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Addiction Markets

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387 points toomuchtodo | 1 comments | 31 Oct 25 17:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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Humorist2290 ◴[31 Oct 25 23:50 UTC] No.45777973[source]▶

  But if you want to outlaw this harmful activity [licensed gambling], you have to find a way to replace 6.4% of Maryland’s budget, which is slightly less than the entire amount the state brings in from corporate taxes.
A fraction of the proceeds of losing bets from a fraction of Maryland's citizens contributes almost the same to state services -- EMS, education, road maintenance, etc -- than the total corporate taxes levied on all businesses.

Do I misunderstand, or is this just actually incredible?

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TimByte ◴[01 Nov 25 10:50 UTC] No.45780682[source]▶
A state is funding essential public services not through productive economic activity, but by extracting money from people losing bets
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rcpt ◴[01 Nov 25 14:39 UTC] No.45781963[source]▶
Taxing productive economic activity is bad
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1. stouset ◴[01 Nov 25 17:29 UTC] No.45783504[source]▶
Having a government tax base funded significantly from the exploitation of addictive behavior and siphoning money away from productive consumptive purposes is also bad, but less easy to make a sound bite from.