I have watched a lot of bitcoin gambling sites come and go.
The first I was aware of was satoshi dice. An awesome site that allowed you to gamble right on the blockchain (which was discouraged by a lot of people in the community).
At some point in time, satoshi dice stopped allowing US Players (I'm sure it can be circumvented with a VPN).
The government effectively scared them away from their completely legitimate business.
Then there was another site where you could bet on the outcome of any event. Anyone could create a bet and anyone could bet on it.
It's great to have the ability to win a bet because you were right. I'd love to bet against anyone that bitcoin will again surpass it's ATH in the following 5 years especially during today's crashing CryptoCurrency market.
That site too, disappeared and it would further be impossible to legally run in the US, or extremely difficult.
And yet the government backed, sponsored and advertised gambling has a much larger scale, and it's much more predatory.
Government backed gambling is also morally bankrupt, as its advertised as a charity, but the money gets shuffled around and effectively no new money goes to the supported cause.
Here is an excellent starter video on the topic of the lottery in the US:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PK-netuhHA (I don't agree with all of John Oliver's points, but you'll get an idea).
And there are infinite more cases of people addicted to the lottery, notably, Elliot Rodger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrGrp4ZYrjg