They’re poor, not stupid. They know what they need to survive. The absolute number of people “destroying their lives” in this manner is very small. This disconnected brand of pauperate paternalism is very degrading.
The number of people seriously harming their lives with gambling is not small. And it's not just poor people.
People know what they need to survive, but they don't just want to survive for survival's sake. There has to be something actually living for. When those things for various reasons seem hopelessly out of reach, you will usually gamble in one way or another. It's natural to take chances when playing things safe will lose you the game.
Ironically enough, games are a great way to illustrate this and think about it. Let's say there's a game where you roll a die four times after each other, and the goal is to get a sum higher than 20. For every roll, you can pick a regular die, or you can pick one which has one side show 8, and all the other ones 1. The regular die has better expected value, but the optimal strategy incorporates the other die.
Gambling companies seek out people who feel (rightly or not) that they've rolled a 1 on their first roll. And they offer them what seems like a chance. But we should give people in that situation a better option, damn it.
People know what they need to survive, but they don't just want to survive for survival's sake. There has to be something actually living for. When those things for various reasons seem hopelessly out of reach, you will usually gamble in one way or another. It's natural to take chances when playing things safe will lose you the game.
Ironically enough, games are a great way to illustrate this and think about it. Let's say there's a game where you roll a die four times after each other, and the goal is to get a sum higher than 20. For every roll, you can pick a regular die, or you can pick one which has one side show 8, and all the other ones 1. The regular die has better expected value, but the optimal strategy incorporates the other die.
Gambling companies seek out people who feel (rightly or not) that they've rolled a 1 on their first roll. And they offer them what seems like a chance. But we should give people in that situation a better option, damn it.