Me too. But how do we differ economic gambling vs sports? Only allowed to do it through a broker and not a casino?

I don't know what you mean by economic gambling

Speculation. Stock markets, futures, options, etc.

'financial speculation'

Prediction Markets come to mind as an egregious example.

Let's say we have a game with time running out and the winning team has the ball. They can take a knee and win by 10 or they can kick a field goal and win by 13. They can dribble out the last 7 seconds and win by 8 or they can shoot a 3 and try to win by 11.

If they are good sports and just kill the clock, is that fraud? If somebody pays them to kill the clock and not cover the spread, is that fraud?

Is risk of somebody manipulating the outcome like this just part of what makes it a gamble?

> If somebody pays them to kill the clock and not cover the spread, is that fraud?

Yes. It’s called point shaving and it is fraud.

It was pretty confusing that you switched to a second example and second sport mid-paragraph without saying so or switching pronouns. It sounded like the team had four options for its final point total until the end makes you ask, what kind of sport has both field goals and shoot a 3?

Would prohibition really work? It's not like there isn't already a large network of illegal betting in place for all the bets that can't happen legally... it would simply make them thrive even more.

Making things illegal/banned might feel good at first, but if it's barely enforceable and/or the demand for that thing remains very high all you are doing, as a state, is foregoing on a lot of taxes while not even diminishing harm often (sometimes even causing your own harm... I'm looking at you "war on drugs"... and before that the alcohol prohibition).

Prohibition of 'any' financial activity is easier than ever now.

Financial institutions have required reporting already, watching for large transactions is already in place.

Coming up with penalties and sentences for violations would be the trickier part.