I don't really buy that argument, because if you make it, then it can probably be used to legitimize deregulation of any market. Guns, alcohol, drugs, etc.

Sure there are SOME people who would gamble no matter what. But if they literally don't have to leave the house to do it, more people are going to vs if they had to actually go to a casino. Obviously, the reason that there is a push to legalize online gambling is because they anticipate way more people will gamble if they do so.

Government can't regulate everything, but certain things raise enough problems that they do, i.e. hard drugs. Unless you're a true libertarian, there are bound to be some things that should be limited. I feel gambling ought to be one of them.

As for providing them help after the fact, that begs the question. If the people running the online betting are paying for that, then that's one thing. The argument is that the tax revenue will support things like education and such which will benefit all of us in the long run. But, intuitively I feel that the amount of money that society has to pay out to help gambling addicts and others affected (i.e. children who need support that their parents can't provide) will be greater than the amount we get out of it. And we know that the people most likely to struggle with gambling are those least able to afford it http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2014/01/001.html. So the end result is funneling money upwards.

They got wall street, so they are gambling on much bigger things every day with much higher sums already.

But yeah, gambling is not a thing I support very much, and actually think it needs to be reigned in a bit. 

I don't really buy that argument, because if you make it, then it can probably be used to legitimize deregulation of any market. Guns, alcohol, drugs, etc.

Sure there are SOME people who would gamble no matter what. But if they literally don't have to leave the house to do it, more people are going to vs if they had to actually go to a casino. Obviously, the reason that there is a push to legalize online gambling is because they anticipate way more people will gamble if they do so.

Government can't regulate everything, but certain things raise enough problems that they do, i.e. hard drugs. Unless you're a true libertarian, there are bound to be some things that should be limited. I feel gambling ought to be one of them.

As for providing them help after the fact, that begs the question. If the people running the online betting are paying for that, then that's one thing. The argument is that the tax revenue will support things like education and such which will benefit all of us in the long run. But, intuitively I feel that the amount of money that society has to pay out to help gambling addicts and others affected (i.e. children who need support that their parents can't provide) will be greater than the amount we get out of it. And we know that the people most likely to struggle with gambling are those least able to afford it http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2014/01/001.html. So the end result is funneling money upwards.

It depends on how you define regulation.  The Online operations should defiantly be regulated.  Odds should be clearly shown and not hidden.  They should be require to make public actual winning percentage and the number of bets being place etc so that it easy for people to discover a pattern that out side of what you would expect base on the odds in a statically significant way.  Especially when dealing with software it possible that there no intention of manipulation of the odds but a software glitch instead.  There should be far greater reporting requirements on online gambling businesses then a typical private company would be required to do.  Advertising should be regulated to make sure deceptive practices are not use to target vulnerable populations and all users should be require to go through a age checking process to ensure they 21 or over.  They should require gambling licenses to operate just like we require for selling liquor etc. 

That being said I do support it being legal and there been studies done in countries that have online gambling that have shown it not to have the negative impact that a lot of people suspect it would have when it come to addiction.

https://www.realmoneyaction.com/harvard-study-online-gambling-isnt-addictive/

That's posted by an organization whose purpose is to encourage gambling, so gotta take that with a grain of salt. The studies they cite seem to be from reputable institutions, but I'd like to see the full studies, because data can be cherry picked.

The studies seem to indicate that online gaming itself is not more addictive than something such as casino gaming, which seems pretty logical. Being able to control the entire environment would definitely be an advantage in getting people to gamble. So, that's a good point as to why online gaming might not lead to major problems.

But the question is in scale. The study found 1-5% of people did in fact gamble "excessively". That's a fairly significant portion and unlike those who gamble excessively at casinos, but unlike the casino goers, there's little to stand in the way of excessive gambling. 

The study they quote to address that issue user Pokerstars as an example, but I think Poker is not a great comparison. Poker is a game where you play against other players, and success is largely skill based. Because of this, it naturally limits the amount that people who are not good at poker are going to play. If you perceive your loss as simply bad luck and next time you might have good luck, then you're more likely to keep playing, compared to if you you view your loss as a result of other players being better than you, and you're probably going to lose in the future as well.

Of course, it's possible that online gaming isn't a major issue and there's no justification for any extreme regulation, but those studies don't convince me.

Lets put it this way.  I really do not need the government to police everything I do.  You can overeat and cause all kinds of health problems, should the government regulate that.  You can over drink on any particular thing, should the government regulate that.  You can game until you die, should the government monitor your gaming and police that.  Where does personal responsibility ends and government intervention begin.  I am all for regulation when the action has an effect that causes more than one person issues but if that action causes only the person an issue and its their responsibility to manage it, then I am not for government intervention.  There does come a point where I do not need to be babysitted by ever action I take that can cause some measure of harm by the government.  

