One of the worst days I experienced as a poker player is when PokerStars left Washington State in the fall of 2010.

1. 10 Reason Why People Travel
2. Why Is Gambling Good
3. Why Gambling Should Be Legal
4. Reasons Why Gambling Is Bad
5. 10 Reasons Why People Work

5 Reasons to Legalize Gambling in the U.S. Tuesday, April 20, 2010. The following is a list of reasons why all states should lift their bans on gambling in any form. It creates jobs. 'In 1999, the estimated employment in the United States in the pari-mutuel gaming industry was 119,000.' Keep in mind that this statistic was taken from over. Another reason why regulating online gambling is a good thing is because every state (and operator) is concerned about responsible gambling. You can’t say the same thing about offshore sites. Sure, many offshore sites have a page that talks about gambling responsibly.

PokerStars is where I played most of my games. I played on Full Tilt after PokerStars left, but it wasn’t the same, so I decided to take a break.

This was a good move on my part as only a couple of months later, Black Friday happened. The United States Department of Justice indicted all the top poker sites on charges like money laundering and fraud.

The result was that American poker players had nowhere to play and, even if they did, millions of dollars in player funds were locked up.

That was the bad news. The good news is that Black Friday was the catalyst for online gambling regulation in the United States.

Fast forward a couple of years to the spring of 2013. The first regulated online poker site, Ultimate Poker, launched in Nevada. Ever since, several states have passed legislation allowing their residents to gamble on poker, casino games, and sports online.

Currently, only about a dozen states offer some form of online gambling. We have a ways to go before gambling on the internet is legal nationwide, but I believe it will happen.

The following are five reasons why regulating online gambling is a good thing.

1. Americans Are Going to Gamble Online Regardless

It doesn’t make sense to me to prolong regulating or even prohibiting online gambling given that people are going to play online anyway.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have laws. Or that there aren’t activities that we shouldn’t ban. It’s just that online gambling is nowhere near a prohibitable activity, if anything because you can gamble in nearly every state offline.

I think of gambling as being on par with alcohol. And do you remember (or know about) what happened when the US government tried to prohibit that?

People believed drunkenness was a disease and created abusive husbands and that banning it would reduce crime, corruption, and various social problems.

So, the selling, importing, transporting, and production of alcohol was prohibited from 1920 to 1933. And…that backfired.

Prohibition led to more violence, corruption, and organized crime, not less. It was difficult, if not impossible, to enforce the law, so Americans drank anyway. Many of them died from drinking unregulated alcohol.

This isn’t much different from people choosing to play at offshore gambling sites despite the laws that outlaw it. And then dealing with rogue operators that don’t have gambling commissions to keep them accountable.

Regulated online gambling will keep Americans safe. This is why it’s a good thing, amongst many other reasons.

2. Access to Responsible Gambling Tools and Resources

Another reason why regulating online gambling is a good thing is because every state (and operator) is concerned about responsible gambling.

You can’t say the same thing about offshore sites.

Sure, many offshore sites have a page that talks about gambling responsibly. They might give you some tips on how to be a responsible gambler, and they’ll tell you to get help if you have a gambling problem.

But it’s hard to take offshore sites seriously on this topic when you see how legal operators approach responsible gambling.

Take New Jersey, for example. Here are the tools and resources they offer to their residents.

• Self-Exclusion – Choose to ban yourself from any online or brick and mortar site for 1 or 5 years, or for life. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) will instruct all sites to prohibit you from playing
• Deposit Limits – Set a limit for how much you can deposit during a specified time period
• Wager Limits – Establish a limit for the most you can bet per round during a specified time period
• Session Limits – Set a time limit for how long you can play per day or session
• Loss Limits – Establish a limit for how much you can lose during a specified timeframe
• Account Cool Off – Take a break for a specified duration before continuing to play again

You can contact any regulated gambling site or walk into any brick and mortar casino and request any of these options. Or you can set limits from your player account.

I looked at my offshore accounts, and they don’t offer any of these options. And even if they did, I don’t expect these sites to share my limit or self-exclusion request with their sister sites. So there’s nothing stopping me from gambling elsewhere.

This is another reason why legalizing online gambling in the United States is a positive thing.

Online gambling generates a lot of revenue. It used to all go to offshore operators, fattening their wallets. Now, a lot of that revenue is going to the state.

This money is used to improve the economy on a state and federal level. And it’s used to fund a variety of programs.

• Social programs
• Schools
• Community programs
• Programs for seniors and older citizens
• Preserving the state’s wildlife (parks, pools, trails, etc.)
• Gambling problem programs
• Improving roads

A large percentage of the revenue that each state generates is directed towards these funds. For example, Texas contributes 27.1% of the funds from lottery ticket sales to their public education fund. They’ve donated $22 billion to this fund since they started in 1997.

