> Most gamblers are casuals. I spend $5-10 a week during football and usually am down like $10 at the end of the year
An annual cap of $500 on bets per social security number seems reasonable. At the very least, 10% of state's median income (a whopping $4,222 nationally [1]).
I don't gamble outside of a few small wagers during March Madness. Having said that, I have a viscerally negative reaction to your proposal. It feels paternalistic to the point of near Puritanism. I don't want a laissez-faire free-for-all out there, I'm not saying "everything is fine as-is", but a government capped limit on how you waste your own money when the terms and odds are clearly communicated (unlike traditional scams, for instance)? I'll pass on that, and I'm confident I'm more of a "big government" proponent than most commenters in this community.
At a minimum I do think the government should limit advertising and crack down on incentives these sites gives to keep people hooked.
> a proportion of income would work better, because $500 would be a lot for some people
Sure, if a state is willing to enforce that added complexity. I'd still have a hard cap to remove plausible deniability. Otherwise every trailer-park resident will be a millionaire while FanDuel et al do a Facebook-can't-tell-if-I'm-12-or-52 shrug.
An annual cap of $500 on bets per social security number seems reasonable. At the very least, 10% of state's median income (a whopping $4,222 nationally [1]).
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N