2021. Revenue just for the National Indian Gaming Commission, 39 billion dollars. The fact that there's 118,000 jobs in the gaming industry that would go away if you make gambling illegal. Vegas jobs from tourism related to gambling is about 382,000 revenue from tourism in towns that allow for gambling, 59.9 billion. Forty three point six of all private employment in Southern Nevada. Sixteen billion dollars in wages and salaries is related to the gaming industry. The potential tax booms from taxing casinos and lotteries for schools and infrastructure. Yes, you have to actually get the government to use those funds in the way that they promised, but that's not a problem with gambling. That's a problem with government. And so any argument along those lines is already null and void. Just take a look at Las Vegas before and after gambling existed. People thought, wow, it's absurd to build a vacation destination in the desert if there wasn't gambling there and nobody would be going to Las Vegas. It would still be a one horse town. I could go in all that, but we don't need to because this is about freedom. There are two models when we're trying to determine our freedoms. Number one is that you don't have any freedom to do anything except what we expressly limit at list, not limit, sorry, except for what we expressly list. That model fails at the start because how do you have the freedom to even make the list? You have to grant that freedom first. The other option is that you have all freedoms except for those that are prohibited. This is the model that works. This is the model that I advocate for. We should have all freedoms until such time as there's a compelling reason to make something illegal. And that's what my opponent needs to show tonight. What's the compelling reason to make all gambling illegal? After all, we already have regulations to ensure fair gaming at casinos. Those protections, by the way, don't exist in your home poker games and casual gambling at the pool hall. I don't know if he wants to outline those as well. And yet it's the casinos in the lotteries that are most often the focus, which is exactly what we're seeing here tonight. It is. Oh, the casinos are a problem. The casinos are predatory. This is where gambling is most regulated. This is where gambling is most safe.  You don't know that in a home game. You don't know that when betting on sports, basketball and all these other things. None of that exists. Our lotteries on his list. Lotteries seem to me to be a tax for tax for people who are bad at math. But when it gets up over four hundred million dollars, the expected return on investment for a dollar. I'll buy a ticket then. Why wouldn't you because the expected return on investment for a dollar at the over four hundred million thing outweighs the odds of losing? What about home poker games? What about poker games that venues around Texas where the house doesn't take a cut, but you still play? And it's skill based, but it's still luck and it's still gambling. I bet you 50 bucks. The chief wins chiefs win next weekend. What about loot boxes in games? What about the stock market? What about any sort of investment as they all come with risk? I would say the stock market is the most prevalent form of gambling that's out there in the world right now. Now, often we hear about gambling addiction, but one can become addicted to almost anything it seems. Or if not addicted, it certainly can represent a problem. I've heard about people playing video games so much that they lost their jobs, their homes and in at least one case, a child died because they couldn't stop playing their video games. Should we allow all video games? I agree that we as a cooperative society have some responsibility to help protect from protect to each of us from the worst aspects of ourselves. But someone can have a substance abuse problem for a legitimate medication. We have an epidemic of it. The solution isn't, in my opinion, to ban those medications. An adult US citizen of 18 years of age can be drafted and serve in the military. They can work hard for a living. They can make a paycheck, but you're going to tell them that because someone else has a problem or has been irresponsible, that they can't gamble with the money they earned. We tried banning alcohol and we didn't even try to pretend that it was done merely to help alcoholics. It failed. Attempting to ban all gambling would kill countless economies, deprive people of jobs, make ghost towns out of tourist destinations, eliminate lotteries, raffle stock markets, investment, all of which, if done right and push back against the government, all you want can be the sort of tax subsidy for the people who don't like to pay taxes. But boy, they'll pay for that tax on people who are bad at math, which is I'm going to do a lottery or gamble. Now, not to mention the fact that you cannot stop gambling. Whether gambling is legal or not, it's going to happen. I bet everything I own on this fact. What we need are regulations, which we have. What we need is to funnel revenue from gambling into useful endeavors like schools and infrastructure, and a portion of that should go to assist those who have a problem with gambling. But we've already seen what happens when moralistic know-it-alls try to adopt a one size fits all, or in this case, one size fits none solution. People are going to gamble. There's nothing inherently wrong about gambling. And even if there were, we don't legislate based on simple views about morality. In order for there to be a compelling reason to ban all gambling, you would need to show that the costs associated with gambling outweigh the benefits in all cases, billions of dollars in revenue, hundreds of thousands of jobs, untold revenue for airlines and other travel related businesses, individual freedoms at the core. What outweighs that? You don't have to gamble. You do not have to invest in the stock market. You don't have to buy a lottery ticket. You don't have to jump into a poker game or a pool game for money. You don't have to bet on sports and any attempt to ban everyone else from doing a voluntary personal activity represents a betrayal of our individual freedoms and a gross misunderstanding of who we are as human beings. There are good points to be made about regulation, about protecting and restricting gambling. But my opponent supposedly wants to ban all gambling. I don't normally view debates as win, lose events. They're about education. But I'm going to bet every dollar in my wallet right now that I could stop talking right now and he still couldn't win this debate. It's about who we are as human beings to suggest that a voluntary personal activity that people willingly engage in should be banned because other people are unable through no fault of their own. Pointing out blame but are unable to stop themselves from engaging in an activity is absolutely antithetical to everything that the United States is supposed to be about with regard to freedoms. I realize now that he's done his opening remarks that perhaps he's not going to ban the poker game down the street or the person who's betting on pool. But I'll wait until we're having the back and forth for him to explain why he's not interested in banning someone betting me on a pool game as opposed to elsewhere. I get that it's skill, but it's still gambling and the people who have a problem gambling, if they can't gamble on one thing, they're going to gamble on something else. Thanks. Thanks very much for that opening as well. And we're going to go into the open dialogue. Folks want to let you know we're going to have roughly about an hour and 50 minutes total probably for this debate. What that means is if you have any questions, fire them into the old live chat quickly, as we're going to wrap up somewhat quickly. Want to let you know you can submit your question two ways. One, if you tag me with at modern day debate, as well as two, if you use a super chat, we read those off first as they go to the top of the list. And I want to let you know, as mentioned, we have amazing debates coming up. These are going to be gigantic. This coming debate con November 19th in Plano, Texas, as an example, are in raw and Daniel Hikikachu are going to be debating. It is going to be amazing. Want to tell you folks, if you haven't yet, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss it. And with that, we're going to jump into open dialogue. Thanks very much. Matt and David, the floor is all yours. Sure, yeah, I'll jump in, Matt, great remarks. And again, appreciate you taking the time to go over this topic. I guess I'd have a question for you just off the bat. What would your explanation be to why like hard drugs like cocaine, heroin and prostitution are illegal in the United States? I think the first question you need to ask is, do I think those things should be illegal? And the answer is no. OK, so as a society, I think it's important to evaluate where the social and the financial costs for individual people, as far as unlimited freedoms can be unlimited self-destruction. And we have a social contract where generally, generally how we operate with each other is we want to create a society that's more beneficial for individuals just in general. So when I look at gambling right now, gambling right now, I think it's $52 billion in total profits, which is an all time high since the incorporation of gambling in 1931. The reason that we have prostitution and cocaine being illegal and the reason why alcohol was illegal is because right now we have 88000 alcohol related deaths in the United States every year. And the predatory advertising with gambling. You look right now at the halftime of the NBA finals last year. You had Mike Green and Mark Jackson calling the game. And they're talking about point spreads at halftime. ESPN two has daily spreads embedding. This is targeted advertising toward adolescents. And I think as a society and as a country, we need to decide collectively. I know, I guess I don't want to misrepresent your stances at all. But it sounds like you're for basically unlimited individual freedoms. If you're saying that. Nope, not even in the ballpark. Didn't say that, didn't suggest that. And to come back with something saying unlimited freedoms leads to this means you just built a straw man and completely. You didn't even ask what my position was. You asked the wrong question right off the bat. I'm not for unlimited freedoms. But when you talk about. Well, I did ask, can you say that you were in favor? No, you asked about something specific. You asked about something specific and whether and what I thought. The reason was why they were illegal. And I suggested that you should ask me whether or not I thought they should be illegal. My answer to that is nothing to do with unlimited freedoms. As a matter of fact, I specifically in my opening remarks talked about whether or not we start with unlimited freedoms and then limit them for good reasons. Or whether we start with no freedoms and only chronicle what we should have. And I advocated for the one where you start with unlimited freedoms and then you you limit them based on good reasons. At no point in my entire life have I ever advocated for unlimited freedoms. When you say something like, oh, let me toss out a stat where it's fifty two billion dollars in profits from gambling. And that's the highest of all time since gambling has been implemented. So what? There's more people than ever. And by the way, how is more profits a bad thing? And by the way, how is that targeted advertisement towards adolescence, as you assert, when adolescents can't gamble? Well, adolescents can gamble. Not all gambling is regulated, and they absolutely can gamble, especially online. They can't gamble. They can't gamble when we in a casino or any of the places where you want to stop them from. They have to be 18 years old. That's not true. No, it's not true. So so I can pack up my 15 year old nephew and he can go into a casino and make bets. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you are an adolescent, you can sports bet in there are forms of online gambling that you can access, regardless of age, without having to provide any identification. There are multiple websites that are about regulation. That's about regulation, right? And we're not regulating gambling right now. OK, if you would have said, I'd like to do a debate about whether or not we should have better regulations for gambling. I wouldn't even have taken it. I only agreed to this because I was told that you were opposed to all gambling. So your objections about a teenager might be able to go. Do I think a 14 year old should be able to go make a sports book online? No. Next question. Right. So the crux of my point is that gambling where we're at right now, as far as where it's been and where we're going. And with the advent of technology and you have more people that are that are becoming problem gamblers, gambling was not in this stage at least five, 10 years ago. Right now, it's easier access and it's easier to deposit hundred money with no limit than ever before. There aren't any studies out there, at least any good studies that are really accurately able to to to go into the negative effect of how this is going to look at least on. So if there aren't any studies to go into the negative effect, how can you claim there's a negative effect? Because right now it's estimated one to 2.9 percent of Americans, two to 10 million Americans are problem gamblers. And that was before 2018. But you just said there's no studies to show whether or not there's a problem. And yet you're trying to say there's a problem. If there's no studies, go do the studies. No, that's not what I said. I said it is what you said to articulate gambling is now since 2018, since technology has progressed to a point where you can gamble from your couch before you can get, you know, you can go to a Native American reservation where there are a lot of casinos. You can go to Las Vegas. You can go to Atlantic City. There are physical barriers in place. There are technological barriers in place to gamble. And right now, when you the the accessibility of gambling and the predatory advertising that's associated with it, it's unleashed a floodgate that I think is going to have drastic social cost on the country. And in my stance, and I don't understand why you said bait and switch. I do think gambling should be completely banned. Now, OK, so that's that's so. So yeah, and I didn't mean any. Should gambling on gambling on a pool game should be banned? No, no, not that's then you just said you do think all gambling should be banned. But you don't think gambling on a pool game should be banned. But you think gambling that is already regulated should be banned. And your objection is that some people find a way around those regulations. Well, finding a way around the regulations is a problem with regulations and enforcement. It's not a problem with gambling.  