Imagine what each state could do if they generated tens of millions in extra revenue from online gambling every year.

It’s possible. Many states struggle in the beginning, but then start to pick up steam after a few months or even a couple of years.

For example, New Jersey earned $23 million for both March and April in 2014. They struggled with payment processors, software, geolocation (which was touchy), and poker liquidity.

Fast forward to 2019. New Jersey’s casino and poker revenue exceeded $41 million. And then online sports betting added another $19 million on top of that.

NJ earned well over $60 million in August 2019, which was nearly 6x more than they earned 5.5 years ago.

There’s no reason to think that other states couldn’t accomplish something similar.

Another reason why online gambling regulation is a good thing is because it creates more jobs. Why do we need to create more jobs when the employment rate in the United States is over 60%, the highest it’s ever been?

Well, what about the other 40%? That’s a large chunk of the population who wants to work but for one reason or another can’t find a job.

On paper, the online gambling industry doesn’t provide a ton of jobs. There were only 200-300 jobs created in New Jersey when they first launched their gambling sites.

That’s still 200-300 more people who might be able to pay their bills, though. And online gambling provides more jobs than it seems at first.

Think about this – most, if not all, states have rules that say that anything related to online gambling must be housed in state. That goes for servers, payment processors, and so on.

This is cool because it means that the jobs created are specifically for the people who live in the state where the gambling site exists. Meaning, New Jersey gambling sites have NJ residents working on them.

What’s better is that there are more jobs available than what you see on paper. For every software developer, there are several more coders working behind the scenes. You also have security specialists, customer service reps, and designers that work on the website.

You also can’t forget the people who work the kiosks at hockey or basketball games where gambling sites have a deal with the home team.

Then you have the people who do the marketing for the site, which includes running paid ads, creating content, search engine optimization (SEO), and more.

The point is that a new gambling site creates hundreds of jobs that will eventually pump more money into the local economy.

It’s a win all-around — a win that you don’t get when Americans play at offshore gambling sites.

5. Online Gambling Will Help, Not Hurt, Land-Based Casinos

A common opponent to online gambling is brick and mortar casino operators. They’re opposed to online gambling because they fear residents will choose to play online instead of live, cannibalizing their profits.

These operators pay high taxes and overhead, and there are lots of people who count on them for work. There’s a lot of perceived risk.

Their fears aren’t unfounded, either.

Look at the retail business. Many brick and mortar businesses have closed in the last 5-10 years following the rise in online shopping and services. For example, Blockbuster and Hollywood Video have closed. And Sears, Macy’s, and JC Penny’s have all closed hundreds of stores.

It makes sense that brick and mortar casinos would be wary. But the rise of online casinos may not be a bad thing for them.

While these fears are understandable, we now have data that suggests cannibalism isn’t a concern. Online gambling sites don’t take from offline casinos, but, in fact, they help drive more new business to brick and mortar casinos.

New Jersey found this out firsthand.

NJ casino operators testified that a small minority of their online customers had accounts with their land-based casinos. Many of them didn’t come to play live until after they played online.

For example, the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City found that only 11% of their online customers had accounts with their land-based casino. And only 8% had used their cards within the last year.

This means that 92% of their online players that came in were new customers.

Caesars Entertainment had a similar story. More than 80% of their online customers were new players. Only 12% were active customers at any of their other land-based properties.

What they discovered is that people who come to the casino do so for the experience. They want to eat at nice restaurants, listen to music, go to shows, and visit the spa.

So what they do is focus on attracting a younger demographic to their online casinos. Then they create marketing to encourage them to also patronize their land-based properties.

Here’s the moral of the story.

There are people who oppose online gambling because they fear it will harm their revenue.

The good news is that the data shows that won’t be a problem.

In fact, online casinos will drive new business to land-based casinos. This will interest people who might not otherwise gamble live. And it will create a stickiness that will keep people coming back to all of their properties.

There’s no reason to worry about online sites taking from land-based casinos. The fact is that the complete opposite will happen.

And that’s a good thing.

Conclusion

Regulating online gambling in the United States is a good thing for the following reasons.

• People are going to gamble anyway
• Operators offer a variety of tools to help you gamble responsibly
• Gambling generates a lot of revenue that each state can use to fund social programs, education, and maintain their state parks
• Regulation will create hundreds of jobs, which will improve job unemployment rates and the local economy
• Online gambling sites will generate new customers for land-based casinos and create a brand stickiness that operators might’ve failed to achieve otherwise

The bottom line — regulating online gambling is a good thing for everyone involved. It will happen nationwide, too. It’s just a matter of when.

