Sports betting should be banned. As should be government sponsored lotteries. They all are diseases that destroy lives. - Disney goes full steam antisocial disease: ESPN plunges into sports betting in deal that is complicated by parent Disney trying to preserve its family-friendly image. - https://fortune.com/2023/08/08/espn-sports-betting-deal-disney/
Well it's a vice, so banning it is about the same as alcohol prohibition.
And we saw how well that worked.
@volkris The discussion isn't about all gambling, it's about organized sports gambling with all its collateral damage on the sports themselves, and government-operated lotteries, etc. which specifically prey on the people least able to afford it.
I do agree about keeping government out of it, but same way I agree with keeping government out of selling liquor.
It's a vice and it's bad for people, but at the end of the day it's up to people to choose for themselves how to spend their lives and I would not tell people they can't gamble anymore than I would tell them they can't drink alcohol.
I'm opposed to government being involved with it positively, but I also wouldn't use government to impose my values on other people by taking it away from them.
Like I said, prohibition showed some pretty serious negative effects from trying to impose values back in the day.
@volkris But the governments ARE involved directly. They are OPERATING AND PROMOTING those lotteries. And they mainly advertise in the poorest parts of town. They are promoting a disease that can be as damaging as alcoholism. Sports gambling has a long and sordid history much worse than many other aspects of gambling. It is the function of government not to permit the exploitation of people based ignorance of the underlying realities. The government doesn't advertise and promote booze (at least in the U.S.) Alcoholism and gambling addiction destroys not only the person you say "makes their own decision" but also their families, their friends, and with enormous monetary and other costs to society. I have SEEN this with my own eyes occur to people I have known. HAVE YOU?
Yep, so I would definitely get government out of selling both alcohol and lottery tickets.
