alt Hacker News> 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.
Industrial policy promoting deindustrialization was a migration (the same one all advanced economies make) toward higher value-add tasks.
The surveillance apparatus was created to prevent another 9/11 which quite possibly would have destabilized the state itself.
These may or may not have been mistakes, may or may not have been worth it, may or may not have been illegal, etc. etc., but they both had a pretty coherent rationale for them.
What's the rationale for legalized sports betting? It's such an obscenely indefensible change that any politician advocating for it should be investigated relentlessly (at least journalistically) until the day they die.
> It is no longer possible to know what the laws of the US are, because some of them are secret.
That's not true.
> 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.
Absurd statement.