A little nanny-state-ish? Proposing licensing for this is akin to proposing licensing for nearly anything else that requires a modicum of personal responsibili

A little nanny-state-ish? Proposing licensing for this is akin to proposing licensing for nearly anything else that requires a modicum of personal responsibility. I'm not here to defend the casinos but this proposition is crazy and I'd actively advocate against it. Let's ignore the obvious non-starters like costs because the obvious deterrent is this: make it difficult to get started gambling by capitalizing on people's laziness. They wont go to the class, so they won't go gamble, right? They won't go to class to learn about the dangers of drinking so they won't drink, right? The first counterpoint is arguably the simplest. In both cases, gambling and alcohol, doing it "under the table" is simple. There is arguably no difference between buying/making a set of dice, setting up a wood box in your house (or a cardboard box on the street) and playing craps. In fact, the odds are better doing this so you'll likely gain more customers. Benefit? It's easy to pack up, move, and keep secret. Nevada has an entire wing of the police dedicated to finding people gambling in their homes and it nets what I can only imagine is a grand average of 0 arrests per year. For alcohol, it's absolutely trivial to make swill. If you really want it, you're a yeast packet and fruit juice away from it. You can even make it with bread. Alcoholics don't care about flavor. If they do, you can distill your swill further and flavor it for less than $100 more. Is the goal then to require a license to buy copper pipes? Torches? How many licenses do I need before I need a separate bag for them? How many regulations will be propose on businesses before doing something like gambling or drinking alcohol require a NICS background check and re-taking a class every 2 years? For things that are successfully licensed a few things need to happen. 1. It must be non-trivial for a person to start doing. Making pharmaceuticals is an example of this. Even trivial street drugs like heroin and cocaine are not room temperature IQ simple to manufacture. Many drugs require a full blown BSc/MSc in chemistry to even begin to understand. 2. The ability to acquire the components to do the thing must be reduced to the point it becomes impossible for a non-licensed person to get it. Again, manufacturing drugs is an example of this. With these two in place you can successfully regulate something. Otherwise, the regulation will fail at the start. At some point we must accept personal responsibility for our own vices. People attending GA or AA have done this. If you are predisposed to blowing 8x your net worth at a casino it's YOUR responsibility to not gamble. The casino can't be responsible for your own problems. Now, it's true the casinos do very little to stop someone from taking out a credit line at the cage, nor do they do anything to actively stop an obvious problem gambler. This is an avenue for change. Liquor stores often stop "regulars" from buying another liter of popov. But to propose licensing? Insane.