alt Hacker NewsRemember when alcohol was illegal? Ahh, the remote, halcyon, bygone days of the 1920s.
How about we treat adults like they're adults and let them make their own choices?
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These are systems completely designed to prey on vulnerable people, addicts who can't control their impulse to gamble. That's their purpose. I think it's worth regulating intentionally predatory and harmful industries.
Let's combine the idea of hyper-targeted advertising based on mass data collection with custom tailored addicted substances.
If I design a chemical that will specifically make you fasterik so dependent on it that you'll do any sexually depraved things that a line up of random strangers want so that they'll give you pocket change so that you can get another hit of that chemical should it be illegal for me to surreptitiously give it to you in a product that you buy from me?
Why or why not?
I guess you also think we need to stop policing drunk driving? Because the reasons for regulating gambling are similar.
Adults can and do become addicted to gambling (and drugs, etc.) and ruin the lives of themselves and those around them.
Recognizing this fact isn't treating them like children, it's treating them like the adults they are.
There's a fine line between prohibition and all-out attack, everywhere all at once, from TV internet and sports, trying to get everyone addicted to gambling, from 9 to 99 years old.
Like... cigarretes aren't prohibited. But you're hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't agree that we're MUCH better off now with full advertising bans, indoor smoking bans, bans on sales to minors, steep tax, etc, than what we were in the 70s with disgusting cigarrete smoke everywhere.
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And yet you can't do a quick Google search to understand that "expecting adults to act like adults" is a ridiculous idea when 80% of people have NPC agency
Prohibition was a mistake and it goes a long way of sorting how people will act stupid regardless
> Remember when alcohol was illegal?
I don’t really gamble. But I agree with you. Prohibition is never the answer.
Our current regime, however, is one where bartenders face zero liability for their patrons’ drunk driving. Making gambling companies liable for problematic gambling is a good start. Banning gambling ads, within apps and without, is a great end. I’d also argue for a cap on bet sizes, but I’m open to being talked out of that.