But it IS all willpower. The other take is baffling to me - the notion that "we"(the smart people/ the regulators/ the ones above the masses) need to protect weak people because they are too weak to do something about it.

It's a ridiculous proposition in my opinion. First, it's intractable - Zynga closes the woman's account, she'll find other ways to blow her money away. But the biggest problem is not even that - the proposed solution of regulation, which nowadays is a universal hammer for absolutely every problem, takes freedom away from me and you in order to protect her. Even though as I've said it doesn't really protect her.

Regulation is a terrible solution to any problem, almost all of the time.