The Bitcointalk 'community' has a gambling problem. It's usually not my style, but maybe the poor victims need to learn a lesson? The previous entire month was dominated by discussions about pirate this, pirate that, and the latest ways to make easy money.
If anything, MNW has done everyone a massive favour by "throwing a spanner in the works" and bringing attention to the fact that if you're here to gamble, you should go to effing rehab instead of meddling with Bitcoin. It's the idiots who keep getting robbed that give Bitcoin a bad name, not individuals like MNW. Now I don't even know the guy, but I feel compelled to stand for him because:
1) as I understand it, he didn't actually take anyone's money.
2) he seems to run a business, and I generally have far more respect for entrepreneurial types than gamblers,
3) he's clever enough to teach people in practical ways, including trolling, whereas most other people (including myself) just rant when we're right.
4)If the Bitcoin experiment is to thrive, it requires MORE entrepreneurs, and LESS idiot gamblers.
People betting against Matthew weren't "gambling." I placed a bet, and I never gamble. They were, as Matthew said, "putting their money where their mouth is" about their belief that pirateat40 and other HYIP's were likely ponzis and scams. Considering what was happening with BTCS&T at the time, the "gambling" here was about as much "gambling" as betting that you can punch a baby in the face an steal it's candy. There were no risks involved, and most of the bets were statements that BTCS&T was nothing but a scam.
It's too bad that Matthew decided to take the other side of that bet.
It was only much later that trolls, who saw a very obvious one-sided bet (pirateat40 had already defaulted), swarmed in and started betting like crazy. Even then, when your odds are 100% to 0% that you will win the bet, that's not exactly gambling any more.