"Gambling has a minimal effect on society as a whole.
Not so minimal for the people involved who suffer an addiction or whatever."
It is the business of any business to increase its profits. The most profitable customers for any gambling operator are those who cannot control their gambling. So the business has a strong inbuilt incentive to target those who are most likely to be victims.
This is why it is appropriate to regulate gambling. Whether such regulation should be a light touch or a heavy touch is a whole are of debate beyond the scope of this discussion.
While my views are mostly leaning in a libertarian direction, I also like to have a sort of cost benefit analysis: Does the relatively mild pleasure given to many people by the widespread availability of gambling more than outweigh the relatively extreme distress which this availability brings to a small minority?
I must admit that I am not at all sure it does.
As a practising solicitor, I have daily access to very large sums of other people's money. I would not ever use any sort of online gambling site for fear of the (admittedly remote) possibility that if I got in the habit, I might someday become a problem gambler. I would have no difficulty whatever with a rule which forbade any practising solicitor from using online gambling sites.
I do feel that gambling is a little different to many other businesses in one sense: for many gambling operations, it is virtually impossible to lose money. If we ever get a casino in this country, it is a guaranteed moneymaker. The right to make a guaranteed profit is not something which should lightly be handed over to the private sector. The inexplicable and seemingly endless desire of the public to lose their money is, in a sense, a national resource, and it should be priced properly before being leased, licenced or sold.
As I understand the 'Betfair' type business, this is a sort of exchange where gamblers are both placing and taking bets, while the operator takes a 'skim' off the top. I understand that the same applies to online poker and such like. This at least has a veneer of democracy to it. It seems to me that this is a slightly less objectionable form of gambling, in that there is no 'house' to lose all your money to, and you only lose lots if you are, on average, worse. Probably the worst form of gambling is the dreadful 'fixed odds terminal' aka one armed bandit.