That's always an interesting thing. Where does autonomy end and the right of the government to intrude into your private life begin. The bottom line, that something is bad for you seems to be so logical. But when you think about it a bit longer you see that there are so many things that are bad for you that it would be next to impossible to regulate all of them. Ok, so you only do it for the things that are really harmful. But then you're still left with smoking, alcohol, obesity, the state's lottery and casinos (always legal, for some weird reason, but just as bad as other forms of gambling), parachute jumping, social media, free climbing and a whole raft of other items that have the potential to massively ruin your (or even someone else's) life. And then there are the things you could do but that are illegal, such as speeding and drinking and then getting into the driver's seat of a vehicle.
I find this one of the most difficult to answer questions about how you should run a society. In practice, we aim to curb the excesses and treat them as if they are illnesses but even that does not stop the damage. In the end it is an education problem. People are not taught to deal with a massive menu of options for addiction and oblivion, while at the same time their lives are structurally manipulated to select them for that addiction.
In the UK for instance, where sports betting is legal (and in some other EU countries as well) it is a real problem. But the parties that make money of it (and who prey mostly on the poor) are so wealthy and politically connected that even if the bulk of the people would be against it I doubt something could be done about it. If it were made illegal it would still continue, but underground. It's really just another tax on the poor.
Sports betting is problematic for the sports too. It causes people to throw matches for money and it exposes athletes to danger and claims of purposefully throwing matches when that might not be the case. This isn't a new thing ( https://apnews.com/article/sports-betting-scandals-1a59b8bee... ), it is essentially as old as the sports themselves.
> Where does autonomy end and the right of the government to intrude into your private life begin
I think there are really three questions bundled in there:
1. At what point is it not really free-will anymore, and more like your brain being hacked?
2. At what point can the government step in to rescue you from #1?
3. At what point can the government step in to defend others from what you do, voluntarily or otherwise?
I think there's a pretty strong "render unto Caesar" argument that any situation where money changes hands potentially involves the public interest.
Gambling used to be much more restricted in the UK, although horse race betting was always a thing.
No it’s really not that nuanced. Society should ban things that are obvious traps and cause massive costs to society.
Banning gambling doesn’t mean hunting down gamblers, it means stopping them from being in the App Store listings and showings ads in TV.
If you want to find sketchy websites on your own after that - that’s your freedom.
Having 20 year old men bombarded with gambling media is not freedom.
Generally, I take a realist perspective on this. The line is wherever the people who wield power want it to be given their understanding of their self-interest. Any talk of "should" is a rhetorical exercise to convince people that it's in their self-interest to join you and oppose the thing.
Gambling companies have engineered sophisticated addiction machines that exploit the brain's weaknesses, so it's very different to most of the other things you listed. They also deliberately prey on the people most susceptible to getting addicted, and even engage in extremely predatory behaviour like giving high-risk targets all sorts of "free" perks and benefits in order to keep them gambling for as long and much as possible. I can't find it now, but a few months ago on HN was an article about one of these systems, where the gambler got a dedicated "advisor" that was giving them things like free rolls, free tokens to gamble with, free alcohol and even accomodations, all because they know the addicts will keep gambling and use their own money inevitably. They then ban people who are gambling too "smartly" or even just on lucky win streaks from participating in their "games".
Smoking is a great example and an almost 1:1 parallel to what's happening with gambling, they had teams of people and even paid off scientists to fabricate studies about the health benefits of smoking, and then used deceptive marketing that was very carefully crafted to ensure people tried it out, and the product itself is just inherently addictive. They ensured they can capture the next generation by specifically tailoring their adverts towards children and getting them curious to try tobacco.
As a result most of the world has banned tobacco advertising, and a lot of places are doing things like enforcing ugly generic packaging with extreme health issues plastered on the boxes, exorbitant prices & taxes on tobacco because of what Big Tobacco did.
Gambling should be treated the exact same as tobacco is and was. Advertising it should never be allowed in any context whatsoever, and the gambling spots and apps should have disclaimers all over the place indicating the dangers of it. Additionally, the actual companies should be heavily regulated to not be allowed to offer "perks" and to also not be allowed to pick who can play or not.
Gambling, like most things, is simply something that will always be a thing, so just like tobacco and alcohol it shouldn't be banned outright. That doesn't mean we need to let predatory practices proliferate. Nothing is stopping us from making gambling as unattractive as we reasonably can, both for the gamblers and the gambling companies. There will still be gambling, but just like tobacco there will be a lot less people doing it, and at that point the ones that are are at least as protected and informed as possible.
It's funny how first you say that 'it is very different' and then you proceed to show that it is in fact exactly the same.