Well, some kid will steal their parents' credit card, which I saw in chat. Well, someone stealing their parents' credit card means they're violating the law. So I understand what is the justification? What is the justification to denying a voluntary activity to everyone? Because what? Because if you're just going to say that we should deny it to everyone because some people aren't going to follow the rules, you're there's no way that's convincing. I'd say it's the same logic that you would have other practices. Like I mentioned before, the other things I don't think should be like hard drugs and prostitution are illegal. There's a prostitution shouldn't be illegal. OK, well, I'm just saying it is illegal. So we'll just go based on what the law is right now. Yeah, so this isn't a debate about what the law is. It's about what the debate about what the law should be. If you want to if you want to talk about what the law is, the law is gambling's legal. And now we're done. Right. And the game in the law was pre-2018 that you had to go to an in-person casino to bet at least for sports. And right now you have advertisements on networks with no age limit, especially to adolescents and to adults that are that are promoting gambling. They're using celebrities and especially, you know, I'll just make a reference at least to what's going on on Twitch right now. You have you have Aiden Ross and I think another Twitch, a big Twitch streamer, his name is trainrackTV. Those guys are taking money from a website called stake.com based out of Curacao where the gambling license is a joke. It's a one billion dollar company. You don't need to be 18 years old to have a Twitch account. You have adolescents that are watching their streams, thousands of people, and they upload clips of them winning up to 14, 15 millions of dollars. And then you have them behind the scenes. They're making a million dollars a month. And what they're doing is they're selling. They're selling a false pretense of what gambling is. They're selling a false pretense of winning. And the regulations pre-2018, I'd say even pre-1977 was a was a good point. You know, I'm obviously advocating for the elimination of all gambling, but all vices will find their way. There was a time when there was Atlantic City in Las Vegas. And there's a reason that problem gambling wasn't as prevalent of an issue then, at least compared to now, because you had to go in person to one of these two locations and technology wasn't available to at least manipulate people's minds. And that's what's going on right now. OK, so it seems like the topic of this should a debate should have been since 2018, we're allowing more gambling with less regulation. And that's bad. That that seems to be what the topic of this debate is. But that's not what I was told the topic of this debate is.  It is. Are you are you OK with the direction that we're going in with gambling right now? That's not the subject of the debate. I don't know enough about the direction we're going in. I don't have a problem. I gambled when I want to. And I don't when I don't and I don't have a problem. But I've advocated for taking some of the money from those things, not only to put in for infrastructure, but also to help people with gambling problems. But are you suggesting that doesn't happen? That does not. I don't care if it happens. I'm saying I'm advocating that it should happen. Right. But in reality, it doesn't. And that's why, at least in that's not a reason to outlaw gambling. That's a reason to do what you say you're going to do. I remember when I was in Missouri and they decided that they wanted to open up Riverboat Gambling and they promised everybody that the money raised from this or the money or revenue from this would be a essentially a side tax that would go towards schools. And then they didn't actually give the money to schools the way they did. They found some way to get around it. That's a problem with government lying. That's a problem with what's going on. But it's not a problem with gambling at all. And to suggest that we should ban gambling because somebody that's like, you know, OK, we should ban shovels because some people might cut their toes off. Right. But you're making the point that we need. It's a that you're the safest in regulated casinos. You said that earlier. You are.  That's what they do. And that's why they make so much money. And that's why local communities out around casinos get killed. In Atlantic City, the majority of the people who work in casinos live 10 miles outside of the city. They don't even live in the localities because crime is increased by six percent since 1977 and all of the billions of dollars that were promised in Atlantic City to restructure and redevelop. The localities didn't happen. So none of these none of these are problems with gambling. Not one of these things you've not one of these things you listed is a problem with gambling. If gambling was illegal, then you wouldn't have these social side effects. Hey, if breathing was illegal, we wouldn't have these social side effects. What is a social side effect of breathing? I don't understand that social side effect of breathing is that people continue to live and cause social problems. If they stop breathing, there'll be no more social problems. I mean, there's a lot of people that have social have social benefits. I don't get that point. There's a lot of people who benefit from gambling, including all the people who work in that industry and the people who win. The people who benefit from gambling are the companies and the executives and the politicians. That's not true. I made my living gambling for over a year. And if you gambled long term, and if that was your only point of income, you would lose all of it. No, I wouldn't actually, because I was playing poker against people who were not as good as me. Ninety nine point seven percent of gamblers of any discipline lose their money in the long term after two to five years. So congratulations. Is it my money to lose? And couldn't I have also lost it in a stock market? Right. And that's actually a good point. You know, I think stock market is obviously predatory, too. I mean, you have politicians on both sides of the aisle, especially when you see how they do against the SPY. They're making bank on insider trading. So, you know, if you were now. Yeah. And there's a Securities and Exchange Commission that is set there to investigate and prosecute it because it's illegal. But that doesn't mean trading stocks should be illegal. You go after the problem. You seem to be in this position. And I'm very sorry that I'm glad that you're recovering, but I'm sorry that you have an issue, but you seem to have taken this personal issue. You seem to have taken this personal issue and decided that everybody else needs to suffer because you have an issue. I'm not. Well, I think. Well, I think the context is important. Again, where we're at right now. So let me go to the loot boxes and let me go to CS go and Diablo Immortal. So gambling has its forms like in casino gambling. And then you have gambling like mobile sports betting. But Diablo Immortal made in August, ninety seven million dollars, a free to play game on on a cell phone. Where I think you don't even think it has an age limit, maybe 13. Why are they making that much money? Is it adults playing that game? Diablo Immortal on a cell phone? No, it's adolescents playing that game, like that are using their mom's car. But how do they get kids specifically to to buy so much in game content? Because it's loot boxes. It's if you put 40 bucks in, you may get a certain amount of like plays and then you run through and then you may get equipment. That's great. And it doesn't even explain the odds of getting the equipment. It doesn't explain at least the progression. There was an independent reviewer that looked through Diablo Immortal. If you were to just pay to win to have a max character, max equipment, max everything, it's two hundred and fifty five thousand dollars. But that's not advertised. You get your fifty dollar loot and yet the information and yet the information is out there. And I came out and spoke out against that game. I won't play that game. That has nothing to do with whether or not gambling should be illegal. But I'm saying that's where we're going with gambling, where companies are that's an unregulated practice directed at adolescents. And that's you know, that's where I'm afraid we're going to go in the future, especially where we're at. Well, we're not because because you're going after casinos where you have to be of age to walk in and where the odds are known and where there's a gambling commission that regulates it. None of these none of these things exist for your Diablo example.  Do you believe most people when they walk up to a slot machine know the odds of winning? I believe everybody who walks up to a slot machine can know the odds of winning and that they should and that they should know the odds of winning. It's not my fault or the casino's fault that people do not avail themselves of the information available before making a bet. I think it's just it's a commentary of, you know, people people are responsible for their own decisions. And I appreciate what you said earlier. That was very nice, you know, about saying about I'm recovery, but I'm not going to use that against you at all in this debate. That's that's a lowball tactic. Well, how could you use it against me? Well, I'm saying I'm not going to use like a guilt trick or guilt trip or like what's the term like I don't understand how you could make how you could do any sort of guilt trip. Well, no, I just mean it's like I'm not going to use personal experience as a way to your personal experience isn't relevant. We're talking about whether gambling for everyone. Right now, I was just I was just reiterating that just for the purposes of the debate. But like I said, you're saying that people can know the odds, but they still go and gamble on a slot machine. Yes. Because they're not bright enough or they don't care enough or because I don't I would argue it's not intelligence. No, so bright bright is a colloquialism. It's not about IQ. It's about smarts. And I was saying that if someone wants to be smart at gambling, they can avail themselves of all the information to find all the information. When I step up to the craps table to throw dice, I know what the odds are and I know how to play and I know how to play at the smartest. When I'm when I'm playing poker, I know what the odds are and I know how to do those things if someone and by the way, the odds for slot machines are also regulated and posted. And I think in most cases, they're posted right on the damn machine.  Well, who's suffering when you say people who don't get to play when you when you ban it? Who who wins in gambling? Like who like who's winning?  I would say you engage in any game in a casino. You'll walk away a winner 30 percent of the time. And like I said, ninety nine point seven percent of gamblers. And that's including sports betting because sports betting is a little bit more profitable as far as in the long term. Everybody loses going into a casino. And I think the point is, is where do we want to be as a society? Where are we going in these companies? Like I said, advertising and it's just like advertising with smoking. It's why you barely see any advertising for smoking anymore. Where do we want to be culturally? Culturally, we've pushed back on gambling doesn't cause cancer. Right. But it does have the highest suicide rate of addictive disorders of any addictive disorder, one out of five. It's a it's a massive social cost issue. Now, again, this is an under the table issue because a lot of one out of one out of five gamblers killed themselves. Is what you're saying? Tempt suicide. Attempts one out of every five people who gamble. Problem. Attempt. Problem. Oh, so now we've taken it from the pool. See, this is the dishonest part here. Here's the. I would not be dishonest. No, this is dishonest. This is dishonest. And I'm explaining why. Here's the pool of all the people who gamble.  But you just want to toss out is one point five or one out of five. I'm not being dishonest at all. I mean, when you I will clarify what I said and I agree with what you're saying is that of problem gamblers, which is ranges from two to ten million, as we know, because like I said, the, you know, the boom in the way that individuals have been betting the last four years, it's impossible to quantify how the numbers have increased and they have increased, they haven't decreased. They've increased. Well, if you can't quantify how they've increased, how do you know they've increased? So would you make the argument that record revenues and adding mobile sports betting in 28 states that there are less people gambling that I don't understand that point? The number of people gambling doesn't mean that there's that there's that there's more of a problem. Yes. No, it doesn't. The national OK, so the National Association of Problem Gambling received two hundred and fifty five thousand calls, at least up to this year, which is four times what they received last year. OK, and text, text, chats and phones. That's that's how many people that they have a problem gamblers. Every one of your statistics, you are cherry picking and moving in a direction that is not accurate. So the fact that the number of calls go up, the fact that the fact that the number of calls increased is no more relevant than the fact that we reach fifty two billion dollars in profits more than ever. There are more people than ever. The number of calls isn't relevant. It's about the percentages of those calls to show whether or not a problem is actually increasing. And even if there are and there are countless people who I acknowledge have problems gambling, my question is why should everyone else not be permitted to engage in a voluntary activity that they can do as responsible adults with their own money just because other people can't? For the same reason that we have hard drugs and prostitution illegal and we had betting legal pre-1931, it's the same social cost. And like I don't agree with your point where you're saying if the four times the amount of people and what they did is they took this from from the national gamblers anonymous line in state gambling lines like Virginia, four times the amount of people are calling in because they're either having high anxiety, depression, they're exhibiting signs of problem gambling and resources are underfunded as it is because I think we talked about this earlier. The promises that were made in states where tax revenue would go, it did not go there and it's not going to go there. So regulation is into gambling problem. That's a problem with the people who made promises and didn't keep them. But it has to be a factor when we're deciding. No, it doesn't. It shouldn't be a factor at all because it's not relevant to gambling. So you're saying the voters of New York when they made the decision to vote for gambling and part of those pretenses was that 30 the entirety of the tax revenue was going to go into education, youth sports and resources for problem gamblers. The fact that that money is not going to education. You have no problem with that. No, I didn't say that. And I'm really, really tired of this characterization of what I'm saying. The fact is those people were lied to. They or or maybe the lie wasn't intentional, but the government didn't do what they said they were going to do. And those people have a cause of action against the government. But this has nothing to do with whether or not gambling should be illegal because it wasn't gambling that was the problem. It was politicians lying that was the problem.  