We should Ban Gambling

Firstly, I want to point out my opponent is entirely right in saying that gambling is addictive, and when taken to excess it usually by and large creates a larger harm to the poor, and has caused family ills. However, I wish to argue that none of this is relevant to evaluating whether it should be illegal. There are two types of morality. The first is a private moral sphere which says how we act. For example, my private morality is not to waste time on useless degrees like dance, not to smoke, not to waste time watching Jersey Shore and to donate some money to charity when I can. This morality is part of the private sphere, which does not affect other people to an extent large enough to matter. There is also the public sphere. This is the morality which we put onto other people: like Do Not Kill, respect agreements, don't steal, 'play by the rules', etc. etc. These are the morals which can ban things. If gambling is something which is more than a preference but an actual moral harm, then it should be banned. We must therefore establish the grounds of whether something should be banned. Society works on a system of contracts: I want something, so does someone else. I have something they want, they have something I want. So we make a consenting agreement to give each other what we both want. This is a crude example of a contract in work. These contracts are inherently by the nature of society something that cannot be banned, or our entire government falls apart. Moreover, they are the founding principles of governments. The right to self-determination proposed by the USA in the Declaration of Independence: the right "for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another" is the underpinning of contractualism. Thus, if something affirms contractualism, it cannot rationally be banned. The aim of the state, moreover, is to protect the individual and these contracts, and as such the state stopping these contracts is both immoral and illogical. Does gambling take the form of a contract? It is two parties, knowing full-well the possible consequences and the probability of those consequences, agreeing with each other to divide wealth according to luck. This is a perfectly valid agreement between individuals. People have free will and should be allowed to spend their money on which ever leisure pursuits they choose. Gamblers know that, overall, they are likely to lose money. They gamble because it is a leisure pursuit that they enjoy. As such, the state intervening in this is inherently wrong and immoral, and this takes prima facie relevance over my opponent's case.Moreover, the banning of gambling has no reason to lower its use. If illegal, it will simply shift even more into the black market[1], and thus mean that we cannot help those suffering from addiction to gambling. Furthermore, this makes the gambling market more heavily linked to crime, which is exactly a criticism my opponent used to go against it. Finally, banning gambling is a ridiculous idea in itself. Isn't playing the lottery gambling? Isn't playing the stock market gambling? In each case people are putting money at risk in the hope of a particular outcome. Gambling on horse-racing or games involves knowledge and expertise that can improve your chances of success, just like trading in bonds, shares, currency or derivatives is a bet that your understanding of the economy is better than that of other investors. Furthermore, how do you ban websites giving the service? We cannot do the impossible task of regulating the internet: it simply doesn't work. People who want to gamble can easily get past the hurdles in their way, so stopping it just won't work.To conclude, the banning of gambling is misguided. On one level, it won't work, and on another leve, it simply isn't wrong. With that, I pass over to my opponent.1 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk...;