The only working moral on this mortal coil is a dose of empathy for your fellow human (and if you can bring yourself to it: your fellow animal). It doesn't require a new mental model, just proper stewardship.
And yes, most religions have weighed in on gambling as most societies have been shaped by religion. Secularism is a recent thing.
> Secularism is a recent thing.
Sokrates and Buddha would like a word.
Socrates and Buddha were 2,500 years ago and I don’t think I’d describe them as being secularists. Secularism is something that came out of the Enlightenment, in the West at least. It is absolutely a recent thing for the purposes of the discussion.
The Quran, which id consider among those as a "Holy book" condemns gambling pretty outright multiple times.
No doubt it was. Workers were alienated before the industrial revolution too, and we were already emitting CO2 before the 1950s, but the scale of the problem changed in a very impactful way.
Of course I doubt we can get reliable statistics from 1920s, but I don't think you should disregard their argument just because it was happening before. Gambling is as old as numbers, and it's not going to go away, but we can still look for the factors that drastically increased the magnitude of the issue.
> most religions have weighed in on gambling as most societies have been shaped by religion
I don't know if it comes verbatim from the Bible, but there are many denominations that find that gambling is sinful. Direct prohibitions from the scripture aren't the only source of religious rules - especially for secular questions.
As another example, many denominations have strict rules against alcohol - despite the many positive stories about alcohol in the bible and the role of wine during communion.
"The [Hindu] text Arthashastra (c. 4th century BCE) recommends taxation and control of gambling."
"The Buddha stated gambling as a source of destruction in Singalovada Sutra. Professions that are seen to violate the precept against theft include working in the gambling industry."
Instead of asking a lazy question as a challenge, you could have spent 3 seconds looking this up. It wasn't particularly hard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling#Religious_views
Reincarnation, the soul, karma, etc aren't exactly compatible with materialistic secularism.
The largest Christian denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, teaches that, while games of chance aren't intrinsically evil (ie running an MC simulation), and low stakes gambling is allowed (raffle), gambling must be
- fair. That's obvious
- even odds for all participants
Presumably, no house advantage
- not be pathological
You cannot play if you're addicted to gambling, have an addictive personality, or often that an addiction could arise
- not involve very high stakes as the money would have been better spent on the poor
No $10 000/hand table.
Including GaTech, a top5 eng school, that requires an A average to get in.
Source: dealing with undergrads complaining about their grades and their effect on their scholarship.
EDIT: I agree with what you maybe claiming that "education" does not justify legal gambling. And you're certainly right that most states abuse this argument and the fungible nature of money to just slosh money around.
EDIT: the lotto money is put in a fund that goes to pre-K programs and scholarships. The average required to keep the scholarship is set by the fund's size.