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.
That's prohibition.
If gamblers want to gamble, is not seeing the 30 second video ad the only thing stopping them?
Limiting gambling ads the same way might be a good step.
It's hard to fully prohibit gambling (because you can play poker around a table, and it's better if that's legalized). It's much easier to prohibit banks from interacting with casinos and TV networks from letting them advertise, as those are large businesses who want to be compliant. That doesn't make gambling itself illegal, but cuts off most of its oxygen.
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?
On top of that, sports betting inevitably leads into match fixing, threatening of players etc.
I believe that I, as a responsible adult, should be allowed to gamble for entertainment if I want to, and my right to do that shouldn't be taken away because a small minority of the population has low impulse control.
Legalized gambling establishments do very little besides extract money from visitors and project negative externalities into their surroundings.
> I believe that I, as a responsible adult, should be allowed to gamble for entertainment if I want to, and my right to do that shouldn't be taken away because a small minority of the population has low impulse control.
You can believe that, and be correct in theory. In practice, the "small minority" doesn't appear to be small enough under the current regulatory regime.
It's no different than the regulation of controlled substances and other vices. Or do you have an issue with that as well, and feel you should have the right to consume as much heroin as you want?
Regardless, I don't think we should stretch the metaphor between gambling and drugs too far. They are fundamentally different things.
You are on an extreme fringe to put it mildly. It is your right to hold that opinion, but it also means that there's no real point in discussing this with you from what I can tell.
Recognizing this fact isn't treating them like children, it's treating them like the adults they are.
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.
Prohibition was a mistake and it goes a long way of sorting how people will act stupid regardless