Perhaps selfishly as I'm not much a gambler, I hate it because it ruined sports. You have a barrage of ads and odds that plague every game at every turn. You have a handful of players already caught betting on their own games, which means there are many more who just haven't been caught yet. And now, every single bad call leads fans to "refs must have money on this game", and to be honest, who knows if they do.

> Legalizing sports gambling was the biggest unforced error in United States public policy in living memory.

That's a tough sell; the US makes a lot of errors. Assuming "public policy" means "domestic"; their industrial policy promoting deindustrialisation seems like a bigger error. After a few moments of thought I'd probably argue the Bush-Obama era establishment of a massive internal surveillance apparatus (including a secret court) is a strong contender for biggest unforced error in living memory. There might be bigger ones but the US citizens lost a remarkable amount there. It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret. And the use of spying and federal harassment of political opponents seems to have been steadily normalising.

Even just background over-regulation on starting and running new businesses is probably going to cause more damage to poor people than legalising sports gambling.

Being higher on the socioeconomic ladder doesn't protect you from addiction. I believe it makes it easier for some to get their fill and remain high-functioning; ie not becoming destitute.

But for others their "fill" is so high their addictions will wreck them entirely regardless of means.

But perhaps to your point, if I'm give it charity, people with less means are more likely to get entirely wrecked by certain addictions.

Cautionary note (and a serious one, not to be snarky): Being well off financially is not a protection against gambling addiction (which can also take the form of day trading, for example); which is a pretty efficient way to ruin ones financial wealth, amongst other things.

As with many other psychological phenomenona, finances and education only protect to a certain degree or not at all, depending on what one is talking about in detail.

This is not a comment about correlation or causation of wealth with mental health, but rather a warning to keep in the back of ones head; success and a sharp mind don't make one immune against mental health issues in general and gambling addiction in particular.

> but people at the other end of the economic spectrum

I'm eating just ramen here ...

"I expect that almost nobody reading Hacker News has a gambling problem"

Here's an unforced error.

I also found that sports gambling created an "industry" of proxies for sub18 consumers which makes the issue more terrific.

Addictions are irrational and anyone can fall prey to them, people here are no exception. The only difference between a poor, uneducated gambler and a well-off, educated gambler is how they talk about it, how much they can afford to bet, and which games of chance they lose at.

Beyond that however I agree that turning this loose on the American public is an incredibly short-sighted act, but it's part of a pattern rather than an outlier.

you don't think VCs betting winning to win trillions in the AI wars ... has a gambling problem?

> the biggest unforced error in United States public policy in living memory.

I'm going with the rollout of LED headlights on that one, but reasonable people can disagree.