Why a total online gambling ban will backfire

DECODED: TECH, TRUTH, AND THREATS

By Art Samaniego

When I was a kid, cigarette ads were everywhere, on TV, billboards, and even the sides of delivery trucks. The Marlboro Man was practically a pop culture icon. Then, almost abruptly, they were gone. The government stepped in, banning tobacco advertising, restricting promotions, and making health warnings mandatory.

And you know what? It worked. Smoking rates among my friends and family dropped. The glossy image of cigarettes as cool or glamorous began to fade.

Now I can’t help but see the same kind of manipulation happening with online gambling.

Everywhere you look, whether you’re scrolling through Facebook, watching YouTube, or just commuting on the skyway, there it is. Flashy promises. Celebrities with big smiles. The word “bingo” is dressed up to sound like fun, harmless entertainment. And of course, all the usual disclaimers tucked neatly at the bottom, too small to matter. “Play responsibly,” they say as if a slogan can moderate addiction.

Let me be clear: I’m not advocating for a total ban. Gambling, like drinking or smoking, exists. It’s not going away anytime soon. But regulation? Strong, unapologetic, and meaningful regulation? That’s the bare minimum.

History shows us what happens when governments overstep their bounds. Do you recall the Prohibition era in the United States? The government banned alcohol completely, hoping it would reduce crime, improve public health, and restore moral order. Instead, it created a booming underground industry. Bootleggers, speakeasies, and organized crime syndicates flourished. The ban didn’t stop people from drinking, it just made them do it in the shadows, with no safeguards, no oversight, and far more danger.

That’s exactly the risk we face if we push for an outright ban on online gambling. It won’t stop people from placing bets. It will just drive them to illegal platforms, many of which are far more predatory and unregulated than the legal ones we’re already struggling to keep in check. Worse, these underground sites don’t follow responsible gaming rules. They don’t care about age verification or addiction. They only care about profit.

So instead of banning gambling altogether, we need to regulate it intelligently, like we eventually did with alcohol and tobacco. That includes banning celebrity endorsements, restricting ad placements, enforcing strict age verification, and possibly even limiting the amount someone can top up on their betting account per week. Because when you strip away the marketing hype and the influencer glam, gambling starts to look like what it really is: a financial risk, not a lifestyle goal.

Senator Gatchalian’s bill to stop celebrities from endorsing online gambling is a good start. Some might say it’s too little. But I’d argue it’s necessary. Because once we allow the industry to dominate every platform, every screen, and every billboard without limits, we normalize something that should, at the very least, come with serious warnings.

Yes, some will say we’re overreacting. That gambling is just entertainment. And for some, it may be. But when people start skipping meals to top up their accounts, or racking up debt chasing losses, that’s not entertainment anymore. That’s a public health issue.

We regulated cigarettes not to erase them, but to protect people from being manipulated. We need to treat gambling with the same level of seriousness. Not with a total ban that pushes it underground, but with real guardrails that protect the people most at risk, before it becomes another addiction we look back on with regret, wondering why we didn’t act sooner.

(Art Samaniego is the founder and Editor-in-Tech of Tech-NewsPH.com, as well as co-founder of Scam Watch Pilipinas.)