I feel like a much larger fraction of the economy is predatory than is made out to be in these gambling discourses. Examples:

* FSA plans are designed to get you to gamble on how much medical expenses you will have; if you overestimate, you either lose the money or spend it on shit you otherwise wouldn't buy; if you underestimate, you pay taxes on stuff you shouldn't be paying taxes on. The healthy alternative would be: Cut the FSA, let people just tax deduct medical expenses at tax time, even small ones.

* Extended warranty plans are baiting you to pay for something you are statistically unlikely to need. The healthy alternative would be: Just service things past warranty and charge a much more reasoanable price for it.

* Insurances but co-insurances, deductibles, clauses: "We'll bait you into paying because you think we'll pay but we'll not actually pay because it says in the fine print"

* Trip protection: Asking you to gamble on the probability of a mishap, instead of just covering mishaps out of the box

Yes. Gambling goes a long way. I just recommended Natasha Dow Schüll and Addiction by Design.

That leads us to BJ Fogg's Persuasive Design Lab at Stanford and the addictive software design.

Tobacco industry owners figured out their time's out and bought food stock and put their addiction department to design food to be addictive.

Where should we head next?

Hope you're including all the state governments and their lotteries in this assessment.

Meta, ByteDance, ...

The problem is, some humans seem to be consistently drawn towards products or services that fit that description.

In the 1980s, if you wanted to gamble in my city, you went to a gambling den operated by the Civella crime family. If you got caught in a police raid, your life was ruined. If you got behind on your debts, the mob might take it out of you, literally. These were known risks, but people did it anyways.

Then, in the 1990s, there was a change in the casino gaming laws. Casinos opened with harm reduction measures in place. You can absolutely destroy your finances for life in one, but there are ways out.

These apps need regulation like in-person gambling has. Whatever they currently have, it's not enough.

It isn't inherently addictive. Gambling addiction is significantly less common than alcohol addiction, and has no properties that make it inherently addictive to someone who is not predisposed towards that addiction (unlike drugs, for example, which are inherently addictive to all humans).

Some slot machines/casino games are designed to appeal to problem gamblers. DK and co, however, do not design these games, and state regulators do already control aspects of their design. For online operators, this doesn't represent most of their revenue and, I suspect, most would be quite happy not to provide these products.