That is one of the takes I've ever read. There is a reason gambling is so tightly regulated worldwide, and it's certainly not because governments hate easy vice tax revenue. Gambling debt destroys family units, increases poverty rates (most notably for the children of gambling addicts -- the consequences are not localised only to the person making the bad decisions), and increases violent crime rates. Gambling is massively detrimental to society. There can be arguments in allowing people to do things that are detrimental to society in the name of freedom, but it's not a great thing to pretend those detriments don't exist at all.