[ethanbond]

Mobile gambling apps should be outright illegal nationwide. The degree to which mobile app makers have hacked people's psychology to get them to spend hours doing things that are counter to the person's own goals is insane. Mixing that with its own separately extremely addictive behavior, gambling, is a recipe for disaster. Where it gets really, really nasty is that it's quite hard to maintain and hide a gambling addiction when you have to go to the casino or track so often. But now you can get roped into this family-destroying activity from the couch sitting right beside your partner. Your drug dealer is perpetually a mere one click away, and dangling huge incentives in front of you from every TV screen in the country.

Politicians actively broadening access to these sorts of services should be (journalistically) investigated for bribery and/or their own gambling addiction. It is so blatantly anti-social so as to be indefensible.