There's no problem with gambling. If they had done what they said they would do, if they had taken that revenue and applied it the way they should have, you wouldn't have this point at all. It's not a problem. I'm saying it's a problem with the government. It's a problem with government. It's a problem with gambling operators. It's a problem with media networks that advertise gambling to adolescents without regulation. And these are all of the social factors that you have to consider and were considered erroneously, especially in 2018, when gambling was legalized, at least for sports betting on mobile apps. And like I said, you have you have individuals on Twitch that are doing 18 hour gambling streams that are taking millions of dollars from a casino in Curacao. And their audience is a mix of adolescents and adults to to not have a concern for the social impact. I didn't say that. But I'm saying that that's why. No, no, no, I am. I'm really, really tired of you playing up. Matt doesn't care about the social. I do. Now, I'm saying is for the social. I'm not saying you don't know what you're doing is you are engaged in a whole bunch of propaganda that is not a logical argument. There's a fallacy at every single point. It isn't gambling that's causing this TikTok problem. OK, what statistic did I give that was propaganda? Like you're citing you're citing that there are people on TikTok who are taking millions from a casino, which are Twitch, whatever, millions from a casino and doing 18 hour streams. OK, what have they done that's illegal? What have they done that's harmful? And how would we go about addressing it? Because it's not the gambling that did any harm here. I mean, I think it's clear. I mean, I don't even think I needed to to go into the details of why that's a negative impact. I mean, because then it's just like, all right, let's just have a history ever. Please get, please explain to me how gambling is a problem. I don't think I need to go into that. And yet it is your entire case. Well, no, I am going into it. I'm saying that if I need to articulate why an individual doing gambling streams to adolescents is a bad thing. I just I don't understand like where are we? It's really easy. Where are we culturally? Have I ever socially? Have I ever suggested that an individual should be allowed to do gambling streams to adolescents? Have I ever suggested that? But it is legal right now. And it's a direct then make that illegal. But that is not the same as making all gambling illegal or casino gambling legal. I am in favor of legal gambling with regulations. If you want to point to how somebody's skirting regulations and they're taking advantage of kids, we're in agreement. But stop pretending like that's enough of a reason to cut all the rest of us out. There's no reason that everybody else should give up their right to act like a responsible adult just because somebody else isn't. The regulations that you're talking about not only don't work, but they do target adolescents. They do. Like that's not a debate, because like I said, they advertise draft kings, they advertise Vanduul, they have our shows on ESPN. Those are shows without an age limit. So if they're going to advertise, it's just like smoking and just like how culturally we push back on it and we don't see advertising. It's not just basically don't see advertising for smoking anymore. What's happening with gambling is that advertising is happening on major networks. It's happening on social media sites. It's happening on social platforms like not YouTube yet, but Twitch. It's targeting young individuals. It's skirting regulations and regulations will not work in this case. What did work is when gambling was not legal. Well, you're saying regulations won't work in this case, but what you're saying is we should make it illegal, which is a regulation. Legal regulations is a term where something is legal and it's the government's job in position to make sure that it's done on a playing field where it doesn't impact the social cost of society. And they do that with alcohol to an extent right now.  You have to go in person to a store that has a license. And that that's that's how you regulate alcohol, right? No, you don't.  You can go over like when I was 15, I could go over to my buddy's house and drink alcohol that his parents had. Right. But I'm saying they're physical. Should we make alcohol illegal? I'd be a proponent of it. Yeah. Yeah. See, here we've already tried that.  It worked. No, it didn't work. If anybody who thinks that prohibition work has not bothered to study history at all, what it did was it increased it increased crime and illegal drinking and dangerous alcohol that was made in bathtubs. It didn't work. Actually, if you look at it, if you look at basically any study that looks at prohibition era anywhere from 20 to 60 percent of alcohol consumption, it was decreased by that percentage and domestic abuse. I don't think you understand the statistics because, of course, alcohol consumption decreased when you make it illegal. But right problem, alcohol consumption didn't decrease and deaths from alcohol, deaths from alcohol consumption didn't decrease. Yes, they did.  I'm sorry, but per capita, you're just wrong as far as I know. Making alcohol illegal. Now, again, there's a lot of reasons why, you know, you can make alcohol legal. You know, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying to make the argument, though, that problem drinking, alcohol consumption and crime increased after prohibiting alcohol. I don't know. I didn't see anything like that. Look, I just it's like it's like you don't hear what I'm saying. Well, alcohol consumption and problem drinking did decrease during prohibition. That's not debatable. Now, at the rate, how much did it decrease? That's conflicting. It's anywhere from 20 to 60 percent, depending on who you look at, depending on what study you read. However, you know, I mean, prohibition does work. Again, regulation doesn't work, you know, as far as legalizing as we'll go back to gambling, regular regulating gambling. It's not working. The promises that were made is, oh, if you legalize gambling in New York, we're going to take hundreds of millions of dollars and put into schools. Not happening. So it's just it's a net negative. It's a net social cost negative. And I think as a society and culturally, we should just at least have a conversation just like we are today, which is why I'm so thankful you came on the show today. It's great to have this conversation. It's very important that at least the other side gets spoken about here because you don't see enough of it, at least in the mainstream. And right now we've opened the floodgates to adolescents and adults and the regulations don't work. The money that they promised was going to go into education isn't working. And I'm afraid of where we're going to go as a society, especially with gambling, being so easily accessible with 60 to 80 percent of high schoolers have that already in the last year. That's just scary to me. OK, cool. One question just to be sure that I understand your position, David, because to be fair, I was under the impression before the debate started that you were against any type of gambling. So are there any other exceptions? Because you brought up during the debate, you said you'd you'd qualify and you'd define a subcomponent of gambling as skill based gambling, namely, like I think you said poker. Are there any other types, though, that you would say would be an exception as well, where you'd say, oh, well, actually, that as well, I would be OK with this gambling. So the reason, and again, I, you know, I don't appreciate being labeled dishonest or propagandist.  And I apologize if that wasn't being clear before. But, you know, the reason why I mentioned poker and fantasy football is because it is games which would be considered skill against other players where you're not playing against the house.  I'd say all because I think the net negative impact on society. There's no positive. There's no positive benefits to localities, no positive benefits to the individual. There's no positive benefits to families. And I understand that people have individual freedoms, but there's a reason why vices like prostitution and cocaine and heroin are illegal.  I get that. But I think as a functioning Western society, as a functioning country, we should we should be we should be cognizant of other people's choices. We should be sympathetic to other people's choices. And we should also see the predatory advertisement and the predatory nature of gambling as it exists today. I have no problem at all identifying when there's predatory actions and making regulations against them. That is not and never will be and never has been an argument against all gambling. If if you want to say, hey, let's get rid of Diablo's immortal. Let's get rid of loot boxes. Let's get rid of things that are preying on kids. You might be able to convince me and probably pretty easily because I'm already opposed to those things. But when you want to take away all of everyone's access to gamble, because somebody else is irresponsible or somebody else won't follow the regulations or some government agency didn't do what they said they were going to do, you are not going to win that way. That again, I just go back to why we have a fallacious, slippery slope. And every time I what's wrong with gambling? Well, some people don't do well at it. Some people have problems with it. Yeah, but what's wrong with everyone doesn't do well at it. No, that's not true. But the issue here is what's wrong with gambling? And all you can point to is that some people have a problem with it and some people are exploiting it. That's not a problem with gambling. That's a problem with some people. I mean, the right again, regulations don't work. They haven't worked in the slippery slope that you just that you just referred to is what is happening right now with the legalization of gambling. Again, this argument 10 years ago is a lot more difficult for me to make because technology wasn't at a point where you can bet from your couch. Technology wasn't at a point where I could load up $500 in Bitcoin, go to a website, a casino website that's regulated in a country like Curacao. We have no ability to track if that if the odds are even remotely possible for me to win and I can blow 500 bucks. Nobody sees anything. The only thing I agree that shouldn't be permitted, but that's not a reason to all gambling. I mean, I would say it is. You know, you keep pointing to narrow instances and trying to take the specifics and apply it to the general. And that is just fallacious start to finish. Well, the general is that two to 10 million Americans pre-2018 are problem gamblers and those. Oh, that's the specific. The general is that people gamble. The general is that some people get enjoyment from gambling and they do so without a problem. Yes, they do.  Correct. Well, I think society and I don't I think society and I don't. I think the people who want other people to lose their freedoms because they have a problem should mind their own business. My business is the welfare of the people in my community. It's correct for me. I'm am I part of your community? Yes. Why don't you care about me? Why don't you care about me getting enjoyment from doing something that I love that I don't have a problem with? Because I don't see how it because I don't think it impacts you positively. I don't you're wrong. I'm telling you it impacts me positively, not just even when I win money. I enjoy it. And so you don't care about my enjoyment because you have an issue. I don't care about your enjoyment because I care more about the lives of the people that are negatively impacted by this predatory legalization of gambling. Out of all the people who participate in gambling, what percentage have a problem? Anywhere from one to two point nine percent. One to two point nine percent. So ninety eight percent, you don't care about their enjoyment as much as you care about the problem of the one to two percent. I don't know. OK. I don't I'm the exact opposite. You're asking me. Do I care about the exact opposite? And well, cool. Well, I will I'll use conjecture because you use conjecture. What do I care about your individual enjoyment?  They've lost their families.  It's an addiction, like I said, it's unlike any other in a lot of ways where you can completely wipe out your bank account. And right now what we're doing culturally and as a country is we're saying what we want to do is we want to make this easier to access. We want to make it so the what regulations we have don't work.  And for me, like I said, you know, problem gambling right now is one to two point nine percent pre-2018. Like the floodgates have opened and it's going to get worse. And the purposes of, you know, me being here in my debate here is just to really highlight this issue that doesn't get talked about enough.  