There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos. It is just an inefficient way of moving money around. It doesn’t actually create new value for society as a whole. (Friendly poker games amongst friends and family with small pots are probably fine).
When you make gambling illegal you just drive it underground and fund organized crime, with all the additional crime and corruption that brings with it.
The arguments against making gambling illegal are similar to many of the arguments against making drugs and prostitution illegal, such as consenting adults should be free to do what they want as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.
So long minimum wage and workplace safety laws, welcome back indentured servitude.
In Korea, by law you have to prove you're a foreigner. In the Bahamas it is legal for the locals to bet, but the casinos kick them out. They've had enough experiences of a guy coming in on payday, losing his money, then his wife coming in the next day with a baseball bat to destroy the machine that took the money. Don't want any more.
That's almost certainly not the reason. They want the revenue but not the societal ills from gamblers.
Why should the government outlaw my ability to give my money away however I want to? If I want to go put all my money on black because it's fun to me, why should that be illegal?
From "Who is buying Powerball and Mega Millions tickets?" [1]
> The survey showed the most frequent lottery players earn between $36,000 and $89,999. About 56% of that group bought tickets in the last year. Fewer of those making under $36,000 bought tickets, only 40%. About 53% who make above $90,000 bought a ticket.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/06/news/powerball-mega-million...
>But other studies have shown that when lower income players do buy tickets, they spend far more money on lottery tickets than wealthier players. A study published in the Journal of Gambling Studies found that those in the bottom fifth of income spent the most on lottery tickets, and more than twice as much as the richest lottery players - $433 a year vs. $193 a year.
Most everyone buys a Powerball ticket when it hits a cool billion or whatever it is; but that's not the vast majority of lottery enjoyers.
> The poorer lottery players also buy far more of the lower prize games, such as scratch-off instant games which account for the majority of lottery sales.
> The richer buyers are buying the multi-state jackpot games such as Powerball and Mega Millions. And the wealthier players are likely to be drawn in by the big jackpot prizes like those being offered right now by both Powerball and Mega Millions.
The lotteries are not exclusively taxing the poorest members of society, which is what you originally claimed.
I am one. Although, I only enter once per drawing, and only when the pot is large enough that I can pretend it's +EV.
There's a lot of games where I can't even pretend it's even close to reasonable odds, and I don't get much entertainment, so I'll leave those alone.
I do think casinos tend to be regulated to pay back a way higher % than lotteries though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Whittaker_%28lottery_winn...