zlacker

The UK sort of had this for a while via "The Tote" - set up in the 1920s by the UK government, it ran stores that took sports bets, had a presence at almost all horse races etc providing safe/legitimate services.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tote

It operated alongside other private operators, but was entirely State owned and operated until it was privatized in 2011. I forget the specifics of it, but the Tote uses (or at least used to) some kind of "pool betting" model that meant it didn't profit directly from customers losing bets, being agnostic about the results was meant to reduce predatory pressures etc.

I think this likely helped a lot to give those who wanted to gamble somewhere they could always trust to honor the arrangement and avoid "underground" operators, I don't know that it helped all that much in reducing the social harms etc though.