Interesting point, and I suspect that there are lower hanging fruit in gambling too: some of the most addictive forms (e.g. fixed odds betting terminals in the UK) are not some intrinsic part of the culture but relatively new innovations promoted by a mere handful of companies and so regulators are much happier grappling with them (in the case of fixed odds betting terminals, I suspect restrictions on how much could be bet per spin were even more popular with the people who actually use them on a regular basis than the wider public!).
In that respect it’s perhaps a lot like animal rights activism requires campaigns focused on winnable battles to be effective (and it might appeal to some people that already have that lobbying skillset)
Interesting point, and I suspect that there are lower hanging fruit in gambling too: some of the most addictive forms (e.g. fixed odds betting terminals in the UK) are not some intrinsic part of the culture but relatively new innovations promoted by a mere handful of companies and so regulators are much happier grappling with them (in the case of fixed odds betting terminals, I suspect restrictions on how much could be bet per spin were even more popular with the people who actually use them on a regular basis than the wider public!).
In that respect it’s perhaps a lot like animal rights activism requires campaigns focused on winnable battles to be effective (and it might appeal to some people that already have that lobbying skillset)