Let me offer a counter argument from a gambling friend of mine. He says that, sure, he often loses but sometimes he wins. What about the foodie snobs who blow a fortune to eat some weird recipe? What about the theater snobs who pay a fortune to sit and watch some great actor? Or the backpacking snobs pay a fortune for some ultralight tent. They all end poorer (monetarily) because they never win. It's kind of funny ho…
Do you think spending money is a form of gambling?
It sounds like the argument is that gambling is a form of spending money.
I live in Australia too and I think the government letting pretty much any company that wants a wagering license have one is problematic. I'm sure there were problem gamblers 30 years ago when TAB was the only player but it feels like these days there's a new player entering the market every month, and they're getting increasingly desperate to make a profit in what is already a flooded market.
So your solution is to grant a monopoly to TAB and Sportsbet, preventing any competition? Gatekeeping licenses leads to predatory monopolies. That's why every single physical casino in Australia, which generally receive monopoly licenses, are cesspits of money laundering and gang activity.
Not necessarily, but I don't think the Northern Territory having no apparent limit on bookmaker licenses is a good idea either.
That said, I think the tote is not a predatory monopoly because it just takes a percentage (I don't think it's fixed but maybe it's capped) of all bets whereas the fixed odds players need to squeeze every penny because if they're not careful they can lose money, so having 10+ fixed odds bookmakers creates an environment of cut-throat and sometimes dubious behaviour to make money.