I think that if you just have to weigh someone's individual enjoyment and civil liberties to an extent, just like we illegally make heroin and prostitution illegal, you have to weigh culturally, societally. Where do we want to be? And for me, I think that we've gone down a road that we didn't think we didn't think about enough and we did not fund and we did not fund the ramifications enough to deal with what's going to happen. And like I said, National Associates in a Problem Gambling reported four times as many calls this year as last year. It's probably going to be four times more next year. And the only people that win are the people that own these casinos and companies. You want to bet that it'll be four times more next year? I'll bet with you, but not against the house. Yeah, this thing is, oh, it was four times more. Doesn't mean that it's going to be four times more next year. What you're doing is extrapolate from small data. But even if it did now, instead of not small data, now it is small data that's collected from every state in the United States over a short period of time. Yeah, over a year, last year and this year. I mean, but what but where else are we going to go? It's not surprising when you're willing to make a decision. It's not surprising when you're willing to tell 97 to 99 percent of people that they can't do something because one to three percent have a problem. For now, yes, it wasn't my point. Congratulations. I don't make legislation based on your speculation. Well, legislation was made. False promises were made. And you keep citing things I already agreed as a problem. But that has to be that's not gambling discussion. But if somebody if somebody says we're going to allow this and use the money for X and they don't use the money for X, that's not a problem with what they allowed. It's a problem with them. Not doing what they said they'd do. I'm not OK with, you know, politicians and governments and casino operators and lobbyists for states in the federal government manipulating and using their status and money to be and take them to court and make new legislations and oppose what they're doing. But that's not a justification to ban all gambling. Yeah, I mean, organizations did oppose it. But the problem was, is that at least in New York specifically, the the the main factor in a five to four vote was that that revenue was supposed to go to education and a lot of people, especially with. I'm saying that's why a lot of people voted in New York. I don't live in New York. But yeah, that's the past. Perhaps why I don't know why this is so difficult, David. Yes, I have already acknowledged a lot of people were convinced to vote a certain way and then the government didn't fall through. Follow through with it. That's not a problem with gambling. I think it is a problem with gambling. You're wrong. No, no, no. If you draw up a syllogism and do X leads to Y, you don't get gambling causes this. What you got was government officials not doing what they said they do. And I think people have a legal cause of action. When I and when I say work against it and do read like reges. Regulations, you're like, well, they did vote against it. OK, I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about whether or not we ban something because somebody lied to you about something.  It's OK if we just legalize it everywhere. Well, I'm done, David. I'm done, David. I'm done because I'm sitting here saying it was bad for them to lie. And the first words out of your mouth is it sounds like you're saying it's OK for them to lie. That's not even in the parking lot park of what I say. Finally, if you can't if I can't sit here, if I can't sit here and say this was wrong and have you say and not have you turn around and pretend that I said it was all right. How are we going to have a conversation at all? But if X is wrong and Y is no response, Z is I have a problem with that. And right now, having no response to where we're going with gambling, like I said, and you were saying, where does gambling lead to? Gambling leads you losing money. Gambling leads to local. No, it doesn't. It leads to me having a good time. At least to me having a good time. You know what? And for me, that would not be my priority. But the cool stay away from gambling and stop telling the rest of us what to do.  You know, and I hope people listen to this debate. I want to be somewhere where there's freedom and jobs and the things that people enjoy aren't taken away because other people want to prioritize a portion, a smaller, significantly smaller portion. We have a problem with it. I want people to get everything. Just full freedom is not beneficial to society. It's based on anarchy. Well, since I've already rejected the notion many times that I'm in favor of full freedom and you're just going to keep propping up one straw man or another. Maybe it's time to take questions. Well, I mean, you keep your retort to what I'm saying is, is that I'm infringing on your ability to have a good time. Well, not you are, but you're trying to. Right. But you can make the same point for prostitution. I can make the same. And I would make the same point. Doing heroin, I'm saying, as I said at the outset, prostitution should be legal and regulated, right? And my point, my point is that there's a reason it's illegal. There's a yes, because puritanical people who can't take care of their own stuff and mind their own business decided that they needed to tell everybody else how to live, just like they did with prohibition. I don't think it's telling people how to live. It's just where do we, what do we want to encourage? What behavior? No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't get to, you don't get to spend this as if it's about what we want to do. Because of the advertising with gambling. You want to ban gambling. That's not encouraging it. Don't pretend like you're you're saying, hey, it's about what we want to encourage. No, it's about what you want to allow. Banning means you do not allow it. When you legalize something, you get all the works and you get all the skeletons in the closet, which is why what you're seeing is you're seeing celebrities, you're seeing high profile individuals. You're seeing casinos that are operated in islands, you know, outside of regulated countries. They are able to target adults and adolescents in regulated countries. And the reason why they do that and they they were comfortable doing it. And the reason they started doing it is because we legalized gambling in this country. And that's why they do it. So we open the floodgates and we need to discuss the social costs. And it sounds like you having a good time is a biggest issue for me. There's a few other concerns that I have with gambling. No, and in the meanwhile, the fact that if you made it gambling illegal in the United States, you think that people in other countries who are skirting the regulations that exist now are going to stop? You think it's going to decrease? Well, in the United States, if I were to try to access state.com, a billion dollar gambling company right now from a US IP can't do it. I could do it from a VPN. Oh, oh, so there's a way around it that you just told everybody how to do. Right. But my point is, is that US internet regulators is that if they can ban IPs to stake, then they should ban IPs to all gambling websites and they don't do it and they do don't do it selectively because some overseas sites like Bobata have partnerships with companies in the United States, even pre legalization of 2018, a sports betting legalization of gambling. Bobata's had a relationship with online betters in the United States in the last 10 years. No amount of regulation has fixed it. So we have to go making something illegal fix it either. You can just like prohibition. Oh, you can't prohibition didn't work. All it did was increase the the amount of illegal drinking. It decreased the overall alcohol consumption. It increased the amount of illegal drinking. It increased the amount of harm done from it. So banning alcohol increased the harm done by alcohol. Yes, because instead of getting alcohol that was produced safely, what you got was bathtub gen that killed people. We've got about if you look into about that point of 50 minutes for the dialogue, this is usually we're going to go into the Q&A. If you guys want maybe a couple of minutes to draw together the threads, that's OK, otherwise we can jump into the Q&A. I'm good either way. Yeah, that works for me. And like I said, thanks again, James. Thanks again, Matt, for the debate. Appreciate it. Thanks. You got it. And I want to say, folks, our guests are linked in the description. We do appreciate them. You can check out those links below. Also want to say, as mentioned earlier, folks, we are very excited about this upcoming conference debate con part two, November 19th in Plano, Texas. You don't want to miss it. In fact, all of the debates are going to be streamed live for the public. That is why we're asking for your support via the Indiegogo campaign, which you can see the meter for on the far right side of your screen. That's linked in the description box as we in the past have had a paywall behind some of the or I should say in front of some of the debates. This time, none of the debates have that paywall. That's why we're asking for you to throw in your support to help cover the venue costs for this upcoming conference with that. Thanks for your question. Oflamio says, David, do you have a problem with casinos being in Pokemon games though? Do they have casino? I think that just kind of goes to my point where you have like there are also like apps like games you can download on your phone, like where it's fake casino games. And the design of those is to basically desensitize you to gambling. And it's a way to skirt social norms and skirt laws to be able to target an audience that can't legally gamble to this point. And just to reiterate the point of this debate for me is that we need to evaluate on a cultural and social level. Where do we want to be when it comes to this topic? Where do we want to be with gambling? Look what's happening with gambling? Look where we're at. Look at the revenues. Look where the promised money is going. Look at it. And like I said, with the apps for your talk, now go ahead. Sorry, just to keep it on just because we have a lot of questions to get a run through fast just to get out here. All right, I'll keep my answer short. I apologize. But so you have a problem or not with casinos being in Pokemon games? I do. Yes. And Final Fantasy 14. I think it's like an MMO. They have a massive in game casino that people buy like cosmetics. Millions of dollars every month. I have a problem with that. Yeah. This one coming in from everyone needs a smile. So for Matt, are there any current forms of gambling that you think need more strict regulation? Any forms of gambling that need more strict regulation? I think probably the regulation that I'd be in favor of. Of course, I'm opposed to some of the loot box and predatory things that we've talked about and anybody who's running an operation that is like circumventing U.S. laws and regulations on gambling in order to provide an alternate. Like I played poker and I would I will always prefer to play seated with another person. As a matter of fact, I won't gamble online in for anything because you have no guarantee. No matter if there's going to be collusion, there's going to be cheating. There's going to be problems. And so I have zero. It didn't bother me when poker online got shut down. And the people who were skirting it through this skirting those regulations by offering, you know, oh, we can do it. You can access through VPN. I think there should be limitations and you're going to have to work through international law to do some of that. But outlawing gambling in the United States on the whole doesn't fix that problem. Those people are going to keep breaking the law. But what you've got here is David wants to allow the unregulated gambling because it's small time. The hey, you want to bet on a pool game or a poker game or whatever. I've played in poker games that aren't in a casino where there were thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars being gambled. And it could have been somebody's rent. It wasn't, but it could have been. And it could have been somebody with a problem. And as far as I know, it wasn't, but he wants to allow that and to get rid of the casinos, the one thing that is thoroughly regulated where the odds are known, where everything is, is as fair as you could ever expect in any sort of gambling environment, that's the one he wants to shut down. The same questioner asks for you, David, if it could be shown that most social ills from gambling could be ameliorated with better tax policies, would you still want gambling outlawed? I'd say no, but I think we live in a reality where that's not going to happen. And all you have to do is look at since 1931, look at where the tax revenue is going right now. As far as gambling, it's not it's not going to addiction treatment. It's not going to organizations to to to help fund them better to deal with people with problem gambling. Again, if we if this debate had the framework and the statistics where it said, you know what, the states are allocating the tax revenues like they said they were going to, they're going to organizations that are going to help people that the minority of people that have a problem. And also, let's say we had better regulations as far as targeted advertising, credit predatory advertising and targeting children to eventually become legal betters. You know, I think we'd be having a different conversation, but the reality is that's not what's happening. Yes, if the subject of this debate is that the money isn't going where it should, we would have agreed at the start and been done with it. If the subject of this debate is we should be doing more to help people with addiction problems, we would agree to the start and there would be no debate. If the subject of this debate were there are predatory actions that are being directed at kids, we would have agreed at the start and there'd be no debate. But the subject is because of these things, he wants to ban it everywhere. That was a pretense for legalizing gambling in New Jersey and New York. It doesn't see it's like it doesn't matter if it was a pretense. It doesn't matter if it doesn't. No, it doesn't. It I'm sorry, it doesn't. It doesn't matter if it was an intentional pretense or an unintentional one. The problem there isn't the gambling and you shouldn't outlaw all gambling just because somebody lied about it. If I lied to get married, should we ban marriage? If you lied to get married. Yeah, is marriage have a negative social cost? Yes, marriage has lots of negative social costs. A lot of people are miserable in marriage.  The best quality of life for children is with two parents in the household. Any study you look at what I didn't say. See, here's the thing. You cannot you are incapable of staying on on target and looking at what's actually been said. I didn't say I didn't say anything about parents or children. I talked about marriage have children. That's a social that's a married people don't always have children. Most of them do. That's not a problem of marriage. People who aren't married also have children. You don't seem to be able to connect X with X's consequences. Because your pregnancy is completely independent of marriage. I'm saying you're attacking me because I think I'm winning the debate. Again, marriage doesn't have a negative social cost. It doesn't. And I think if you're going to do that as an example, compared to gambling, I don't I don't know where we're going. What's the divorce rate? What's the divorce rate in the United States? I don't know off the top of my head. Yeah, it's like 50 percent. But, you know, let's just pretend that there's that you're one to two percent of a problem is enough to shut down the other 98. But a 50 percent problem, a 50 some odd problem is enough for you to say, no, no, no, there's no negative social consequences. And then you want to tie marriage to children as if that's that's a a blind right, because the best outcomes for a child is to be is to have your parents married and together. Got to move it as no, no, no, no, not married. This one from no married, this one coming in from Alex. Luckhurst says, destiny versus Matt hype. And Sam says, destiny versus Matt, let's go. Thanks for those super chats. And it is going to be an amazing discussion. You guys were very excited about that. That's at the bottom right of your screen. That's on the bodily autonomy argument for abortion. Abortion, you don't want to miss it. This one from TMC says, I'm sorry that you had a gambling problem, David. There are all kind of addictions from overeating to overspending on clothes, cars, boats and jewelry. It's not rational to ban items or our activities, though, that a few might have a problem with. Right. And I think that's a good point.  