Apple Developers Are Frustrated With Gambling Ads Appearing Across the App Store (theverge.com) 51
Apple just launched new ad placements on the App Store, and developers aren't happy with the types of ads surfacing beneath their apps. From a report: As spotted by MacRumors, several app developers have pointed out that ads for gambling have started appearing in the "You Might Also Like" sections beneath their App Store listings, which is just one of the new places Apple has started sticking ads. Developer Simon B. Stovring posted a screenshot of an ad for an online casino app appearing beneath his text editor Runestone. Stovring says he visited the page for his app 10 times and noticed that ads for gambling apps showed up on three visits. Marco Arment, the developer of the podcast app Overcast, said on Twitter he's "really not OK with" the gambling ads showing up on his app product page. Another user replied to Arment's tweet, noting that the App Store is even showing gambling ads beneath apps designed specifically to help users recover from a gambling addiction, while another noticed gambling ads have even popped up on children's education apps.
Not sure we should have legalized sports gambling (Score:3)
I think that's the difference. You never used gambling as a political tool to deny people the right to vote like we did with the drug wars so that you could have small scale gambling and people could get their fix but you didn't have the professional gambling outside of Vegas and a few Indian casinos.
The problem is there's going to be way too much money involved and so too much misinformation to really make a good call on whether it should have been legalized.
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There are two kinds of gambling. When it is and when it isn't. In the first case, you're playing against the house and the house is always going to win and you are always going to lose. In the second case, the answer about the game of chance is "Not the way I play" and if you aren't the shark then you're just part of the bait. Limiting it to sports gambling would focus on accessing insider knowledge? But the government-sponsored lotteries are especially offensive as a special tax on people who are bad at ma
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When it comes to lotteries, well, I'll admit to buying a ticket when the jackpot maxes out. Why? Because a couple of hours of entertainment from the daydreaming is worth the $6 ticket price to me. I know I won't win, but it's fun to dream about, and probably better for my health than another pint of beer.
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When it comes to lotteries, well, I'll admit to buying a ticket when the jackpot maxes out. Why? Because a couple of hours of entertainment from the daydreaming is worth the $6 ticket price to me. I know I won't win, but it's fun to dream about, and probably better for my health than another pint of beer.
Why not just daydream that your uncle is going to win and give you a bunch of his winnings? The chance is the same, and you get to save yourself a few bucks.
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Every time you buy a lottery ticket under the pretenses he did, he's specifically hoping he can directly profit from the weakness of the incompetent masses. It's hardly different than standing outside a school for special children and suckering them out of their lunch money or favorite toys.
When people buy lottery tickets because the power of suggestion convinced them is a rational
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I'm like this, get a couple tickets when jackpots are high. 6 bucks, maybe once a month, if that.
People spend more on sugary beetus-laden drinks, let me have my small sliver of fun dammit.
Plus, if I heard that someone won buying from my local store at roughly the time I thought to go, but didn't, I'd be broken.
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and the referee can keep the game into the covering the spread zone.
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Not clear on your point here, but I don't know that much about sports-related gambling. Are you saying that the referees are working for the house? Directly or indirectly?
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In the end they probably will get their recession but it'll take longer and have fewer impacts. Also it's hard to cause a recession with Democrats in the White House let alone Democrats and control of Congress even to the extent that they are today. 750 billion in infrastructure is about to hit the e
Re: Not sure we should have legalized sports gambl (Score:2)
Also it's hard to cause a recession with Democrats in the White House let alone Democrats and control of Congress even to the extent that they are today. 750 billion in infrastructure is about to hit the economy after all.
What we're currently experiencing is stagflation. What you just mentioned here contributes to it.
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Also it's hard to cause a recession with Democrats in the White House let alone Democrats and control of Congress even to the extent that they are today. 750 billion in infrastructure is about to hit the economy after all.
On the other hand if the Republicans take the House of Representatives over they've already said they plan to play chicken with the debt ceiling. If you're not familiar what that means is they're going to threaten to not pay the United States government bills which would cause a global economic crash. They won't do it but they might go a few weeks without cutting checks like they have in the past and that will spook the markets.
So how bad the recession is we'll come down to who wins the house. And if the Dems hold the house and the Senate we probably won't see a real recession. at least not until voters get stupid again and put the Republicans in charge because it's time for a change...
lol, partisan bulsh". [history.com] Both parties are screwing over the economy, stop pretending your favorite team is the lesser of two evils. If you root for D or R exclusively, you're fucking up your country.
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>But the government-sponsored lotteries are especially offensive as a special tax on people who are bad at math. In theory the government should have provided better education about how math works...
Sometimes the expected value of a bet is more than the bet. This happens in some big lotteries. In such cases, buying a ticket or two is logical and supported by game theory. Spending your whole life savings is not (but requires a deeper than superficial analysis).
