alt Hacker NewsPushing it to black markets takes away the possibility of heavy regulation (which absolutely should be in place), and stigmatises victims (gamblers), making it harder to come clean to friends and family. I agree with your assesment that no one should even start to gamble, I just doubt that declaring it illegal will achieve that.
The US Supreme Court effectively legalizing sports betting overnight provided an almost perfect real-world experiment to test that argument. And the result?
"Prediction market" ads running constantly on both sports channels/websites like ESPN. Shortly followed by mainstream cable news like CNN featuring Polymarket stats as a routine part of their horserace polling coverage. Gambling is now an omnipresent temptation for anyone even casually interested in following sports/political news.
And now millions of young men who previously would have had to seek out niche illegal venues to gamble have several dozen different apps on their phone offering to light their disposable income on fire by clicking a couple buttons every paycheck.