But again, I'll just point to why prostitution and why hard drugs are illegal because of social contract. And you look at where we want to be as a society and culturally. And I think that that's a conversation to have. I think that it's I think forums like these with great debate partners like Matt are, you know, this is just a net positive for awareness for this issue. It gets people talking and, you know, people have addictive vices. But for me, like I said, taking the personal experience out of it, one out of five problem game wears attempt suicide. That's the highest rate of any addictive disorder. And that's something that we should be looking at. We should be scared of, especially with how gambling is reaching adolescents and adults at a rate we haven't seen up to this point. This one from Curly says, David, why are you shuffling in true statements with superstitious gambling propaganda? I would just want to, like if that commenter can maybe say, what was the superstitious propaganda specifically? You know, I could address it. I've tried to be good faith as much as possible. I apologize if it may seem like I'm not. But again, you know, the purpose of this is to just have a conversation about this topic and, you know, and the social impact. This one from Rad Crabb says, for Matt, what do you think about video game loot box?  You said that often target kids were gameplay substitute. If I remember right, you had said you're not for you. Basically, you at least think that there should be greater regulation, but I'll let you respond, Matt, if you'd like to yourself on video game loot boxes. I'm opposed to pay to win from the first place. I don't like it, whether it's targeted adults or kids or anything else. And the the gotcha loot boxes that, you know, quite frankly, are predatory against not just kids, predatory against anybody. They don't tell you what the odds are. They don't have the information. It doesn't qualify as any sort of gambling that is normatively regulated. It's just, in my view, a scam. And there are, you know, to what extent should we regulate that? I don't know what the right answer is, because I don't think there's enough research yet, but I'm in favor of doing more. But that doesn't mean that we should shut down casinos. You got this one coming in from Curly says, David, who is quote unquote they? Not sure they're referring to, I don't know if they mean like the house or if they mean the government. At some point, David, you said the word they and they want to know who that is now ages later. That doesn't make any sense.  You know, they could refer to anything. So I'll keep an eye out in case they tell me who the reference was. John Diadamo says, David, how many awesome things are you proposing to ban because a fraction of people have an issue? Again, like I just think that you have to look at it on the scale and you have to look at it like, you know, and I keep saying the same thing. I don't mean to be a broken record, but it is, I feel the strongest point, you know, that I'm making here is that you have vices like prostitution or hard drugs that are illegal, right? They have negative impact to the individuals involved. You know, and the reason why they're illegal is because of the social cost. And that's why we made them illegal. Now, if we want to deviate from that, that's the debate. So what I'm saying is that gambling, you know, it's one to two point nine percent, two to 10 million Americans that are high risk or problem gamblers right now, right, as far as like data pre-2018. But I think that there's circumstantial data points that you can look at where that it, you know, especially like I said, with the number of calls and the number of individuals who are reaching out for help, it's hard to even quantify as far as how much of like how much of your paycheck do you need to lose to be a problem gambler? And a lot of a lot of people lose their entire paychecks. They'll sell their cars or sell their house and stuff. I just think it's an important conversation in the context of how we got here. And with other vices decisions we've made on the legality of other vices, it needs to be applied to gambling as well. There's a question. The question, though, was how many awesome things are you willing to ban because a small fraction of people have a problem? Well, I'd say smoking. I think alcohol is regulated enough, definitely gambling. And I'm fine with prostitution and heroin. And I don't really have an issue with marijuana because it has medicinal medicinal uses that benefit a lot of people. So gambling has no positives. You know, there is no positive to that is absolutely incorrect. Well, outside of if I'm having fun, right? Oh, it's not of having fun, but let's just forget about having fun. See, that's the point. Some of you're weighing that again. Some of us who don't have a problem have fun with it. That's right, but you're weighing, but you're weighing that again. There are people who can drink, who don't have a problem drinking. There are people who can smoke and don't have a problem smoking. And yet you want to ban smoking, drinking and gambling because the people who have a problem with it. Well, then why did we get rid of smoking advertisements on TV? If we didn't get rid of smoking, we got rid of predatory action. We got rid of predatory action. No, sir, the point is you want to ban smoking, drinking and gambling because some people have a problem with it. Smoking just because it leads to heart disease, the number one killer in the United States. But that's in lung disease. OK, that's just that's my if I want to give myself heart disease, that's none of your business. Well, I understand what is this busy body thing of you decide that nobody should smoke because it adds to our disease. I wish nobody smoked because it's unhealthy as well. But the difference is whether or not we should ban it. Yeah, I think we should. I think that the argument in the debate is whether you fall on one side or the other is that are the deaths and the social costs in the physical and health related costs also on the on our hospital system? Does that outweigh the individual liberty and having fun with it and me being able to smoke if I want to and self destruct? That's the debate is the point.  This is coming in from do appreciate your question. Curly says, David, is the problem gambling itself or the soliciting of celebrities that appeal to the youth? I'd say definitely the solicitation. And again, like the reason why I'm saying gambling should be illegal is because regulation does not work and regular and regulatory authorities work with casino providers to to provide an experience that is not what is advertised. And that has to be weighed in and it was weighed in by the voters of New York and Maryland when they approve in person casinos in their states. And that's it's important to to look at the solicitation. It's important to look at the predatory nature and advertising of gambling, especially now. I challenge anyone to watch ESPN for an hour and not see three ads to gamble. That was not the case before 2018. And that's a big problem. You just said that casinos provide an experience that was not what was advertised. I'm saying that what was advertised was if casinos were implemented is in Maryland and New York, that it was a it was it was clear that it would have a negative impact. But the positive would be or a negative social impact. But the positive would be that the tax revenue would go to education, for instance. And it's not false advertising on the on the part of casinos or gambling. That's a false advertising on behalf of the people who were lobbying for it. But what you said, what you said won't agree with the ethics of casino. What you said just a couple of minutes ago was that casinos provided an experience that was not what was advertised. That's not true. You're right. And I misspoke there. If I said that what I meant to say was that the casino, the experience in the social risk and social negatives that came from implementing, implementing casinos in those two states on the other side was a promise of money that went toward gambling, get problem gambling resources and education, and that didn't play out that way. And it's not going to and banning casinos because of what legislators promised is like banning cars because legislators promise that they would be more fuel efficient and they're not. This one came in coming in. Sorry. See, I give you a short, pithy response because the question was for you, David, and then we've got to go on the next one. Oh, I'm good. This one from Melody K says, David, do you think pot should be illegal? I know you heard you already answered that. Cigarettes as well. And what about soda pop, though? I'd say cigarettes, but, you know, I think cookies have cocaine in it and it doesn't anymore. So that's pretty cool. I'll say no on soda. I like soda. Oh, well, it's a good thing you like soda. Do you know how much harm is done from the high fructose corn syrup is putting in there and how much we're increasing the propensity for diabetes in the United States, which is a much bigger epidemic than problem gambling? Yeah, I mean, you could say that for a lot of cases, too. You sure you could. And the fact that we all get them supersized and big gulped and ginormous and we drink about 10 times as much. Maybe we should ban salt, too. I mean, my after my quadruple or triple bypass, sorry, not quadruple. After my triple bypass, they suggested I don't add salt to food anymore. And because it's harmful to me and I just can't stay away from good salt. And there's so many people with heart disease, maybe we should ban salt.  So. Oh, OK. They're just going to die from heart disease, so you don't care about that part. Just. No, I do. No, I do. I said I'd be in favor of banning smoking. Yeah, yeah, but not salt. Which one's more deadly? I mean, I don't know. You know, the topics. Yeah. And yet you made a decision. That's the problem. This one from Jupiter. Darman says gambling should be like any other social issue. Namely, abortion, same-sex marriage, firearms, etc. Don't like it. Don't do it. And for fire, firearms, I believe, is a constitutional right. So I don't think that's in this debate. You know, that as far as gambling, gambling rights aren't expressly written in the Constitution of the Bill of Rights or anything like that. I feel it in the pursuit of happiness.  It's part of my liberty and it's part of my pursuit of happiness. And it's not part of the pursuit of happiness for the people that I deal with on a day to day. Your pursuit of happiness is different perspective. And it doesn't have to be. If I thought that's the moral, it would be absolutely ridiculous of me to suggest that everybody should have the same pursuit of happiness that I do. And if they don't, I'll ban it. I think there are levels of it. And you did it with prostitution and cocaine. Yes. I'm aware. I'm aware you have a problem with prostitution and cocaine. This one from De La Luna Glasses. I didn't mean that in the way that I swear. I apologize, James. I did not mean that in the way that it sounded. I just know that he said that several times. This one from De La Luna Glasses. David, I'm curious how gambling is different than, for example, playing games at the fair. You might win a stuffed animal for your kid. Either way, it's fun. It's entertainment. Adults should have self control as they gamble. Well, the fair uses the same tactics that casinos do. They have bright lights.   They're not getting prizes unless you get lucky, except the difference in casinos in that instead of losing 50 bucks at the fair, you're losing your entire paycheck and you can't pay the mortgage next month. This one coming in. Evidently, bright lights are magical. I keep hearing about bright lights, bright lights. Is there something about bright lights that make people stop being responsible? Would they have otherwise been responsible? No, but I would definitely suggest looking at how in person casinos utilize lighting. They utilize. