alt Hacker NewsSo is alcohol - there are plenty of people who gamble responsibly and get enjoyment out of it. Taking away the entire thing rather than simply making sensible regulation and dealing with scumbag behavior by corporate bookies is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, not to mention extremely moralistic. And, in the end, prohibition never works - bookies still and always will exist.
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What do you mean prohibition never works? Are you really going to claim legalizing sports betting a few years ago DIDNT increase gambling in the US? This doesn't strike me as a good faith comment just a platitude
Sure, but if people, for example, started to declare bankruptcy due to gambling addiction, doesn't that mean that taxpayers like you and I are effectively subsidizing these gambling institutions?
That goes beyond moralism; most people don't want to pay higher taxes. I think that it's good that we have a safety-net for people who get into impossible levels of debt, but that does mean that we have an interest in figuring out ways to minimize how often bankruptcy is actually invoked.
> And, in the end, prohibition never works - bookies still and always will exist.
I don't think that's exactly true. Laws introduce varying degrees of friction for citizens to do something.
It's like entrepreneurship. If there are a bunch of laws in place making it hard to start a business, fewer people will start businesses. Some people will still create illegal businesses on the black market, but lots of law abiding citizens will just stop creating businesses because there's too much friction to bother.