The sooner the better, if you ask me.

If you’re looking for more detail, we offer a page to help keep you up to date on the latest developments in US gambling regulation, including a breakdown of each state’s current gambling laws.

Gambling has often been associated with addiction and crime throughout history. This has left mainstream society with the impression that gambling only leads to bad things.

But the truth is that this activity isn’t all bad. In fact, there are some distinct benefits you can gain from gambling.

The most obvious perk is entertainment, because people play casino games and the lottery for fun. Gambling provides unique thrills that few other hobbies can match.

Of course, many people are aware of gambling’s entertainment side. But research shows us that there are other benefits that not everybody knows about.

I’m going to discuss some research-backed reasons why gambling is good for you. I’ll also cover several other benefits that it provides.

1- Gambling Improves Your Health

Nobody thinks that playing a blackjack hand or rolling craps dice will have any positive impact on your health. After all, you’re barely burning any calories through these activities.

Through a study appearing in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Yale researchers showed a positive correlation between recreational gambling and improved health.

Rani Desai, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, and her colleagues conducted interviews with 2,417 adults on their health and gambling habits.

She and her team compared the health of people who gamble versus those who don’t. The team measured health by levels of past or current alcohol use, substance abuse, depression, mental health treatment, general health, incarceration, and bankruptcy.

What Desai ultimately found is that gamblers have fewer instances of bad health indicators in comparison to non-gamblers.

“Although the underlying reasons remain hypothetical, proposed reasons included the increased activity, socialization, and cognitive stimulation that are related to engaging in gambling,” Desai noted.

“Such a mechanism would be consistent with the literature on healthy aging, which indicates that more socially and cognitively active elders are, in general, healthier.”

Desai and her team didn’t determine a reason why gambling leads to better health. She said that the study results could indicate that healthier people enjoy gambling.

Either way, it’s clear that gambling doesn’t always induce the stress that’s commonly portrayed in movies and TV shows.

2- Gambling Makes You Happier

Dr. Mark R. Dixon, a professor and coordinator of the Behavior Analysis and Therapy Program at Southern Illinois University, conducted research on gambling’s effect on people’s happiness. And the results, which appeared in the Research in Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, show that this hobby gives people more joy.

Dixon’s team had nursing home residents engage in different forms of gambling. They then used a 4-component analysis to measure happiness against the baseline.

The team discovered that the participants’ happiness levels increased when gambling versus the baseline. The baseline measurements, which included everything from sitting alone to watching television, had zero levels of happiness.

Those participating in the study played blackjack and 5-card stud poker. And the researchers determined with certainty that players got enjoyment out of both games.

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One catch is that the participants weren’t betting real money.

But at the very least, Dixon’s research reveals that casino games themselves give people satisfaction.

3- You Learn Skills and Apply Them

Most people don’t look at gambling as a learning experience. But it actually is when considering the goals and strategy involved.

You must learn how to play any new casino game that you try. And some of these come with complex strategy that must mastered.

Blackjack is one game where you need to know a combination of rules and strategy. Here’s a quick synopsis of the rules that players need to learn.

• Players receive two face-up cards
• Dealer receives one upcard and one face-down card (North American rules)
• Player can hit, stand, double down, or split (with a pair)
• Player wins if their score is closer to 21 than the dealer’s score
• The bet is a push if both hands tie
• Dealer or player will “bust out” if they go over a score of 21
• Player or dealer have a “natural blackjack” if their first two cards equal 21
• Player receives a 3:2 or 6:5 pay-out on their original bet with a natural blackjack
• Player isn’t supposed to touch their cards (live blackjack)

Learning the rules is only the first part of blackjack because you should also study strategy to improve your chances of winning. And you can use either a blackjack strategy chart or online trainer to better your skills.

Blackjack isn’t the only skill-based casino game, though. Let ‘Em Ride, Mississippi Stud, Poker, sports betting, three-card poker, and video poker all give skilled players a better chance to win.

Poker is the ultimate casino challenge because you’re competing against human opponents. Unlike a house-banked game that’s played against the casino, optimal strategy changes based on whom you’re playing against.

A simple example is if you’re playing heads-up against somebody who goes all-in on every hand.

Perhaps you normally like to play a small hand range and will fold the majority of your cards. But this instance calls on you to play a wider hand range to take advantage of bad decisions that your wild opponent is making.

Studying gambling strategy and working through various situations are skills that go beyond the casino tables.

4- Gambling Promotes the Use of Math

Most people don’t like the thought of doing math. But improving your math skills can be fun when including an entertaining casino game.

Most forms of gambling involve mathematics to some degree. This can be as simple as deciding how much your slots bet will be worth to working out detailed poker odds.

Here’s a simple math situation that involves playing slot machines.

