Originally Posted by redietz View Post
LOL. Bob21, sounds as if you should be living here with me, on the eastern Tennessee border, intersecting southern Virginia and western North Carolina. You'd fit right in with all of the tobacco execs.

You may have mistaken me for someone who buys into the casino model as just your average, everyday business using the proper, societally approved capitalist means of attracting and keeping customers.

If you want to debate what is or isn't addicting, I suggest someone other than me. Someone with real expertise in addiction. Maybe get in touch with those who have spent a lifetime scientifically studying it. I'm sure you can hold your own. I suggest, as a starting point, reading "Addiction By Design" by Natasha Dow Schull. After you've read it, you can contact her at natasha.schull@nyu.edu or give her a call. You can then post your debate with her right here for all to appreciate. If things don't go well with her, I have a friend in the neuroscience med school at ETSU who just got a couple of large grants. He's been studying addiction for more than a decade now -- he might be willing to debate you, also. But not during basketball season -- he likes his hoops.

Anyway, good luck in your debates. I'll ask you every month or so how the debates are going for you, just as a motivation.

P.S. In case anyone is wondering my attitude regarding casinos as businesses, I'm of the same mind as Erik Killmonger in the movie, Black Panther. "We're gonna burn them. Burn 'em all." I'm also good with the finale of Stephen King's "The Stand."
Redietz, you went off on a what is an “addiction” tangent. Please reread my post. That wasn’t my point in making my post. It was you poking fun of the phase “unnecessary guest inducements”. There is no reason to poke fun at this practice since all companies do this. That’s just smart business. Once you get a customer hooked on your product, then it makes sense to stop or reduce the “inducements”. If a customer will use your product with or without these “inducements”, why should a company keep incurring this expense?

As far as arguing if casinos are different than other businesses they aren’t in the fundamental aspect that their purpose is to make money for their shareholders. This is why all businesses exists. If they didn’t make money, they wouldn’t exists. It’s that simple. It’s another debate arguing over the methods any business uses to make money. If you think it’s wrong for a company to stop or reduce inducements to their loyal customers than most businesses are guilty as charged.

Back to my point. All well run business back off of their incentives once they get their customers loyal (or “addicted” using your preferred word) to their product. In the case of casinos, that product is gambling: