>If the CEO of a gambling company said, "Gambling is good." Do you think that would be more or less effective propaganda that if the CEO paid someone else, let's say someone in a white lab coat, to say the same?

Difference is that a the guy in the lab coat has to conduct experiments on it, get them peer reviewed, publish a paper on it, and lay out all the assumptions and methodologies before it's actually "science". So it's not as simple as getting a guy in a lab coat to say it. Especially when all the other guys in lab coats are saying "that guy is lying and his methodology is garbage".