Sports gambling ads have ruined sports media. State lottery ads are even worse. The government should not spend money to encourage its own citizens to partake in harmful activities.
No.
If you want restrictions on gambling, on advertising it, on participating in it, on making money from it, you want to restrict individual liberty.
I want to restrict individual liberty, I have voted against gambling when it has come up for a vote in my state over and over.
You want to appear to be the type of person who wants to maintain individual liberty, but you in fact are not. You want to restrict individual liberty in the area of gambling.
I would also like to appear to be the type of person who wants to maintain individual liberty, and I will vote against gambling every single time it comes up.
No gambling.
Equating them as exactly the same doesn't serve your argument justice even if you do have a point with respect to the OP's "have their cake and eat it too" rhetorical flourish.
I want to restrict individual liberty.
Do you want to restrict advertising on gambling?
Banning gambling ads isn’t banning gambling. It’s just stopping corporations from pushing addictive behavior on people who didn’t consent to see it.
We banned cigarette ads for the same reason — harm and addiction.
Limiting corporate ad power protects individual liberty. I can choose to gamble if I want, but I shouldn’t have to fight off brainwashing every time I watch a game.
To ban advertising of gambling is to limit a liberty too, but the kind that substantially affects others. See also: dumping a bucketful of water on a passer-by, smoking in a crowded subway car, blaring super loud music outside at night time.
That second kind of liberty is and will always be limited in a society, voluntarily most of the time, because people want to be good neighbors, not harm each other.
Another problem here is the addiction. Advertising applesauce is one thing, advertising cocaine is another. For some people, gambling is more like cocaine, hampering their reason and forcing their hand in making choices. The freedom to advertise cocaine (and tobacco, alcohol, etc) inevitably gets limited in a society; if it does not, the society likely unravels.
Extreme example: I don't have individual liberty to murder or take things that aren't mine. So I'm ok with giving up at least 1 or 2 individual liberties. How many is enough, and who decides?
Or do we all just decide and that is the point of voting, not sure what you're trying to say.