A number of people made a similar comment to yours and that the money isn't lost, it just changes hands. The response that most people are giving is that it's a

A number of people made a similar comment to yours and that the money isn't lost, it just changes hands. The response that most people are giving is that it's an example of the broken window fallacy. With gambling, though, there's nothing being broken but the money is still stagnant and it's frustrating for poor folk to watch. If you treat the 0.1% as a single entity, then the transfer of money between those who are extremely wealthy--while nothing is being produced for it--is equivalent to no economic activity happening (effectively the same as a father and daughter handing a million-dollar bill back and forth). The electricity and consumables you mention -- you're right that those are the most broken-windowy of all the expenses, but I'd say the real loss is that the money effectively doesn't move at all. There are billions of dollars changing hands, but the money gets stuck in a small, closed system that it doesn't seem to come out of. If the rich people who make money from casinos were the type of people to donate to science/charity, then gambling would be an unusual and convoluted way of paying for that science or public well-being. Since they're actually more likely the type of people to hold on to their money or invest in things that only benefit themselves, then giving them more money absolutely is just removing value from society.