Question inspired by the news that Dave and Busters is supposed to be adding gambling to their games. And of course there are the sports betting apps.
I get that all things being equal we should let people do what they want to do. But I don’t see much of a benefit, and a lot of downside to allowing the spread of gambling.
The answer to regulatory capture isn’t prohibition though, because prohibition essentially means unregulated.
Prohibition is effectively the same as a tax on gambling from the point of view of gamblers, but the tax is just the additional effort people have to spend to not get caught or fines when they do. The difference is there’s no tax revenue for the governing authority to redistribute, fines go almost exclusively to pay for enforcement.