Gambling Brings Addiction
When exploitive gambling appears in a community, it brings a wave of addiction. In a mature commercial or government-sponsored gambling market, compulsive gambling typically seizes the lives of 1.5% to 2.5% of the adult population. That amounts to three to five times the number of people suffering from cancer.
“Gambling is an addictive behavior, make no mistake about it . . . Gambling has all the properties of a psychoactive substance, and again, the reason is that it changes the neurochemistry of the brain.”
The American Psychiatric Association says between 1% and 3% of the U.S. population is addicted to gambling, depending on location and demographics. Youth have even higher addiction rates, between 4% and 8%.
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The question was "should gambling be legal?" not "should exploitative gambling be legal?"
Gambling should be regulated, not banned.
Furthermore, the stock market is a form of gambling that happens to be extremely addictive for some. But banning that would cause the economy to collapse, so... where do you stand on gambling, really?
Yes, gambling can be addictive but so can alcohol and smoking to an even greater degree. Smoking actually kills – yet it is legal. By the way, how about those people who literally eat their way into their graves. Perhaps then we should make binge eating, excessive drinking and smoking illegal. Should we go back to the days of Prohibition? Obviously that was a failure which had tremendous unforeseen consequences. People should be in control of their own lives. It is true that there are people who have addictive personalities, but more of us do not. Should the many be made to suffer for the disorders of the few?