Addiction Markets

These gambling businesses specifically target that 25M. You absolutely can make that much harder for businesses to do, and it will significantly reduce downstream misery.

This is the logic behind the war on drugs and we all saw how that turned out. Obviously there's nuance to be had as I think some vices, in both type and magnitude, are worse/more destructive than others. But crusades against vice rarely turn out well. Instead you'll see the same people huddled around in underground betting rooms and backroom card game tables where organized crime or just other muscle-for-hire are ready to break your knees for not paying your debt back.

There has to be more options than just the two you reference... not saying it’s easy, but we can’t just throw our hands up.

Yes but this article isn't it.

Using ideologically charged words like "corporate gambling" and "neoliberal origins" are fun ways to get the moral outrage going of market skeptics but they don't lead to good policy.

The boring answer is you need to look at how the owner of these instruments (since that's what most of these are) are making money. In the same way that a regulated exchange makes sure you're not dumping garbage onto order books, you need to make sure that the bets are fair and that there's generally positive EV. Prediction markets are a good example of this that isn't predatory but sports books are. Unfortunately this article, as is usual for most of the moral outrage genre, doesn't make this distinction.

I would not call the California strategy on drugs a success.

Dude, the war on gambling was going fine before it was legalized nationwide like 2 years ago. We don't have to have long memories to remember a time before omnipresent sports betting! It was fine!

Sports betting is only one form of gambling, so I have no idea what you're talking about. This article, like your post it seems, is conflating the two and mixing in vague assertions of corporations and whatnot to add a layer of emotion that serves more to manipulate than to elucidate.

There's always been gambling in my lifetime. There's been legal ones like Indian Casinos and Vegas. Then there's been the below board ones, the private blackjack games, the mahjong parlors in shady parts of town, lottery players (it's okay if the government profits off the losers I guess lol), etc

If this article were talking about banning sports books and adding in regulation around retail betting then sure that would be a fun discussion. But hyperbole like the article and your copious use of exclamation points doesn't inspire confidence.

Fyi, the Supreme Court case that opened the floodgates for sports gambling was decided in May 2018, 7.5 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiate_...

Yes, yes, referring to 7.5 as 2 is something called hyperbole.

The very recent complete nationwide legalization of sports betting is most of what people are mad about.

That's not what the article and a lot of commenters here are saying though. The article makes vague insinuations about "corporate gambling".

If you're just targeting sports books I think other than the folks making money from the industry, you'll find few fans. They offer predatory parlays with often outright negative EV or very high variance returns. They kick sophisticated money out they can find edges. They leave no room for above board players like market makers providing liquidity through efficiency.

I think a better article and discussion could emerge from just tackling the harms of sports books.