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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

There are a number of things that cycle because the solution ends up being successful enough that the next generation doesn't realize there is a problem being solved. Chesterton's Fence, except on a generational timescale it's Chesterton's Oscillating Fence.

100% squashing gambling has generally not been successful, but the strategy of fencing it away from most of society and keeping it in a set of defined places that require people to actively seek it out has been successful enough that people forget why we don't allow gambling in every convenience store in the country. I'd say the additional "convenience" of having it in your pocket all the time is a new nuance, but doesn't necessarily change the fundamental equations.

We will relearn. Our grandchildren will forget again. (Unless things have really changed.)

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> we don't allow gambling in every convenience store in the country

In Ontario we do allow gambling in every convenience store in the province.

There are scratch tickets right there on the counter. There's the OLG machine for printing and checking lottery tickets and sports betting.

It has been this way for as long as I can remember, but it's never been in your face like the last few years.

Maybe we'll start repurposing the washrooms and stock rooms for poker tournaments soon.

Yes, same in the US. States like to lecture us on gambling when they are the biggest operators out there.

States operate gambling so that there is no profit motive in running it. That's the theory for it anyway.

What? States make buckets of money from gambling. They typically claimed it was "for education" but money is fungible and our other taxes never went down, so anything it offsets in one budget just leaves more money for other budgets.

Read my second sentence again.

I read your second sentence but I don't get it. Isn't generating profit for the state literally the entire point of the lottery? Who is arguing that it doesn't do that in theory or practice?

Profit motive implies profit maximization behavior or mandates. A state-run lottery should not have that. Again, in theory.

The real reason they can do it is they (the state) have a monopoly on violence and you don't.

Or that they have a monopoly on lawmaking.

Nobody is going to start a violent revolution over lottery tickets.

If they actually operated in a disinterested way, sure, but how many different forms of advertising do you see the lotto being promoted in? Doesn't seem disinterested to me.

Lottery tickets at least avoid the worst aspects of the real time feedback that things like slot machines can give. Though scratchoffs certainly get closer.

I do hold out some hope that in this pendulum swing we can land at least for a while on banning state sponsored gambling, though. It'll come back. Too appealing to keep down forever, unfortunately. I like to say it's a good exercise to sit down and really think about the difference between "organized crime" and a "government" but when a "government" does things like zealous defense of its gambling monopoly it does rather weaken the distinction....

I can't shake sonething I read in one of Terry Pratchett's books. In it, a character convinces a barbarian horde that it is a bad idea to descend on farmers, kill them all, and take their belongings. It is better to keep them alive, and collect 30% of their belongings each year perpetually. The connection between politics and crime is very close.

> Our grandchildren will forget again.

Look at the birthrates and economic trajectory of the world. The grandchildren won't have the luxury of forgetting. They'll be living in the rubble.

Widespread gambling is negative sum.

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