Should Gambling be Legal?

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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.

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The point is that prohibiting an activity is not justified simply because some people engage in it to excess. In this regard, there is no principled distinction between gambling and any other source of pleasure (or stress relief) that can become the focus of an addiction, including alcohol and other drugs, junk food, sex, pornography, shopping, video games, TV, the Internet, and even exercise. All of these things can be carried to a point where they endanger one's physical, psychological, social, or economic well-being, although typically that is not the case. In a free society, restrictions should not be imposed on everyone for the sake of the small minority who suffer because they fail to exercise self-control.