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Comment by atombath | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering why gambling(except for lotteries and casinos, etc.) was made illegal? Was it a 'we must protect people from themselves' type of law? Or a 'casinos have lobbied for protection of their business' type of law? Or 'this type of industry requires regulation but its too damn expensive to regulate' type of law?

I say this as the guy who consistently makes fun of the lottery while also buying video game 'this is totally not gambling either' loot chests.

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It's a religion thing here in the US. Large Christian churches (Methodist for example) are against gambling on moral grounds, fight addictions, personal weakness, avarice, etc. Since money and an ability to get members to turn out to vote run everything in American politics, you end up with many states banning gambling on "moral grounds".

About 8 years ago where I live they wanted to built a horse racing track and we regularly got flyers from the anti-horse-racing group(local giant church) that claimed gambling brings crime, alcoholism, and prostitution to any community that allows it.

http://www.gambleonline.co/religious-views-of-gambling/

http://www.gotquestions.org/gambling-sin.html

Gambling is also strictly regulated in China, Japan, Muslim countries, Russia, and good chunks of Europe, and that's just the countries/regions I checked, I'm sure there are others. A local religion-based explanation is at best an incomplete picture of why people object to gambling. Like many aspects of civilization where the code happens to live in religion, it probably is corrosive to civilized behavior, because it seems like all successful civilizations put substantial regulations on it. (As cause and effect is hard to tease apart that's about all I can establish in an HN post.) Given the high frequency with which gambling is deregulated and then often very quickly reregulated (by the standards of government regulation motion, anyhow), it is hard to believe all of those cultures are reacting to irrational, unrealistic concerns.

It's something of a relic of the resurgence of Puritan-esque positions from the 2nd Great Awakening. You get the abolitionism and the women's rights, but you have to take the prohibition and the frowning and finger-shaking at anybody that's trying to enjoy themselves along with it.

Gambling is an entertainment industry that, without strict regulation, quickly devolves into crime.

(It is not unique in that respect.)

Pre-regulation gambling was often for much higher stakes. Gambling in modern times is for fairly low stakes in comparison. Legalized casinos are supposed to control the amount that people lose and keep it to reasonable values.

Second, that was a time where households relied on a single male breadwinner. If that man became a gambling addict, it destroyed not only his future, but the future of his wife and children as well. So much the same as the Temperance movement, anti-gambling laws were aimed at protecting the entire family.

Where I live (Québec in Canada) the government has a crown corporation that has a monopoly on gambling. Competition is illegal because it would make the government lose revenues.

Publicly run gambling is interesting. I mean, a bookie is a bookie, but it seems a safer bet if your bookie is a publicly accountable institution.

Until you realize that the "muscle" coming to collect is your local law enforcement..

There's no "muscle" to "collect" if you pay your fee in advance.

Yes, also: profits from the operation are going to the state, which presumably puts them to better use than the local gangster.

One should always endeavor to enrich the most powerful gangster around, so giving the money to the state makes sense

Depends on how you look at it. Where I live the mobsters returned a much larger share of the betting as prizes, back when it was called the "numbers racket". The state doesn't actually get that much, but the company they hired to administer the lottery does.

I think the idea of state monopolies over "vices" (see also, government-run liquor stores) is to remove the profit incentive from running these businesses while still providing legal options for customers so they don't enrich criminals.

EDIT: to address the sibling comment. if companies that manage the monopolies earn a fixed fee rather than per-unit, the non-profit motive is still attained.

Regulated online poker is mostly being fought by the brick and mortar casino industry to protect their revenue.

You want it to be regulated, and the government also needs to be able to collect tax revenue from it.

and not be used for obvious money laundering scenarios.

"Hey boss, Guido picked up the unsupervised merchandise off the back of our truck, but don't worry he just lost a $10000 bet on our blackjack table." (wink, wink)

> I'm wondering why gambling(except for lotteries and casinos, etc.) was made illegal?

Because the State can't stand the competition. Note that most numbers games (i.e., private lotteries) have better payout odds than the State lottery.

In many cases it was made illegal and state lotteries only created much later, so that explanation for why it was made illegal is not plausible.

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