Should Online Gambling Be Completely Legalized?

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Aren't those sites basically just quick ways to launder cash?

And I don't really know. Obviously the business model is basically exploitation (as is those silly FarmVille games) of those with more cash than sense, so I can hardly see what the benefit of them being completely legal is. At least with casinos you get some local employment out of it. I'm leaning towards many stater, mainly to counter the yawn-worthy "freedom!!" Argument.

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Perhaps there is a windfall of taxes to be raised from online gambling. But even if local governments don't immediately fritter away such a landfall on something dumb, I feel uneasy. At the moment in the UK, one of the few successes of the recession (in addition to the pawnbrokers and the quick loan companies) we betting shops. I've got nothing against them in particular, but like many industries they are designed to exploit the vulnerable. In particular the FOBT machines are a huge draw (I understand Australia has a huge problem with them). People will sit at these machines for hours and hours, hoping to grab the jackpot. And in theory its great. Business execs get a raise, the profits rise and the government takes some cream off the top to engorge itself on. But we see from the evidence that this profit doesn't come evenly from casual gamers. No, it sucks from a significant minority of problem gamers. The people who will game and game till the cows come home. Who cares right? People should have the freedom to bankrupt themselves.

Well, sure, but no man is an island. Families are broken up. People become despondent, and even entire communities can suffer because of epidemics of problem gaming. And now, it has become an established business, so nobody - not the government with its newfound reliance on gambling taxes (a chief issue with sin taxes) - can do anything.

Gambling, like Zynga, is just one industry that relies on exploitation. Perhaps if I was being sage, every business model in some capacity is exploitative and I'm making a mountain of a molehill. But I refuse to be cavalier about the gambling industry, whatever I think of gambling as a practise (which ftr I enjoy). Gambling ruins lives (in fact to be profitable, it invariably has to rely on addicts), and an economy reliant on such industries is very often toxic. Gambling is invariably linked with organised crime and money laundering operations no matter how regulated it is. I still don't know what should be done about it, but really the whole business makes me very nervous.

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The key word is industry, brtd. I don't give two craps about invididuals gambling, it's really their won perogative. It's the business model I find objectionable, as it is one based on exploitation.