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's you might as well be saying, I'd be looking at whether or not they advertised or whether they put up a big billboard. Of course, they're good. That's that's to entice the people advertising and stuff. But if you have it, there's nothing compelling you to gamble. Right lights don't compel somebody to gamble. There is a reason why gambling operators want to ban bright lights. No, but I'm saying there's a reason that they spend billions of dollars a year in advertising because advertising works and it manipulates people's thinking and yes, I mean, every and I think we should protect people from all advertising and do it. Should we ban bright lights? We should protect people from predatory advertising. Well, if the advertisement for a casino is absolutely factual that you can go there and know the odds and gamble and have fun, what what is it that's predatory about a regular casino? It is deceitful and it's deceitful in the way that they show the wins and they don't show the losses. No, no, no, no, no, that's not. OK, sue them for false advertising. Then why don't you do that? I mean, I don't know enough about suing anybody. But well, you could talk to a lawyer and the lawyer would let you know that the the gaming commissions regulate things so tightly that you're never going to be able to get them for false advertisement because saying you can win is true. Right. So you just right. But you just made my point because you're saying regulation is not fixing it and regulation is fine with advertising. No, no, no advertising to adults. I didn't say regulation isn't fixing it. I'm saying regulation has fixed the problem that you're talking about that it does not that it doesn't exist. Regulation has not fixed the predatory advertising problem. It's been exactly what is predatory. What is predatory about a casino, truthfully saying that you can win and what the odds are. Well, I'm going to let James ask another question, but because it's easier than answering it. Yeah, go. This is from here. I've answered all your questions. Brian Stevens, long time viewer of the channel, good to see a Brian says fast food has been linked to many diseases. Should this be banned next? Was that a question to me? Yeah. No, but again, advertising influences people's decisions. Tell us an overlay that says so. Would you be OK? Not banning gambling, but just banning all advertisement for gambling? Well, I'd like to I'll stay on the topic at least here in that gambling should be banned because there is no benefit. There's a lot in the short. That is a lie. You keep saying gambling should be banned because there is no benefit. And I've repeatedly pointed out there is a benefit. And then you acknowledge there was a benefit, which was enjoyment. You just keep dismissing it and saying there is no benefit. Why do you get to dismiss enjoyment? For the social cost factors and the reason why we ban other vices. So no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The fact that there are other consequences doesn't mean that enjoyment gets to be dismissed. If you if you acknowledge that there is enjoyment there and yet you say there is no benefit, you are lying. There are levels to enjoyment that we should accept as a society. Yes. Now you're being more honest because now instead of saying there's no benefit, you're saying, yes, there's enjoyment, but that's not a significant enough benefit for me. Well, what if it's a significant benefit for other people? So that's the last word you can. Next question. OK. This one coming in from thought this would come up. Taliesin Oberlander says, and I think I asked you beforehand, David, this is one I did ask you, would you ban Native American casinos as well? If I remember right, well, I'll let you answer yourself. No, that's a really good question. And I think you relayed to Matt, at least they have tribal sovereignty and any law, at least to my knowledge, anything that we can do as far as changing laws and Indian reservations would have to be done through Congress. Yeah, I'm not going to touch that just because of tribal sovereignty. I don't think that applies to what I'm advocating for. I don't understand that.  No question throughout the rest of this about what the process would be to ban it. You want it banned because it does harm and yet you're OK with staying hands off for Native American casinos. It shouldn't matter how difficult it is to ban. Do you think it's going to be easy to ban Vegas? No, for the point that I'm making is that at a state level, as a United States citizen, is that we should ban gambling, like I said, for all the points that I've outlined up to this point. Now, if I had to make the pick, if you said, hey, David, do you want to ban gambling on Indian reservations? I'd say yes, for the same reason. I thought that was a question. I thought that was a question. It is. I just I just don't think advocacy is going to work in that in that field as much as it will for our laws because we had gambling banned at one point in the United States. This one coming in from do appreciate your question. Toy Ranch says, is the outreach to people who don't gamble responsibly because there is more outreach and help for people who struggle with responsible gambling? Well, I'd say that the resources for for irresponsible gambling have been the same or they've been less as far as funding. And the number of problem gamblers and people that are high risk gambling and people that reach out to those resources have increased. And right now, if you extrapolate it out, if you look at it, this is a major risk factor and a major concern for anybody that anybody that follows this issue. This one from Ryan, new member, thanks for your support. And they say, if you have time, they said, David, could you ask David where he stands on investments, namely the stock market and so forth? And if he views them as a form of gambling? Definitely, I think that the market can be. I mean, you look at what happened with the GameStop stuff. I'm not even going to pretend that I know a lot about stocks, but but you see politicians and you see see the rich getting richer with stocks with inside trading in the market can be manipulated, especially if individual individual investors band together to try to make a buck. Again, I'm not going to try to pretend. I know a ton about it, but I would suggest looking into what happened with GameStop GameStop. And I think Robin Hood, you know, that that's a rigged game, just like gambling is. And yeah, I mean, I would be fine with with individuals not being able to partake in a rigged game. You got this one coming in from Johnny Rapine says, Matt, my grandpa had quadruple bypass. I think they're showing a sign of sign of support. Oh, well, cool. I hope he survived. And I only had triple teller had a quadruple bypass the other day and is recovering nicely. So any fans of Penn and Teller, you can be happy that they should be back on stage. I think in in December, I'm still a little weak, but I'm doing all right. This one I try to make up for it by being animated, even though I'm not nearly as animated as I used to be. Melody Kate says, so if you like it, David, then legal. If you don't like it or can't control yourself around it, make it illegal. So I think we've gone over that a little bit. You know, you know, there are things that are illegal that are vices and there are things that are legal right now that are vices. And as a society and as a social contract, we need to see what the risks are and what and and really what we want. People can be influenced and we want we need to as a country really look at it and see where do we want to be. Yeah, I don't I don't know that you calling it a vice makes it a vice. Well, prostitution and cocaine is a vice, right? No, no. Prostitution and sex work is a job. And for the Johns, it's not a vice. I don't consider it a vice. No, what would be the reason for kind of sending a device? I think paying for sex would be a vice. If not, I'll take the L on that point. OK, because what a vice is, is some sort of immoral or wicked behavior. And I don't think that paying for sex is either immoral or wicked. What is the case that you can make that makes it immoral or wicked? I may be using the wrong word, then. That's not what I meant. I guess I would just say it's like a it's I'd say it's a habit that is kind of frowned on societally. OK, so if I go and pay a prostitute once for sex, is that a habit? All right, once now. So is it a vice if I did it once? I mean, I don't make immoral judgments on doing that.  You're basically saying this is an immoral act. I'm saying I'm saying that as negative outcomes. What's the negative outcome of me going to a prostitute? The negative outcome would be for the prostitute. What's the negative out? I didn't say it before. What is the outcome if I pay someone for sex? What's the negative outcome? I don't know enough about that, but I do know that there's the reason that it's illegal is that from a societal standpoint, there's a bunch of puritanical people who want to legislate and moralize and tell everybody else what they can do with their life because it doesn't fit their personal morals. That's why it's on the other side. Legislation and regulation is not working for it is working. It's absolutely working in places around the world where prostitution is legal and regulated and in the United States in places where where prostitution is legal and regulated. Everything about it is better, fairer, safer for everybody involved. Not for gambling. I was talking about prostitution. I'm sorry that you switched back to your pet issue, but we were talking about our institution right then. Primarily, you're primarily trying to say that gambling should be illegal for the same reason, prostitution should be illegal. And then when we get down to brass tax on what's wrong with prostitution, you want to make pronouncements until pushed back on and then you don't know enough. No, that's not true. And again, this is literally what you just said. It's not a pet topic. It's the topic of the debate. So fair, fair, pet topic, topic of the debate. But it's literally what you just said, because you wanted to say that prostitution was advised. You suggested that gambling should be illegal for the same reasons. Prostitution should be illegal. And when I pushed back on when I pushed back on what's wrong with it, you said you don't know enough. It's no. I wish you'd say you don't know enough about the other one and then we wouldn't have had a debate. It's something people like to engage in that has negative social outcomes that I think what's the negative social outcome of me engaging with a prostitute for sex? I think that you should do some research and see why it's illegal. There's a reason for it. I know why it's illegal. I asked you a question of what is the negative outcome? You're you're the one asserting. Well, all right, I'll give you one and I'm asking what it is. Can you give me one negative outcome? Is that legalizing prostitution? It has a higher chance of children being children being put into the industry or children being put into prostitution. And no, you're absolutely completely 100 percent wrong. You are absolutely completely 100 percent wrong. And you should have stuck with you. Don't know enough because prostitute. No, when prostitution is legal and regulated, the trafficking goes down. Not things that you're objecting to.  Somehow harms children. That is not an honest tactic. This one coming in from do appreciate it. De La Luna Glass says, when you speak of social harms, firearms are on the table. Like I said, that's an express constitutional right. So I would put that in a different category than what we're discussing. You got it. Bloodsword 83 says, what are the debaters opinions on mobile games where you have a point zero seven chance of pulling a character or unit? Is this synonymous with the loot boxes or is this different? No, because if you know that you have a point seven percent chance, then you know the facts going into it. It can make an informed decision and act responsible. David, same thing or different? I mean, I mean, they target that toward people that aren't of age. You know, you can be under 18. And I don't think that children under 18 playing games like that have the capacity to, you know, to make those decisions. But maybe that's just a differing thought process. You got it. This one from you to have. Heck, Hugh says, for David, do you find insurance is a form of gambling? And if so, should it be illegal? Insurance? Yep. That's a good question. Is insurance a form of gambling? Should it be legal?  I mean, again, that's a topic that I don't know a lot about, but I know that I'm sure there are plenty of issues with that. And I think maybe that's something that should be talked about on this platform. It's a good question. But should we ban insurance if there are issues with it? No, because it has positive outcomes in which if you get in an accident and your insurance covers it, or, you know, if you have a health care issue, then you'll be able to pay for something that saves your life, saves your home and live. You mean like gambling can have positive outcomes where you might be the lucky one that gets a windfall or you might enjoy yourself? Yeah, that's true. The 0.3 percent that do win, they do win. This one from Kruel says, can David explain why laws and regulations don't work but banning or placing laws on all gambling will work?  Well, that's not necessarily true because I'm addressing regulation compared to legality and prohibition. Prohibition decreased alcohol consumption from 20 to 60 percent. I'm not advocating for regulation of gambling. I think regulation doesn't work. I think it's clear it doesn't work. I'm advocating for making gambling illegal. This one from Tuss B. Box. Thanks for your question says, when talking about percent of people gambling slash addiction problems, is there any number where you would change your opinion? Say if 60 percent of people were addicted to it. Actually, that's a question for you, Matt. OK. No, because the addiction rate is a problem with the human beings, not the gambling. And so I'm in favor of whatever regulations we need to make sure that we are addressing the available issues. But what we're talking about here is one to three percent of the people who have a problem somehow is sufficient in David's mind to say that the other 97 to 99 percent shouldn't be allowed to engage in an activity and an activity that people enjoy that they can, in fact, profit from. Although long term, the house has an edge, but not all gambling has anything to do with a house or a house edge, which is why I was asking about other options where there is an house cut, for example, where where I play poker, the house can't take that. It's against the law here in Texas for there to be any rake at all in poker houses here.  You know what the odds are? I've been a given hand. You are playing a game. Nobody's taking a rake. You are paying basically an hourly rate and a membership fee in in card houses in Texas. And yet there's five, ten grand being gambled at any one time that could be devastating to someone. I don't know when somebody sits down at the poker table with me. I don't know what their life story is. I don't know if they're wagering their play money because they're a millionaire, as is the case for one of the guys that I play with. I know that story now. Or if they're gambling because they really need the money to pay for their rent, mortgage and an operation. Those are things that are not my concern when I'm sitting down at the table. That's their decision. This is this is part of it.   During the last couple of years when there was a massive change in the way the entire world worked and some of us were shut down, there were people who were spreading dangerous, deadly misinformation. Now, does that count as free speech?  I think that that sort of violates both our principles as human beings. And in many cases, the law and it constitutes an actual harm being directed at people. That's not true for gambling, it's casino. This question coming in from do appreciate it. How to rule in Asteroids is how many athletes break bones? David, should we ban sports and why not? I think they're saying it's rolling the dice on whether or not you might get injured while playing a sport. So ought we to ban that as well? Well, they get paid tens, hundreds of millions of dollars to play sport. And they also have for any injury that they get, they have medical insurance provided by we'll say NFL, you said football. They have medical insurance and medical care from the NFL for any injury that you sustain on the field. Yeah, meanwhile, meanwhile, I'm actually not not completely opposed to potentially banning football due to the concussion rates, the long term effects on people and the fact that it is correlated incredibly strongly with domestic abuse. But I'm not in favor of banning it. I'm just open to having the discussion about how we can be better about football.  