So the ban has gone into effect and everyone on social media is whining about it. Some are saying the only people who want this are the casino lobbies and stuff, and given I basically have a position of "you should gamble in a casino", I wanted to reiterate my position.
Look, when i was growing up gambling outside of the lottery was BANNED in Pennsylvania. And I thought that was BS. I think gambling should be legal. And when it was legalized in 2006 I thought it was a good thing. In the 2010s, I started doing casual gambling at PA casino/racetracks like hollywood casino in harrisburg, parx in philadelphia, mohegan sun in wilkes barre, and delaware park in wilmington DE. I wouldnt gamble much, just like $5-10 on slots a day, maybe spend the day playing horses betting $2-4 a race, ya know, REAL casual stuff. Sometimes I'd win, sometimes I'd lose, I'd lose more than I win on average, but hey, as I like to say, cheap days out, all things considered. Cost less than going to see a movie or going to an amusement park, and I'll be getting to amusement parks later in a different article tonight.
But....I also had a lot of time to sit on the experience and think about the negatives with casinos. I mean, I'm intelligent. Like, I studied stats in college, I understand these places are there to make money. The house "always wins" in the long term, any wins you get from casinos are temporary and if you play long enough, they'll win their money back. The only winning move is really, not to play, or if you do get lucky, RUN while you're up.
But I also understand I'm not everyone. A lot of people develop gambling addictions and get pathological about them. They dont understand the odds and probabilities in the real world and they just keep throwing their money at the situation. Eventually they lose the house, they ruin their lives, they're blowing their brains out in the parking lot. And reading stories from casino employees on reddit, yeah, that stuff happens. I also notice that when people go, you get these slots zombies who will sit there throwing their money at the machines until they win, and you always hear about the wins, not the losses. I know my dad told me a story about my great grandma gambling so much at a casino in atlantic city back in the 1970s that the rest of the family had to intervene to make her stop. I mean, it happens. And the older I get, the more I kinda understand that, gee, the prohibitionists have a point. I mean, gambling IS a vice, it IS an addictive behavior, not everyone CAN resist the temptation, and while I certainly dont wanna go back to BANNING it outright, eh, I do believe it should be regulated somewhat.
And in the 2020s, I feel like the pendulum has swung the other way, from full prohibition all the way to "let's have gambling on your phone, let's have it in the grocery store, or the laudromat, or the gas station, or the local diner." And it gets...excessive. I liken gambling addiction to alcoholism. No, we shouldnt ban alcohol entirely, and doing so is harmful for society. People are gonna do it anyway to some degree if there arent legal alternatives, and we're just gonna return to the days of rampant organized crime if we make it full on illegal. And as someone who DOES enjoy it on aforementioned casual level that IS responsible, I certainly dont want it made illegal because OTHER people can't handle it properly.
So...for me, it's about a balance, and the right level of legality is somewhere more permissive than "ban it entirely" and somewhere less permissive of "let's have unregulated betting everywhere on everything." I mean, I'm not even getting into prediction markets and how corrupt those are and how they're creating all kinds of perverse behavior. Apparently politicians are basically doing and saying certain things to make money off of bets on these markets and thats problematic. Gambling in sports can possibly create corruption in sports. I mean, unregulated gambling on EVERYTHING can create really perverse incentives and corruption in our society as well, that's another argument.
So yeah....again, don't want it entirely banned, but I'm certainly not for unregulated everything. Even if I liken myself a libertarian, I'm not CRAZY about it, and do believe in sometimes regulating behaviors for harm reduction. And I think limiting gambling is fine.
I think we should rein in prediction markets and sports betting, for example. I dont think people should have unlimited access to real world gambling from their smartphones. I don't think that we should have slot machines sitting in every day places people go. I do think that it should be relatively inaccessible. Not as in, illegal, as in, you should have to go to a designated site that is designed specifically for the activity, like a casino, a racetrack, an OTW site, etc. It shouldnt be made too open and convenient, because there is some segment of the population that has a legit addiction problem, and pushing it in everyone's faces everywhere is just straight up predatory. It should be there for those who want it, and out of sight, out of mind for everyone else. Just my opinion.
So....with that said, yeah, I'm okay with banning "skill games". Also, another hilarious argument I keep seeing the advocates of these machines whining about. "OMG THIS IS DESTROYING JOBS!" OH NOES NOT THE JOBS! Okay, that last part is sarcasm on my part, but I HATE this argument. I dont even think everyone should work. I hate job creation for its own sake in principle, and if the jobs are doing predatory things, those are BS jobs that not only dont help society, but probably hurt it. I mean, these jobs fall under the role of "goons" if we wanna take David Graeber's BS jobs into consideration. They're jobs that potentially harm people that dont really need to exist, but only are seen as a good thing because we insist on forcing everyone to work for a living and we probably shouldnt. So yeah, I'm not gonna argue that such jobs are useful. Maybe they contribute to GDP on paper, but they dont actually provide a useful function for society and if anything are actually harmful. I just wanted to address THAT given my own niche interests on THAT topic.
But yeah. I'm fine with the skill games ban. If you wanna gamble, go to a casino. Make the conscious effort to drive to a designated places that allows gambling and gamble. I dont want this crap shoved in peoples' faces everywhere. It's not healthy for society in my view. And yeah, that's my view, I'm sticking by it, and yeah. If you don't like it, tough, I don't care.
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