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I file that under "Not the way I play."
However in general lotteries are selling hope to suckers. But the only bankable part of the hope is the money the losers paid for their tickets, while all the media coverage goes to the few winners.
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>I file that under "Not the way I play."
Nope. If you actually do the math, lottos expected value can be over $1 per $1 input.
You still aren't likely to win, but the Maths are with you!
Have you every studied any game theory?
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Yes, I am aware of that inversion situation that can occur, but it is most often exploited by serious mathematicians. Essentially the normal rules can be broken in that case, but the gamesters exploit it by buying LOTS of lottery tickets for combinations that few other people are likely to pick. If the winnings get split, then they'd wind up back in losing territory again. I wish I could recall the name, but I think there is a female mathematician who has won major prizes in a string of lotteries by harvest
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>Yes, I am aware of that inversion situation that can occur, but
So, tell me you were wrong without telling me you were wrong. Nice going but nope.
I said:
"Sometimes the expected value of a bet is more than the bet. "
You said:
"I file that under "Not the way I play.""
Then you come back with:
", but I think there is a female mathematician who has won major prizes in a string of lotteries by harvesting the over-ripe ones."
So, which is it? Am I right or wrong? I'd like you to tell me because you have
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I'm not saying the house never makes a mistake, but when that happens the house will immediately fix the rules to make sure the house keeps on winning over the long haul. The case you described is quite an interesting one from a mathematical perspective. The house is never in actual jeopardy and cannot lose money. My fuzzy interpretation (and I am absolutely NOT a real mathematician notwithstanding all the advanced math courses I took) is that the odds are distorted by a kind of recalculation. Essentially t
Re: Not sure we should have legalized sports gambl (Score:2)
Honestly you sound like a Stalinist with this rant. Not joking or trolling here, being totally honest. Nobody needs you, or even a real politician for that matter, telling them what activities you consider to be wholesome for society. I don't gamble, I just don't really care for it, and mathematically it's pretty stupid. But people have the right to do stupid things if that's what they want to do. Take your communofaschist crap to Cuba if that pisses you off.
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people have the right to do stupid things if that's what they want to do.
I wonder what is your stance on drugs.
Re: Not sure we should have legalized sports gamb (Score:2)
Exactly the same
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What I find strange about this that the argument seems to come from strange places on the political spectrum.
We have three big addictive activities in the population:
1. Alcohol
2. Drugs
3. Gambling
The left is usually against gambling (and this is not communism, it is out of a concern for general welfare), while the right is usually against drugs (and can be a bit of racism, too). Only puritans are against alcohol.
One key question is how much damage these addictions do to the lives of individuals and to societ
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You are understating the problem and I don't understand why you split alcohol away from the other drugs. More reasonable to divide it between physical and mental addictions.
However I think the key is in the same part of the brain. It's just that some people are more easily locked into obsessive or addictive behaviors than other people. That's before the training phase. Unfortunately I'm now convinced that it's not difficult to train or indoctrinate people to make them weaker and more easily manipulated via
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Not really sure why you are separating Alcohol from Drugs.
Alcohol is a drug.
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There's a fourth addictive. It is the worst.
And you either know what it is or you're oblivious to it's true impact on all of us.
May the dopamine hits keep on keepin on.
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Could it be.... SATAN?!?
LOL the Pope was just complaining... even nuns look at pr0n... hey! Big guy! Get out of those web logs!
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The problem of course is how games are specifically designed to get you addicted. And not just gambling games. [slashdot.org]
So they are designed to control and oppress, taking your freedom and making you kind of a slave to the game. We've outlawed slavery here in the USA, so of course we need to regulate gambling (and every other form of oppression) if we want to optimize freedom for all.
Re: Not sure we should have legalized sports gamb (Score:2)
A lot of things are addicting, whether they're designed to be it or not. There is such thing as a pathological addiction to sex for example.
This is one of those things that separates individualism from collectivism. Individualists say "do what you want, but both the rewards and the consequences are on you" where collectivists say "everyone belongs to everyone else, and if one thing is harmful to some people, then nobody gets it"
we had "river boats" for an log time (Score:2)
we had "river boats" for an log time
they used to go out on trips then latter fixed in doc then just needed to be over an small bit of water in an building to no river or water needed.
and added sports betting windows / kiosks that take real cash bills.
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Sports are made to keep stupid people out of important matters.
If we can tax the stupid people while keeping them locked up in arenas during predictable times, I'm not sure there is a problem.
Oslo Norway is really rocking this idea. There's a big stadium which they've surrounded by housing, hotels and bars with no parking. It means any time there is a game, for the rest of the night, thousands of stupid people are concentrated into one area and the o
iOS Game Ads suck in general (Score:2)
The gambling ads are terrible, but the latest batch of "You are a king, download our sleazy medieval roleplaying app get yourself a harem of sex slaves!" ads that have been showing up recently are even worse. How Apple lets this slide is beyond me, there are kids playing this stuff on their parent's phones.