How many of them have spent those millions of dollars? How many of them are now broke and and addled from their time in the NFL? Why do I agree with you entirely? CTE is a massive issue in football and in any contact sport, really. But it's not enough to ban football. Could be. Well, I'm asking you because you're willing to ban gambling based on I mean, I'm not going to get.  It's a conversation I would have. I'm not going to just make a I'm just I'm not going to just make like a like just a point out of nowhere and take a stance. But I agree with you and you made a great point that there are neck. You junior say and I believe Aaron Hernandez had CTE in WWE.  That's definitely a good conversation to have. And I would agree and the and the statistics are that CTE was found in 99 percent of the brains obtained from National Football League or National NFL players. So in a situation where 99 percent of players are suffering, we should have a conversation. But in a situation where 99 percent don't have a problem, we should ban it. That's the hypocrisy that I'm talking about there. I don't think it's hypocrisy. I think, again, it's just, you know, what we want to do socially and as a society in terms of issues like these. And that's why conversations are had. It's why conversations are made generally with a lot of this stuff in really anything you look at. It's a minority of people that are negatively effective. A lot. You're not going to see said it was 99 percent. That have CTE. I don't think 99 percent of athletes get CTE percent of NFL players with CTE. CTE was found in 99 percent of the brains obtained from NFL players. Ninety one percent of college football players and twenty one percent of high school football players. That's from military.com health care statistics on CTE and NFL players. That's a great period in point, then I'd be in faith. I mean, honestly, that's a pretty big issue then. And I think that's in fact, that's a great statistic. I may use that for an ex debate.  I need to look through the actual study. Yeah, I mean, I'll take you at your word.  Actually, this is the. So CTE was found in 99 percent of the ones obtained, but that may not be 99 percent of players. It may be of the brains that they had for investigation. So let me retract that whole stat and we can look up to CTE stats some other time. But yeah, but the point is, and I think a good point that you made is that it is a problem. It's a problem that affects athletes and we may not understand. Just like with gambling, we don't fully understand with CTE what all the negative ramifications can be. We don't know how many people are living with CTE. We don't know all the factors from a family and societal aspect that could have. And again, you know, that I would put that right there with gambling is that something we definitely need to consider, especially when we're when we're encouraging high contact sports like football. This one coming in from do appreciate your question. Squid Superhunk says, David, if a new constitutional amendment is passed to expressly allow gambling, is discussing banning it suddenly off the table? If not, why are guns? So if there was if there was an amendment, a federal amendment to expressly make gambling legal. Yeah, I think they're saying again added to the Bill of Rights. They want to add it. It's a late addition that they say we're going to make sure that in America, gambling is protected and it's part of the Bill of Rights, just like the Second Amendment. I would assume just like when they banned the Unlawful Gambling Act of 1990, I would say that federal government doesn't have jurisdiction there. But, you know, if it was an amendment and it was passed by Congress, I think that we would have to abide by it. You got it. This one coming in from Do you appreciate your question? Give one more from James Hogue says for David, if you think that unregulated gambling like fantasy football is OK and you're comparing gambling to hard drugs, can I share hard drugs with my friends at home legally? I would advise you not to. You got it. But they're saying legally, would you be OK with it if it was like people selling or trading? I think I think it's kind of like, you know, you look at levels of enforcement, at least with drugs and prostitution. A lot of times, you know, at least in those arenas, they're not going to go after the Johns as much as they go after the providers and they're not going to go at least with with drugs, they're going to go after the dealers rather than the individuals that are consuming drugs or like I think in New York, they have like safe spaces where people can shoot up. I think that was a state initiative, you know, so they're obviously not prosecuting people in New York, you know, for for using drugs. But I think that they're, you know, enforcement more needs to focused on the dealers and the providers. I have, by the way, that was a brilliant question that exposed a problem that I had thought about it, couldn't think of the right question to ask. So thanks. With that, that's actually all of our questions. So I want to say thank you very much, folks, for all of your questions. We're going to go into the post credit scene. Stick around. We're going to keep on going and give you updates about this upcoming conference that you don't want to miss as well as a generous donor has said that they are going to gift some memberships during the post credit scene. So like I said, stick around. You don't want to miss it. But one last thank you. It's been a true pleasure to have you, Matt and David. Thanks so much for being with us tonight. Thanks, David. Thanks, James. Our pleasure. Thank you so much, Matt. You made this happen. Thank you, James, for making this happen. And I look forward to meeting you in person, Matt, at the conference. I'll see you in a couple of weeks. 100%. And that conference is Saturday, November 19th in Plano, Texas. Folks, we hope you see there tickets are linked to the description box as well as the crowd fund to help us pay for the cost of the venue. Stick around. And I'll be back with just a moment of upcoming notes on that conference. Thanks so much, folks and gentlemen, thrilled to have you here. Want to say thanks so much for all of your support. And we are absolutely thrilled for debate con part two Saturday, November 19th in Plano, Texas. If you happen to be in the state of Texas, this is absolutely worth the trip. My dear friends, you do not want to miss this. It is going to be huge. Let me show you some of the massive debates that are going to happen at this event. In fact, I've got to tell you as well, folks, as you can see at the bottom right of the screen, Destiny and Matt collide on the bodily autonomy argument. It is going to be fantastic. I've got to tell you as well, you guys, look at these. These are gigantic. So in particular, you might be wondering, what's what's taking any change? What are you talking about? Let me show you. Not only do we have that debate, we also have this one at the bottom right of your screen, Aaron Raw and Daniel Hukigichu Islam versus atheism, which is better for society. You don't want to miss that one either.  You guys, I'm it's crazy. It's it's it's insane. It just keeps getting bigger and batter. It's going to be fantastic. This is we'll pull this up. There it is. Kenny Bomer and Matt Dillahunty and whether or not there is good evidence for Islam is going to be another debate at this conference. Plano, Texas, Saturday, November 19th. Now, thanks very much for your gifted subs. Surgeon General just gifted 10 modern day debate memberships in the live chat. Surgeon General, thanks for doing that. And that's pretty cool, folks. If you happen to become a channel member and if you ever want to support the channel, that's one way you can do it is once you become a channel member.  So Surgeon General, thanks so much. Seriously, we really do appreciate that. And my dear friends, once you have that membership, I encourage you to check out the emoticons where, you know, normally you can click down below the chat and you can add like a smiley face, things like that. You can also do these. Namely, you can do these are some of my favorite emoticons ever. You can do the juicy one, as I'm putting in chat right now. Or amazing is another one you can do.  Thanks so much for your support. Deej, appreciate your super chat. It says Common Puritan W. Appreciate that. As well as, gotta say, we really do appreciate our guests tonight. They are linked in the description. So I want to encourage you folks, if you have not yet checked out Matt DeLondi, his YouTube link is down in the description box. And David's link to his Telegram group for gamblers in recovery or anyone who thinks that they may have a gambling problem or want more information. That's linked in the description box as well, including David's Telegram handle. That is linked down there as well. So you folks, what are you waiting for? If you'd like to, you can click on any of those links. And that includes at the podcast, as we'll be putting those links in the description box there as well. We highly encourage you, my dear friends, this is very important. We've got to say, if you didn't know, we have a podcast app. Or I should say it's not our own app. We have a podcast and that's available at fine podcast apps everywhere, including Spotify, Apple podcast, Google podcast.  No kidding. So in addition, though, I see you there in the old live chat. They're Hake of the Hake Report and Tuss Beatbox. Good to see you. Says, will there be a boxing ring at this conference? That would be amazing. And Homer at eight two says, can you say a baby up? That's right. I definitely can. Surgeon General says, thanks for your additional channel memberships. Thanks for your support of the channel coffee breath. I hope you enjoy that channel membership. And now you can call people by these. So for example, in the live chat, if you're watching right now, my dear friends, you can use those emoticons. It's fun. You can call someone a soy boy using those emoticons. It's very fun. Give it a shot. Deej says, it's not letting me send to memberships. Yeah, that's weird. I don't know why that is, but don't worry about it. It's no problem at all. I've got to tell you, Deej, it's a pleasure to have you and Matt tonight. So thank you so much for coming on. Seriously, it has been a true pleasure. This has been a really fun debate and people have said, like, hey, we want some new topics. And I'm like, hey, I agree. This will be fun. We'll do something new. And so reminding you again, if you're at the podcast, you can find our guest links below. The podcast is growing rapidly. So it's that I think it's like an average of 2,700 downloads per episode, which is great. Like that's actually fantastic. It's actually pretty tough to build a podcast following. But modern day debate is growing very well. So we want to say thank you for that support.  I got to, you know, I think a friend of mine, we were talking about gambling lately. They might get a kick out of this out of hearing kind of the arguments for both sides. Highly encourage you hit that share button below. You can share this with them. And then Endo says, I'm an actual soy boy. And I take offense by this. By the way, dang, I missed the debate. Endo, we're glad that you are here. Ozone says beta. Now, let me talk about this upcoming conference. I'm going to give you the rundown in particular. Folks, this is I enjoy always doing this. You guys debate con part two, as you can see on the screen. We already did this once before where we had a two day conference in January of this year. And now we decided, hey, let's see if we can squeeze this into one day because we know some people are flying in and they're kind of like, hey, you know, it'd be kind of a little bit easier if it was just a one day one where you had all your best debates just crunched down and it's kind of the MVP debates and they're like, hey, let's do that. And that way, if somebody's, for example, traveling down, we can basically it's a little bit easier because they only have to get one hotel night.  And let me tell you about the other stuff from this exciting event coming up. My dear friends, you might be saying, well, what is debate con? Well, let me show you. This is our homepage on YouTube. As you can see, this is just, you could say, how do I say this? You could say that these debates, I'm going to pull in a picture of myself right now. Let me do this. I just thought of this. This is a tremendous idea. Here it is. Is I want to show you. So these debates that you can see right now. See up here. Now I'm back. Okay. These debates that you see above are some of the debates that are going to happen at debate con, and they're going to be huge. And you can see all of them in their entirety. Well, they're not, they're not done, you know, they haven't happened yet. You can see all of the event pages for these where you can click notify me. Or if you haven't yet, hit that subscribe button. And that way, you for sure won't miss these debates as all of them are going to be streamed for the public. Deej, thanks so much. Just gifted 20 modern day debate memberships. Deej, thanks so much. Seriously, that really does mean a lot. That is super encouraging. And Kiwi in Springfield. Enjoy your channel membership, my friend. We're glad that you're here. Tell your friend, Don, until we hope Don is doing well. Don C is, but yeah, we're glad to see you. And Sparrow, hope you enjoy that channel membership. We're glad you're here as well as Delaney. Good to see you again. We hope you're doing well. Paul Blunt, glad to have you back.  Ash, happy to have you. And yeah, we're excited. So, Deej, thanks so much. Seriously, that really does mean a lot. And Silo, enjoy that channel membership. Muhammad Isaiah there in the old live chat. And Internet Enjoyer, enjoy those channel memberships. But yeah, seriously, we do appreciate you folks. Thanks for being with us. We hope you have a fun time here. And like I said, once you have become a channel member, you can click where you usually have those emoticons, where you can put like a smiley face or something. You can use the modern day to bait emoticons. For example, you can use the amazing one. And you can put amazing. You can flood the live chat with amazing. So that's one cool thing. As well as, like I said, as you're watching, you can see right now, you can call people. A soy boy. So if I put perfect one is and then I use the emoticon and I click soy boy, it's just a little bit more satisfying to call somebody a soy boy with the emoticon. But yeah, for real, by the way, obviously, if you enjoy soy, it's not like a genuine insult. We just use it ironically here. So if you enjoy soy, more power to you. We don't have anything against you.  