Nah, just require them to disclose the odds for any games of chance.

"Visit Golden Palace photo of a roulette wheel for a 46% chance of breaking even!"

Wouldn't help. Lottery tickets have the odds of winning printed right on them, and people still buy them.

Compounding/causing this issue is people in general don't take expectation values into account - we always subconsciously overestimate the probability of a rare, positive event (winning the lottery) and underestimate the probability of a rare, negative event (dying in a car crash tomorrow).

Spending ten bucks on a lottery ticket doesn't hurt most people while winning the lottery can have a live-changing impact. Every action is rational for a properly chosen value function.

Yep. I'll spend 8-16 bucks a month on lottery tickets. It's what I use spare cash left in my wallet for. It's not going to break the bank and I'm likely not going to win, but it's a nice pipe dream and where I live a decent amount of the money goes to the environment.

Playing the lottery is more paying for the fantasy of winning than actually expecting to. It makes for some fun office chats, and worth a couple of extra bucks.

In small print, though. That is the main issue, people see the possible winnings before any odds are considered.

Wouldn't that be cool if it created a competitive market where casinos advertised their house advantage?

One of them does around here. The one that always amuses me is '05% payout on slots'. I like to imagine some nice people handing a crumpled up $100 to a cashier and getting nice crispy bills in return totalling $95.

That was actually my first idea, but everyone knows that the odds are with the house, and as people pointed out the odds are printed right on lottery tickets and people still buy them despite the terrible deal on offer.

I figured that adjusting say 8% of the ads to reflect an (imaginary) 8% incidence of problem gambling would actually be more effective, by balancing the legitimate commercial desires of the casino, the legitimate worry of gambling addiction, and making the billboards just unpredictable enough to keep people playing...er, guessing.