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Pretty sure I've seen that ad alternating with the guns ad. Just came across an interesting but old read on the topic. It's called Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill by Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano. Mostly blaming the social problems on the glorification of violence in games, on TV, and in movies.
Re: iOS Game Ads suck in general (Score:2)
And, there have been studies showing the opposite.
Bigger concern to me was watching a 5 year old reach into his parentâ(TM)s minivan at the end of family night and pretend to shoot everyone inside gangland style.
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I can't yet figure out what the studies really show, but this particular book is emphasizing the desensitizing "normalization" of violence. On that basis I largely blame the disaster porn for more eyeballs that is driving so much of the so-called news programs these years. But you seem to be pointing at a real-world example.
But my eyes may be failing. At first I thought you were making a joke about the Korean dance video from a few years back. Gangnum style? But now I can't even remember if that video inclu
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Don't forget all the apps of "move the arrows down the walkway", and other banal stuff, with some crazy per-week subscription cost to kill ads, in addition to all the powerups. Lots of app companies want to be the next MOBA or other game that people throw thousands a month at, so they charge the fees... but definitely don't want to put the content in to do so.
As for gambling, it needs to be in a category similar to pr0n -- present, but something that one explicitly opts into. It shouldn't be something thr
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I think that most people have trained their brains to mentally filter-out ads most of the time. Its part of why advertising this way is famously ineffective, and also why sites (including Slashdot) keep trying ever more tricks to force you to fight to keep your attention on the content you care about.
I am seeing ads here on slashdot physically creep up from the bottom of the page on top of the content now and then, again to try and force itself on me. I only see this in Chrome on Windows. When I use Fire
Unconsciously ignoring ads is a disease. (Score:2)
I wonder if I can sue the ad companies for this disease they have inflicted on me.
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there are kids playing this stuff on their parent's phones.
How poignant. Every adult was a child -- adult's are playing this stuff on their own phones.
Ah, no problem (Score:3)
Don't use the Apple app store, use a third party app store or sideload them.
Oooh wait, I forgot: you can't because you love Apple's closed ecosystem so much!
Oh well, you'll have to suffer inane ads in the middle of your apps now, but at least Apple devices are completely 200% immune to hacking and malware. So it's totally worth it.
Old News... (Score:3)
It's old news that ads are inappropriately or recklessly served. The only new thing is that it is Apple. Some would say a reason they choose Apple is to avoid just this king of behavior; and yet here we are... Once revenue/profit/growth takes a dip let the ads begin!
I fought against this for years in a school district. Many free "educational" game sites were/are heavily ad supported and our web filter made most of them unusable because it blocked most of the add content. I showed a few administrators the experience without the content filter in place (ads gambling, cruise ships, viagra etc.) and they quickly sided with IT when we refused to whitelist many "educational" content sites.
Gambling Ads only on 18+ Apps. (Score:2)
Simple solution.
In all/most countries gambling is illegal for anyone under 18, so only allow these ads to be shown on apps that have an 18+ rating.
(One can dream)
Re: Gambling Ads only on 18+ Apps. (Score:2)
Oh, so you're okay with Apple having this kind of age data about you? What other information should they be allowed and still claim to be the bastion of privacy?
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If you want to buy 18+ apps, they have your age data. If they don't have your age data, you can't buy 18+ apps, and you should not see these ads, ever.
Not sure what kind of argument you're trying to make.
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On iOS they don't need your actual age. There's a setting where you can just filter by the app's age rating. 18+, 12+, 9+, and I think 4+ or something. No real age required.
I am amazed at the "maturity level" of ads that are on games that claim to be 9+ or 4+ though... must be an odd loophole where the ad "ratings" are not vetted the same as the rating for the game itself.
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I wasn't aware of that, and that sounds.. Really bad.
Like it or not having a good ad platform means hav (Score:3)
The more Apple gets into the business the more it's going to look like Google. The reason Google delivers so much revenue from ads is that they can be very targeted because they know so much about you.
So Apple is going to have to either choose to continue to suck or get off their high horse and stop pretending that they don't have information on users.
If only Apple tracked you (Score:2)
Then Apple would know you don't want to see gambling ads, right? Like, you would never see this on the Google ad store, I mean play store.
There are ads? (Score:2)
Frankly, if you ignore the advertisements, there's not a whole lot in the app stores. I dislike ads intensely, but the change in the Apple app store has been an additional key press to get to updates, which is my only reason to access the store for the last few years.
Ignoring them is simple. Ignore the ads, and they aren't offensive.
But if your main reason to visit the app store is to see who has what advertisement in place, it is a distraction when you get a "bad ad" in your mix.