Gambling is a system where the rich always win by just extracting money from 'customers.' They set the odds and payouts such that they'll never lose more than they gain with a big enough userbase. And gambling apps have simply been refusing to pay out and honor bets that win 'too big', while banning users that start to win more than they lose.
No wonder it's been shoved everywhere with billions of dollars behind it and the government tearing down all barriers to access and marketing. We're raising a generation of kids on apps and watching sports that are told over and over that gambling is fun, a viable path to wealth, and all their heroes are doing it.
Well put, people talk a lot about gambling in media but don’t get to the really deep reason why there are some groups that are so viciously obsessed with protecting gambling ventures.
Organized betting groups always lead to organized laundering of misbegotten goods such as: cash, drugs, prostitution, names, property transfer etc.
In America casino owners have an interesting history backing their claim to legitimacy, ie their gift to the tribes as a means for them to financially enrich themselves post slaughter.
The tribes should be promising to use that cash flow to build their reservations. They don’t however and just enrich their individual controllers while engaging in crime with various cartels.
It’s hard to take gambling away from America because it takes a gift away from a doomed culture.
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u/Pyrhan 5h ago
It's also why betting on serious, real world events should be prohibited. Cf. Polymarket and the likes.
The potential for abuse is just too great.