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Comment by micaksica | Hacker News Reader

> The gambling industry is exploring the dimensions of the mind trying to find the optimal Skinner box to take all your money. They are exploiting a bug in our brains design. We evolved to run around the Savannah and throw things with weird accuracy. We just are not built to defend against it. They should be banned.

So we should ban viral mechanics, those old Facebook games, dark UI/UX patterns, and pay-to-play mobile games as well? They often work in the same manner, and yet you yourself appear to know the risks and appear to be immune to them.

For the record: I like gambling. I like drinking, too. I have neither a gambling addiction nor an alcohol addiction. Should I be disallowed these things I find pleasurable because a subset of the population abuses these things?

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Most of these questions are deeply philosophical and I have no answer for you. But I will ask you this: if giving up on gambling which you are not addicted to but find pleasurable saves a subset of the population that cannot control their own abuse of gambling, would you do it? In fact, to be a bit more specific, if you giving up gambling saved the next Scott Stevens and that persons family from the financial ruin and death that they bring on themselves, would you do it?

Of course, there are counter arguments to this. How can we know that giving up on gambling or even removing the whole gambling industry will help or save anyone? I have no answer. Only opinion. It's a rough one.

> if giving up on gambling which you are not addicted to but find pleasurable saves a subset of the population that cannot control their own abuse of gambling, would you do it?

This is a very interesting question, thanks for posting it. For me the answer is yes.

Another question: if someone who isn't addicted to gambling doesn't give up gambling to save those who are addicted, what punishment would you support the state imposing? (jail, fines, forced "treatment", etc)

And another: if someone who is addicted to gambling doesn't give up gambling, what punishment would you support the state imposing? (jail, fines, forced "treatment", etc)

I ask these questions because I don't think analogous ones were considered before launching the drug war. For me the answer to both is a whole-hearted "no punishment".

>if giving up on gambling which you are not addicted to but find pleasurable saves a subset of the population that cannot control their own abuse of gambling, would you do it?

I like doing cocaine. The Government sees fit to make it illegal - despite the fact I'm a high functioning user. [hypothetical]

We already have plenty of examples where the government stops us doing stuff that might be fun "for our own good". I'm more on the fence about gambling than drugs - it seems like the start of a slippery slope that would negatively affect raiding guilds the world over...

Very interesting point. I registered after being a long term lurker just to tell you that I think this is a very interesting way to look at it. I often thing of things as the GP presented it. You're post has me re-thinking it. Thanks for this.

Those gambling machines are much closer to the shit the tobbaco industry has put on for decades, with all the chemical additives they included so as to maximize the addiction.

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