Bookies have always been predators, just like pimps. Allowing them to hide behind platforms does nothing but insulate them from what they have wrought.
And they've bought up both parties. This isn't necessarily personal corruption, it's also promises of money for schools, mental health, tax cuts, etc. My state just legalized sports betting without so much as a roll call vote!
"But people are going to do it anyway, we're just missing out on the revenue, we may as well regulate it..." Do you have any idea how much advertising for this social corrosion I've run across over the past few months after you schmucks opened the floodgates?
Yes. Betting on sports used to be a fairly arduous thing organize by my friend groups. One guy would make a groupchat and text everyone for their picks each round. Or one guy would have a mailing list and a big spreadsheet and send out emails each week with standings and spreads for the next week. If you had a really good feeling about some game, or you were just "feeling hot", you could always fly down to Vegas -- I did this for the NFL draft once, and I had a buddy who would fly down for March Madness opening weekend every year.
All of this was pretty fun. It wasn't something you could just casually do. And it certainly wasn't easy to get addicted to. How could it be? Your opportunities to throw money away were very limited. We'd talk about our bets when we went out to watch games, but since we were all basically betting on the same thing, it was still fun.
Now anyone can bet from their phones, an unlimited number of times, unlimited amount of money, on literally anything. So it's incredibly easy to get addicted. And everyone has tons of bets out that they want to talk about. And most of their bets are on stupid things like parlays or player props that have nothing to do with the actual game and aren't fun at all to talk about. I picked Florida, you picked Colorado? Cool, that gives us a little more reason to care about and talk about a game we don't have much stake in otherwise. I picked the under on Florida's starting center getting 13.5 rebounds? Who the f--k cares? And now every time he gets a rebound I'm shouting "god damn it! ..... sorry guys, I've got the under on him getting 14 rebounds lol, I need him to not get rebounds." totally sucks!
