Yesterday I was sorting my winnings tickets I put while watching the game, had quite a nice sum and while standing in line to cash them I thought about how money is moving around, got the idea it's pretty close to a wealth redistribution.
Might be a stupid theory but hear me out on this, we have the gamblers that bet on 1 million, half of them lose, half of them win, the casinos get their 5% share, from this share they pay wages and rent and other costs, cutting the part where the casino gets the money it's that basically gamblers pay the wages of the whole staff manning those, and they also shuffle money between them.
Assuming rich people have more to lose and their share of the losses is bigger, taking into account they support with this money a ton of jobs, 70 000 in Europe alone, is this a form of wealth redistribution?
I do not think of gambling as a wealth redistribution pattern even as a weird one. The reason behind is that it is so flawed if we call it redistribution because the amount of money the gambling being transferred to is from many to few.
Like the house or the owner of the gambling scheme getting the most of the money and this is simply can't be called redistribution but accumulation where money gets accumulated from many gamblers to just a few entities like what happens in lotteries and other gambling platforms.
No offense but I always think that almost all casinos are money hungry or greedy that they can only think of them selves, so what you are saying that they will be happy blah blah blah... is impossible. In fact I think they will be annoyed more when they figure that out. Casinos can also benefit from the poor people, so they can encourage them as well to play more.
It is obvious that business establishment wants to prosper and casinos and gambling platform is no difference. If they can monopolize all players then it is best for them, every business establishment is greedy to get customers, because it is their means of surviving and prospering. I do not think casinos and other gambling platforms are more greedy than any other business establishment though.
If we want to help the others, it will be better to just donate the money straight to them and not use the casino as proxy because like you said, they can only corrupt it. Indeed this also happens to other industries most especially in the charity one/itself and this is why many people are discouraged to donate there after knowing it.
It is too much of a task if the casinos makes an individual approach over people who need help, we have institutions for that so I believe it is wise for the casino to take advantage of using institutions for their charity works. Saves a lot of effort and time for them.