Betting on liberalism
It looks like Uruguayan politicians do not mind much about tackling difficult issues or going against entrenched interests. The Senate has just voted a bill to open the betting market to anyone willing to offer, which nowadays means all the many instances available on the web.
La Banca is the government granted agency with a monopoly of betting in Uruguay and, to anyone’s surprise, he is against this move arguing, as all monopolists do, in terms of protecting the interests of people, not their own. There is a very interesting interview at El Observador, where he claims “Liberalism applied to betting is a big mistake”
Could there be some instances where competition is a bad thing? ¿Can we believe the words of a monopolist? Is he really concerned about the health of the people, as he claims, or is he just concerned about the privileges of a monopolist?
He should do more to clarify this enigma. ¿Like what? Well, he mentions La Banca has many alerts to find players who cannot stop themselves and they have a predictive software to find those who might be losing control. That is called “responsible betting”.
The journalist raises some interesting issues: Why do you make advertising? Good question if they are so concerned on not promoting ludopathy. Another good question could be: are you a non-profit organization? La Banca is a cooperative created by all betting agencies.
These are not the only questions arising from the news. We can recognize that ludopathy is a real thing and disturbing, but is government the one to be in charge: what about non-profit organizations?, the Church?, or the several churches and religions?, the media?
It seems to me that we need more convincing actions to show us this is not a mere defense of a privilege.
The interview is here: https://www.elobservador.com.uy/nota/presidente-de-la-banca-sobre-casinos-online-el-liberalismo-aplicado-al-juego-es-un-grave-error--2022101420570