Do you think its alarming that a state is profiting a lot fom gambling?

[savetheFORUM]

I wouldn't blame the government for it, to be honest, because if gambling is generally legal within the country, they might not think of imposing a lot of restrictions on gambling businesses if they can run their businesses legally by acquiring licenses and everything. It's the people who need to be more responsible with their money and how they should spend it. A gambler should know their limits, and if they cross those limits, it's them who can be blamed for it and not the casino nor the government for not stopping from doing it.

They can surely run campaigns or maybe make casinos and gambling businesses have risk warnings and disclaimers for gamblers to gamble moderately, but other than that, no one can or should force an adult to do or not do something that they want to do. It's their choice at the end of the day.

Just one distinction though, that $2.7 billion does not mean it's the gamblers' total losses, but it's just the taxes and related revenue collected by the government from gambling operators.

As far as I know, taxes are collected based on total capital gain and revenue generated by a business. If you are running a business and aren't making much profit, you won't be paying a lot of taxes because there is a specific percentage that you have to pay based on how much you have made within a year.

[Floxynice]

I see that the major concern here is that gamblers lost more to gambling. It now seems like the gamblers lost those money directly to the government, instead of the usual way the government make their money through taxation.

I won't blame the government on this because right now, the people are already exposed to gambling. If the government puts a hold on licence issuance to casinos, to stop more casinos from operating,the gamblers will still look for ways to gamble, using the available casinos. One major problem such restriction will cause is that, the government will have a challenge of trying to eliminate illegal casinos.

Also, if the government tries to ban gambling in the state, gamblers who are already exposed to gambling will choose to gamble illegally. As long as the government has regulations to protect vulnerable gamblers and minors, i see no problem with the government earning revenue from taxing gambling platforms.

[icebar]

There are some governments that will give the most importance only to the collection of government revenue, while there are some that will give importance to the protection of gamblers along with collecting revenue. The government has to collect revenue and at the same time create opportunities for gamblers to survive. If the government is biased towards any one side, then it is not possible for that government to maintain such a big industry. The government has to fulfill its responsibilities by giving equal importance to all sides. In order to get the money that is needed to run the country, the government has to collect money from various sources.

Governments have to come forward to provide financial protection to gamblers. If the government comes forward to help gamblers who have lost everything due to addiction, then at least those gamblers will get a new life. If the government wants to collect money from this platform continuously, then it must also pay special attention to the issue of gamblers.

Many gamblers are very much affected, which has a major negative impact on social life. If the government uses a part of its revenue to spend on public welfare, especially on those who are most affected, then it will definitely be considered a good decision for the government.

The government should also take care that no one gets any opportunity to mislead the people by giving wrong information. Since the government earns good income from this platform, it should not only consider the income aspect. Equal importance should be given to the issues of people's lives and financial security.

[Mrbluntzy]

I am not even surprised about this information, perhaps there's a forecast that projected that the United States will generate $216.85 billion in gambling revenue this year. How about Macau, a data shows that they have generated about $23.1 billion since January till September this year. The gamblings are the ones not playing responsibly, so it is alarming to see that there are a lot of gamblers who needs to learn how to be responsible while gambling, generally I know that gamblers will definitely lose more money than they can win but playing in an irresponsible manner will even increase the amount that will be lost.

[Sonia_123]

It can't be alarming but of economic benefit to the state government, the state government will be as gambling being one of it's major source of income, and since the government is involved, I believe necessary measures will be put in place to reduce and control addictions and adequate rules and regulations for gamblers in other to control it properly without affecting minors or causing school drop out .

Gambler should see these are freedom but be able to control their gambling habit and not to abuse the ban lifting and gamble irresponsible and be disciplined not chasing their losses or wins since there was a massive loss from the ban lifting on video gaming terminal.

[POPOLUV]

It is a free world where people should be allowed to do what makes them happy, a lot of persons die from depression so to me any activity an individual does that is okay for him shouldn’t be banned by the government, especially if such activities aren’t illegal, the best a government should do is bring in policies that will help check-mate such activity and make it crime free.

Meanwhile government generating money from gambling activities in a state isn’t bad, gambling is actually a huge business currently, some casinos actually liter the street and all, so government demanding taxes from them isn’t bad in anyway, the only thing is that such generated revenue should be used judiciously for creating more jobs and promoting adverts that will explain to the populace about the dangers of excessive gambling, if the government creates lots of jobs it will make a lot of gamblers so busy that they won’t even have time to gamble. I use to have a friend that was a chronic gambler and drunk but few months ago we engaged him with a very tasking job, ever since he started working he rarely have time to gamble.

You see this gambling of a thing that people are seeing as a away of misleading people, I'm here to say it clear to them that this gambling cover a multitude of crimes that people could have engaged themselves with but they use gambling to subside or calm themselves down with the ways things are really going, and this banning of betting in some countries that is going on, how are the gamblers copying because gambling industry has been paying taxes to government but the government chooses to ban gambling, never be the less, i love the way you address this discussion because if  government should channel the revenue generated from the taxes being paid by gambling industry, I'm sure that so many of the gamblers will be engaged with one or two that can be bring money.

[Felicity_Tide]

Do you think it's alarming that the state profits from gambling, and they don't impose restrictions on the number of betting stations, thereby growing the number of gamblers and the money they are losing?

Well, just like what some users have already pointed out, there are no records showing the actual number of gamblers, or and increase in the number. But that amount of revenue is quite massive, and it's enough to question how much these gambling platforms usually generate on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on when they pay their taxes to the government.

I personally can't say that the revenue is enough to raise an alarm, and I also don't know the exact customer protection regulations that the government has issued to these platforms or have put in place beforehand to determine whether certain things have gone out of hand. I want to believe that things are still very much within what the government agreed, even though the revenue is quite massive.

[serjent05]

Do you think it's alarming that the state profits from gambling, and they don't impose restrictions on the number of betting stations, thereby growing the number of gamblers and the money they are losing?

State profit is good but whether it is alarming depends on the people involved on how the state is profiting.  If the case is only about having more people engaging in gambling in a responsible way, then it is not alarming.  The profit just been made out of the quantity of people engaing in gambling but if these people are gambling irresponsibly, then yes, it is alarming.  

People gambling irresponsibly can have a ruined financial future, they will be out on the street begging for money or even committing crime because they get addicted to gambling and can't control the urge to gamble.