And we want to say we appreciate you hanging out here at modern day debate. It is absolutely essential for us. We really do want to be a neutral channel. We are the only one of its kind, frankly, that I know of that only host debates. That's it. We have no position videos. We never put out a video that says, oh, man, here's why the person who are you in favor of gambling being banned or against gambling being banned was wrong. We don't do that. We let you decide as the audience, you can share your thoughts in the comments on who you thought was more persuasive in a debate or discussion like tonight. I want to tell you, my dear friends, we truly want to be a neutral channel. And not only do we think neutral moderation is important as we do, but also, like I said, we want to make sure that our channel has no position videos where it's not taking any particular positions where it's like, oh, you know, politically left is the way to go or politically right is the way to go. Or like, no, no, no, we only have debates. Thanks for your huge channel membership support. Surgeon General just gifted five more memberships. Man, it's a great idea to stick around, folks, and the post credit scene. If you want a free channel membership and you want to be able to use that emoticon with the soy boy, you can. But I want to say, my dear friends, what is debate? Con, you might be thinking, yeah, what is it? James, I don't know what it is. This is new to me. Well, it is a huge conference and all of these debates are going to be live streamed. But I've got to tell you, this is different from the past because in the past, what we did was normally we would have it where some of the debates would be behind a paywall. So here, let me put this, the link to the Indie Go-Go Cam Proud Fund is here. Now normally, so I just put that chat to the Indie Go-Go or I should put the link to the Indie Go-Go. That's in the chat and I pinned it to the top of the chat. So I want to say we normally have some of our debates. So, for example, this year, we were really close. We almost did still have some of these debates behind a paywall.  No, actually, normally it's $1.99 and you get to watch like four paywall debates. So it's like 50 cents a debate. But we said, listen, let's test out some different models here. We may go back to the paywall. It depends like what it looks like, what works for us. Because the reason is that we had the paywall is that doing this conference is we know people like in-person debates and people like we've seen that the viewership on these debates is way more than our normal debates that are just remote. People really do enjoy these. And so the viewership, people enjoy these in order for us to provide them or basically make these happen. We have to pay for the venue. We have to pay for the speaker cost because that's on me. I contact all the speakers and I say, hey, we want to have you come. We'll pay for your two hotel nights, one for before speaking and one for the night of speaking so you don't have to rush home. You can just get a good night of sleep and then go home. Also. Not only that, but we also cover. Speakers per DM so their food while they're there. So we want to take care of them. We want to keep good relationships with our speakers because they are the lifeblood of the channel. Like they make modern day debate work. And so for us to do that, it does take funds. And that's why I want to say, hey, if you have not yet, we want to say, consider giving to this crowdfund. And you might be like, well, what's a crowdfund? I'm kind of new to this, James. Well, let me show you. So in particular, we use Indiegogo. We've used Kickstarter before and that's worked for us and successful. But Indiegogo worked a little bit better for us. So we're like, you know, let's try this. We're like, I said, we're doing some A, B testing. You might say, or we try out different things to see what works in terms of making the conference work best. And so it is so easy if you click on pinned at the top of the chat, the Indiegogo link right now, it is so easy. You can sign up with email or even more quickly. You can just sign in with Facebook. It's that easy to sign in. And you may be like, well, what is it exactly? Well, in particular, once you do sign in, let's say, I'll show you what you might see. So for example, this is just a way that we try to fund the conference. And I'll show you some of the perks. So as you can see on screen right now, these are some of the perks. There are four of them showing in particular three dollars. It's no perk. It's just a way of saying, hey, I support modernated bait. I like the vision that you guys have of providing a neutral platform so that everybody can have their chance to make their case on a level playing field. And so throwing in three bucks. I mean, it's less than the price of a cup of coffee. Pretty amazing. So that's pretty cool. Really easy to do that as well as and we used to have the real Jacob 98 says, I think that if you made it so it was members only, that would be better than the paywall. I would do that. The only thing is we said in this case, because it used to be not only where it used to be where you had to throw in three bucks on Indiegogo or be a Patreon supporter or be a channel member. In this case, we said, hey, we want to make it so it's fully public. And like I said, if we see that this model or method works, then we're like, hey, we'll keep doing that because we like having it be that way. But like I said, if we're kind of like, ah, that didn't really work. We got to cover the cost of the venue, like things like that in order to do these conferences, then we're considering like, well, maybe we'll go back to where we will have a paywall. So I want you to check these out, though, in particular. One of the other perks that you can see on screen right now is if you look below two seconds, I've got to get my little screen caught up. There it is embroidered postcard $25. If you throw in 25 bucks, we send an embroidered postcard with the modern day debate logo to you in remembrance as a thanks or some way of remembering the experience. We say thank you very much for your support that way. In addition, if you want to guarantee a question during the question and answer sessions during the debate, you can because normally the in-person debate questions. There are so many people there in person that getting a question in during the Q&A isn't going to be possible at home. That's one difference. So, you know, one thing is it's a lot more exciting when you're doing it. They're in person. Everything's better in person. Music, sports, you name it. But also in this case, you can ask a question in person and you don't have to pay.  The other thing is Zoom Chat one-on-one with James and this is something where you can ask me anything. So at this reward level, you can Zoom Chat with me. You can ask questions like what software do you use to do modern day debate and how or strategies for solid debating after listening to about 750 debates as well as I used to actually debate on college campuses. I think I do have a few things I might be able to share that I think make a difference in terms of debating well, as well as especially like that debate experience and getting them all over like my past thinking about like, oh, yeah, maybe I would have done that differently. But let me show you this. We have worked really hard to make this work. And you might be saying like, well, what do you mean? Well, in particular, let me show you. These are some of the events that we have had success with in the past by using this crowdfunding method. So in particular, this huge debate where we had Mike Jones against Dr. Michael Schermer on Is Christianity Dangerous? That was January 8th, 2021. So almost two years ago. So it's almost been years that we could say we've been doing this. That was a successful crowdfund where we raised the funds for Dr. Michael Schermer's honorarium as well as, here's another one. Is there good evidence for God? That was a debate where we raised the honorariums for Matt DeLaunchi and Dr. Kenny Rhodes. That was an epic debate as well as modern day debates, DebateCon 2022. That was another monstrous one. That was for, as you can see on screen, we raised $2,700. That was actually our biggest one yet. Second biggest one actually. As the first, or I should say the biggest one was the DeLaunchi versus Kenny Rhodes. But this one was a monster as well. I've actually, let me just go back. I'm actually kind of curious. I'm like, what were the numbers on that? But I want to say this one was an awesome one in which we raised the funds for our conference. And this time we only have 2,000 as our goal. Because our goal really is we want to basically, we want to basically have it where in an ideal world, we want to have it where we can just sell tickets and not use crowdfunding for the venue. That's what we're doing right now. We want to use crowdfunding in the future. However, we want to do kind of a different type of model or way of doing it. In the future, we want to have it where the crowd fund is used to fund big time speakers on Arrariums. So for example, let's say a quarter of modern day debates subscribers through in a dollar apiece. For real. So let's say it was like, wow, it is like 20,000 people at modern day debate in terms of the subscribers through in a dollar. Because nobody minds about a dollar. And if we were able to do that so that we could rate, let's say we paid Richard Dawkins $10,000 and we paid William Lane Craig $10,000. So that's $20,000 total because we raised a dollar from 20,000 people. That would be a monstrous debate. Seriously, that would be humongous. It would be gigantic. And that's a way that we think that we could use crowdfunding as a tool for a strategy to hosting bigger, more epic debates in the future. And that's with experience. As we've had three successful ones that I just showed you already, we really think that we can keep doing this in particular for debate con. As you can see, my dear friends, it's gonna be huge. But let me show you, you might be wondering like, well, what are the costs for this, James? Is the budget works like this. You can see the venue is the big blue part on the right. That's pretty costly. So it actually does cost a lot for the venue. That's why we are doing this crowdfund is it basically gives us, you could say a safety net as we do these because I think a lot of people, I think one person said like they, I think they were under the impression that modern day debate is doing these conferences. And they were like, oh, it's cause James is like well to do. Not really. I'm actually like as a graduate student, like I'm a frugal person. The way or the reason that we do these debates is one, we're willing to take risks. And two, we've found that the crowdfunding method can work well. And so that's why we're doing this is we're kind of like, hey, we're willing to take a chance. Most people are not willing to do that, but we're like, hey, we think we can. And it's just a matter of work and effort and skill and kind of learning. And sometimes it's like, okay, that didn't work as well. That did work as well. So we'll change that for next time. So that's something that I've got to say, we do appreciate all of your guys' support. We do appreciate it. This is just the budget, like I said.  That's the orange part on the bottom. Speaker flights on the left side and the gray. That's a good chunk. And then speaker per diem for food, that's the yellow chunk at the top. And then Indiegogo fees, it's the, you could say light blue little sliver at the top. So it really does add up. We wanna say thank you guys so much. Consider giving that Indiegogo as we only have. I am encouraged though, somebody actually did get us up an extra percentage point. If you look at the right side of the screen, we were at 24%. We're at 23%. And that's awesome as somebody threw in $20. We appreciate that support. Thank you for your support as, I don't know if you guys watched that meter during the debate, but I do adjust it while we're actually live. So that way people can actually see as people are putting in donations to that Indiegogo crowdfund. So my dear friends wanna say thank you guys for all of your support though. And like I said, we like, we're kind of frankly rolling the dice in terms of saying, can we do this where we're gonna have it where, you know, we don't exactly know how this is gonna go. We're like, we think we can do it where we basically have. And thank you so much for your support. We actually just got up to $508. So we actually jumped up another percentage point. So thank you. We actually just went from 483 to 508. So thank you so much to the person who just backed us as that just bumped us up a little bit more. And we are determined. We are absolutely determined. We can make it to our goal. Thank you for your support. And as you're watching on screen, you can see the poll just moved to 25%. So thank you guys for all of your support though. Kiwi and Springfield, thanks for your super chat. Said, debate con looks awesome. Hope it all works out. Thanks Kiwi. Seriously, we really do appreciate that. That means a lot. And Kiwi and Springfield says, sorry I'm late. We're glad you're here. We're glad you made it. And again, thanks for your support. Seriously, that does mean a lot, Kiwi. And my dear friends, you want to say we're excited about the future. We're going to keep making adjustments. We're going to keep on growing. And I am excited though, you guys. We are just going to keep on learning, making ourselves better, and figure out how all these things work. The real Jacob 98 says, will the Matt versus Destiny debate be free to watch live for the public? Well, as I mentioned, in the past, we used to have it where about half of the debates during the conference were behind a paywall where you'd have to put in $2. So less than the price of cup of coffee. However, at this conference, we are totally taking the risk of trusting that people are going to be willing to throw into the crowd fund. All of them are public. So in other words, you don't have to put in a dime. If you're like, I'm not going to put in, but I'm going to watch them. You can do that. That's fair. It's not against the rules. However, we are hoping that people will be willing to help us. So in other words, if people are willing to put in to this crowd fund, we're able to keep on doing that for future conferences and debates. As there are going to be bigger and bigger debates every time we host a conference or an in-person, you could say stand-alone debate. And so we appreciate all of your support. And I'm telling you, it's so easy, folks. If you click on the Indiegogo link in the description box or it's currently pinned at the top of the chat, that's one way to support the channel. It's amazing in terms of that helps us do it. So Eric Nels