I’m largely convinced that the accredited investor rules are there to gatekeep the best / most lucrative investments and limit them to the already rich club. No other explanation makes sense when you also consider that casinos exist.

I'd agree with this. Although in the US there was recently added another exemption to become an accredited investor: passing a knowledge test.

What interested me was: republicans are in support of removing accredited investor status making your same argument that it bars the masses from lucrative investments, while democrats fought allowing a test to qualify investors for accredited status, arguing that the masses would expose themselves to too much risk.

Is this a personal liberty vs authoritarian take? Is this a personal liberty vs empathetic (though paternalistic) take? Is this a quiet "let's exploit investors" vs "prevent investor exploitation" take?

For some reason their positions have me stumped.

To be fair, casinos are not legal in many (most?) places in the US...

Couldn't this be argued for a lot of things: boxing / UFC is legal but fighting is ethically/morally bad and should not be encouraged, celebrated, or promoted. American football is legal but has pretty horrific long-term effects on the human brain. Beauty pageants, the list goes on.

You're right about the accredited investor double-standard though, hopefully that gets removed soon.

I don't think your analogy holds good here. Combat sports is between highly trained professionals, with very strict rules. You don't see a 125 pound man fighting a 250 pound man in UFC, do you? There are no such rules in a casino. Everything in a casino is rigged against its patrons. It is not a level playing field. You can gamble away all your life's earnings in one evening if you wanted to. If there are rules like one cannot gamble more than 5% of their net worth, one cannot continue gambling if they lost x amount of dollars in x amount of time... or something along those lines, then maybe we can compare casinos with combat sports.

Don't forget that gambling is also highly addictive.

We may not like American football, beauty pageants etc. But at least those are level playing fields and not addictive

In some ways, combat sports might be worse. Athletes are gambling with their bodies in return for potential monetary reward, and most don't even make it into the big leagues.

With casinos, at least they only lose money and are unlikely to have to live with lifelong injuries.

You’re missing the point. Athletes are gambling with their health, yes. But they have a 50-50 chance of winning or losing. Casinos are not 50-50. They are rigged against their customers.

I wouldn’t have a problem with gambling if the odds are even.

Also, combat sports are not addictive, gambling is.