zlacker

>>jimbob+(OP)
Gambling is a vice, and we should allow it but make it expensive and somewhat stigmatized.

At the very least, ads should be banned or require nasty images like tobacco products.

>>datadr+3a
I have participated in a few meetings of some lottery boards, and I have heard that there is a tension here between the illegal market and the pricing of the legal market. Some states charge the (relatively low) commissions that the illegal market charges because they would prefer to stamp out the illegal market, and others take your position but have a thriving black market for gambling. Those are basically the two options.

>>pclmul+Ga
> Some states charge the (relatively low) commissions that the illegal market charges because they would prefer to stamp out the illegal market

Slight tangent, but I am now of the view the state should not be allowed to tax legal vices. (Drugs, gambling, alcohol primarily). The reason is it keeps pushing amazing conflicts of interest, and the state ends up incentivized to maintain the behavior it supposedly does not want.

Either [vice] is wrong and should be illegal, or is tolerated and regulated but in no way profited from by those that do the regulation.

>>fidotr+ld
I think the taxes thing is mainly to appease the voting public. People want the profits of the bad things to pay for the good things. It makes the ugly pill possible to swallow.

>>Workac+Le
The tempting comparison is the tendency, at least in England, for things like church maintenance fundraisers to be funded by lotteries, by another name (raffle). i.e. donate money, and you might win.

Either gambling is bad or it's not, but in practice people like to be incredibly selective about it, as here, where as you point out sports betting lacks the positive externalities which for some part of the population offset the negative effects.