Just like there are places to help people with overeating, drinking, gaming and any other type of action that can cause issues for people who cannot managed their daily lives, the same goes for gambling which I might add there are plenty of services already there.  

Humans will always find something to get addicted to especially for people who are more susceptible to addition.  Its not like we woke up today and gambling or any other type of activity suddenly hit the scene.  Online gambling is no different then wall street gambling on stocks and other financial items.  Its the same thing, people take risk like this all the time and some get paid and most others get burned.

If I would agree with anything is age.  Just like Drinking, Smoking or any of these types of activities, age should be regulated but I believe that is already the case.  We already tried to over regulate drinking and smoking and the only thing it did was move it underground.  Best to keep it above the surface so it can be monitored.  

Sport betting was also included in study as mention in the dataset(university of Hamburg. Bwin provided access to 4,000 online casino players and 40,000 sports bettors.).  Tracking down these PHD studies online is a pain because a lot of time they under some Harvard database that not easy to find or available for none students etc.  Even the study mention in your article they not providing a link to original study.

Here a link talking about the study from a less bias source when it comes to gambling

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-psychology-of-online-gambling-versus-going-to-a-casino/374107/

EDIT: also for the 1-5% what was found to compulsively online gamble the study said that being able to gamble online was not a trigging event meaning they was  addictively gamble before they could gamble online.  People like that will find a way to gamble legal or not legal till they get help.  If anything maybe collecting of data could help identify these people quicker to get them help.

I don't really buy that argument, because if you make it, then it can probably be used to legitimize deregulation of any market. Guns, alcohol, drugs, etc.

Sure there are SOME people who would gamble no matter what. But if they literally don't have to leave the house to do it, more people are going to vs if they had to actually go to a casino. Obviously, the reason that there is a push to legalize online gambling is because they anticipate way more people will gamble if they do so.

Government can't regulate everything, but certain things raise enough problems that they do, i.e. hard drugs. Unless you're a true libertarian, there are bound to be some things that should be limited. I feel gambling ought to be one of them.

As for providing them help after the fact, that begs the question. If the people running the online betting are paying for that, then that's one thing. The argument is that the tax revenue will support things like education and such which will benefit all of us in the long run. But, intuitively I feel that the amount of money that society has to pay out to help gambling addicts and others affected (i.e. children who need support that their parents can't provide) will be greater than the amount we get out of it. And we know that the people most likely to struggle with gambling are those least able to afford it http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2014/01/001.html. So the end result is funneling money upwards.

I couldn't find the studies either, so it's hard to say how useful they are.

Even if the online gambling is not triggering, then still giving addictive gamblers access 24/7 is potentially problematic.

It's a good point that the online interface can be used to identify problem gamblers. That's an argument I'm largely in favor of when it comes to most drugs and possibly prostitution. But, I'm not arguing for a strict ban on online gambling. I'm open to the possibility of online gambling being legal with regulations to limit the potential abuse. But as far as I know, that's not the case in NY.

On principle, I believe that we should regulate gambling as much as possible. In practice, I haven't done quite enough reading on the subject to know what it looks like.

That said, I do want to address the ending bit here because it is something that I hate. Specifically, it is something that I often see when speaking about the lottery: The money from the lottery is going towards education! Fuck that though. What this essentially is, is a regressive tax on hope. It heavily taxes the hope of those of low income to have a better life. We know that those who spend the highest portion of their earnings on the lottery are those who can least afford it, so why exactly are we enabling that? For education? No, we could pay for education through progressive tax increases if we wanted to, we would just rather take the money from the poor... 

I am 100% for strict regulation to ensure a company providing online gambling not be able to abuse there customers for profit. 

Regulation design to stop someone from potentially harming them selves through gambling I much more hesitant with because I not sure it effective and a lot of time regulations design to protect people from them selves end up harming more people then helping.

As a general rule any kind of addiction need to be treated outside the criminals justice system if there any chance of helping them get over there addiction.

Specifically to gambling I not convince there will be a increase in addiction by limiting how many bets they can place online or those kinds of regulation that focus on the user and not the provider.  I think people that get addictive to gamble going to find a way to do as often as possible weather it online or not. Other wise fixing addiction would be much easier if all you had to do is make it inconvenient to have that addiction.

If you know of any study that specific show online gambling increase rates of addiction am open to reconsidering but I did not find any such study my self when I looked.