Do you feel lucky? Do you? Almost everyone’s gambled at some point in his life, laying down money on everything from lottery tickets to Vegas poker tables. The thrill of chasing that elusive jackpot has turned gambling into a multi-billion-dollar industry, but there’s a personal risk that comes with every wager. With nearly 500 casinos currently open for business in the U.S. has legalized gambling gone too far?
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Prohibition Is Arbitrary
- From Reason Foundation
By Reason Foundation - Free Minds and Free Markets
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Since people aren't perfect we should help them be worse?
This argument suggests because humans have some addictive tendencies, gambling promoters should be unleashed to they can addict all possible victims.
One might not that compulsive shoppers don't generally lose their homes and wind up suicidal or imprisoned from their affliction. Certainly alcohol and other drugs are a problem in this country. Roughly half of all crimes leading to imprisonment in this country are related in some manner to alcohol and other drugs. We have more of our citizens behind bars than any other civilized country – currently about 1 percent of our adult population.
To suggest that what we really need is one more way to destroy peoples’ lives because alcohol, drugs and compulsive behavior has not yet ruined them all is the height (or depth) of cynicism.
- Coalition Against Legalized Gambling July 31, 2008 8:40PM
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Since people aren't perfect, we shouldn't decide what others can do
"This argument suggests because humans have some addictive tendencies, gambling promoters should be unleashed to they can addict all possible victims"
You're forgetting one important thing here. Who is the "victim?" People choose to gamble, no one forces them to do so. Gambling inherently involves risk, as do so many other things in life. The same goes with alcohol and cigarettes - they are advertised and those ads paint them as fun, great things to do. Still, many people know enough not to drink or smoke, as there are risks!
It comes down to choice and personal responsibility. If you are going to gamble, drink or smoke, or whatever, no one is going to hold a gun to your head and make you do so. Criminalize gambling, however, and you'll quickly find people putting guns to peoples' heads in order to force them not to gamble! It's the old "if you can't save yourself from yourself, I'll do whatever it takes to save you from yourself, even if my doing so hurts you worse than the behavior you originally engaged in." Unfortunately, that's the mindset of many do-gooder Americans. And look at the problems they've wrought.
- PSYOP
September 18, 2008 1:50PM
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