• You’re playing a slot machine with 50 paylines
• You can change your coin size from $0.01 to $1
• You don’t want to bet any more than $1 per spin
• A $0.01 coin size means you’ll be risking $0.50 per spin
• A $0.02 coin size means you’ll be risking $1 per spin

Here’s a more complex example involving poker pot odds, where you use math to decide whether a drawing hand is worth calling.

• A pot is worth $70
• Your opponent bets $10
• The total pot is now $80
• You must call $10 to stay in the hand
• Divide 10 by 80 to find out what percentage you’re paying
• Your pot odds are 12.5%

The next step is to figure out hand equity and “outs,” or the number of cards that will complete your drawing hand.

• You have an open-ended straight draw (i.e., 5-6-7-8)
• 8 cards will complete your straight (four 4s and 9s)
• This gives you 8 outs
• A common hand equity formula is: [outs x 2] +1 = equity
• [8 x 2] + 1 = 17
• Your hand equity is 17%
• You should call, because your 17% hand equity is higher than your 12.5% pot odds

You can choose casino games based on the degree of math that you’re comfortable using.

You obviously don’t want to play poker if you’re not into complicated math. This is where simpler games like baccarat, craps, roulette, and slot machines come in handy.

Regardless of how easy or simple the game may be, the point is that you’ll use math sometimes and not even realize it. And this is a good way to subconsciously boost your mathematical abilities for other areas of life.

5- A Good Way to Relax and Socialize

Earlier I mentioned how the most obvious gambling benefit is entertainment. After all, these games wouldn’t be so popular if they weren’t any fun.

Why Is Gambling Good

Some people enjoy using a portion of their disposable income to blow off steam in the casino. They find that the challenge of blackjack or poker is a nice escape from their everyday life.

Others get thrills out of chasing big payouts, such as a progressive slots jackpot or blackjack side payouts. These give you the opportunity to pay a small amount to play for a large sum of money.

The social aspect can happen through a number of casino games, including baccarat, craps, poker, sports betting, and slot machines.

Craps is one of the best casino games with regard to socialization. The reason why is because many players bet on the shooter winning (pass line and come bets), rather than wagering with the house (don’t pass line and don’t come).

This majority of players who bet together also share wins and lament losses with each other. The end result is an exciting atmosphere that can’t be matched in the casino.

Here are some examples of how people socialize when playing casino games.

• A group of friends sitting down to the baccarat table with each other
• Somebody playing live dealer blackjack on their smartphone and having a conversation with the dealer
• A few poker players chatting about an off-topic subject while playing
• Friends making online sports bets and watching the game together
• A couple of buddies visiting the casino and playing on slot machines next to each other

These scenarios represent some of the many ways that gambling can be turned into a social affair amongst friends or even strangers.

6- Money Management

Yet one more way that gambling benefits you is the practice of using money management, a.k.a. bankroll management.

We all have to manage finances, the bills, and handle other expenses. Gambling will help you out in these matters because you need to properly measure risk against your funds.

Why Gambling Should Be Legal

The first thing that you need to determine regarding bankroll management is how much money you can afford to risk. Players need to be completely comfortable with the thought that they could lose everything if luck doesn’t go their way.

The best way to figure this out is by determining your monthly/weekly income versus monthly/weekly expenses. Here’s an example.

• You make $3,000 per month after taxes
• You have $2,000 in expenses
• This gives you up to $1,000 in disposable income
• You choose to use $400 per month on gambling

The next step is to figure out what game you’re playing and tailor your bankroll management plan to this. Here’s an example using slot machines.

• The average slots player loses around 300 bets per hour
• You have $300 and would like to stretch this out for a few hours
• 300 bets x 4 hours = 1,200 bets
• 300 / 1,200 = 0.25
• You want to choose a game that allows you to bet $0.25 or less per hour

Unfortunately, some gamblers bypass bankroll management and are surprised when their funds run out. But with just a few minutes of math, you can avoid this and better control your bankroll.

In the broader perspective, you’ll also improve your money management skills and apply these to handling your regular finances.

Conclusion

Attitudes towards gambling have slowly changed over the years. But a good portion of the general population still thinks that this is a bad habit for people to develop.

Most of this negativity revolves around gambling addiction, but the truth is that less than 2% of gamblers are considered the compulsive variety.

Reasons Why Gambling Is Bad

Research shows that some of the biggest benefits include improving your happiness and overall health. Other perks involve learning skills, improving math skills, socialization, and practicing money management.

My personal favorite gambling benefits include learning strategy and boosting my mathematical abilities. But you may enjoy one or more of the other aspects better.

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Whatever the case may be, though, you’re likely to get some positive aspects out of gambling.