People often have a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to the legalization of gambling.  Some feel that those who would outlaw gambling are attempting to legislate morality, since they see gambling as a harmless personal privilege akin to smoking marijuana.  In other words, if it doesn’t hurt anyone but the partaker or the participant, then it should be legal.  Those who would oppose the legalization of gambling say that gambling is destructive to families and to the community at large.

Proponents of the legalization of gambling maintain that tax income from gambling, including state lotteries, is beneficial to society and saves tax payers from digging deeper into their own pockets.  Legalized gambling also bolsters the economy when it is done in grand style as in the cases of Las Vegas and Atlantic City.  Tourists attracted to these areas create job opportunities in hotels, restaurants and other entertainment venues, as well as the casinos themselves.

When lawmakers attempt to determine the long-term and far-reaching effects of legalizing gambling, they tend to look at moral issues.  When evaluating legalizing state lotteries, for instance, it is often said that those that can least afford to particpate – the chronically poor, hoping for a way out of poverty – are those harmed the most as they spend their grocery money on lottery tickets.

Then there is the personality to which the legalization of gambling is deemed most harmful, the pathological gambler.  These individuals become addicted to gambling, taking ever greater risks – disregarding the well-being of themselves or their families.  The legalization of online gambling makes this even easier, as abusers need not leave their homes to lose everything.

Experts say that those who abuse gambling will do so whether or not gambling is legal, in the same way that in outlawing guns, only outlaws will have guns and alcoholics find liquor even in times of prohibition.  When both sides of the issue of the legalization of gambling are thoroughly analyzed, it seems that one side may heavily outweigh the other.