> You're saying every last one is a degenerate gambler somehow concealing it totally from me?
A person can be generally responsible while still making decisions that are irresponsible. Gambling has a negative expected value, and so is generally considered to be irresponsible. Gamblers will often counter that they expect to lose their money and consider it to be a form of entertainment, but the whole of the entertainment is in believing that you might get lucky; this is indistinguishable from the motivation of a gambling addict. You don’t see these people taking out $500 in 1s and setting them on fire for fun, even though this is the aggregate outcome of habitual gambling.
Some might protest that all forms of entertainment are like this: You take the $500, take it to a movie theater, and 16 hours later your money is gone and you’ve seen 10 movies. So far as I know, the identification of casual gambling with vice dates back to the Victorian Period. I suspect (but cannot confirm) that the reason gambling was identified as a vice where other forms of comparatively frivolous entertainment were not is due to gambling’s (false) promise of providing money for nothing.
>> Gambling has a negative expected value
Subscribing to Netflix has a negative expected value.
Ban Netflix.
Even more so are restaurants exploiting the public with over priced food compared to cooking at home. Food that is so good that it is addictive.
Restaurants are immoral too since think of the negative health consequences they cause exploiting this situation with their addictive substances. They even put more butter than necessary in the food to make it more addictive.
The wait staff treated literally like servants.
"We should ban everything besides things I personally find enjoyable"
Gambling has unbounded loss potential. That factor is being shamelessly exploited by providers. Restaurants and Netflix have upper bounds on how much financial harm they can inflict upon you, should you compulsively pay for them.
You cannot bankrupt yourself, your family, and your friends by paying for Netflix. They will only take so much of your money.
There's more than Netflix. You can bankrupt yourself paying for things you can't afford.
Every streaming service you subscribe to has a negative expected value.