My country is quite a very interesting example of how things can go wrong with the gambling market when politics get involved.
We used to have fairly established casino industry in resorts and cities where people liked to spend their vacations in, but all of it changed when the socialist party arrived and held onto power. They assumed gambling was completely contrary to the ideology they wanted to implant in the population, so they used their power to pass laws which would limit the establishment of casinos and even closed down many of them.
Because of it, the contribution for my country from such industry is mostly null.
It is one of the few cases I have seen gambling and politics to directly involve one against the other.
It's very different for us here in our country, our politicians fully support the casino industry, because it is attached to our tourism industry, and since our country run our casino industry here they encourage the proliferation of business associated with casinos because it creates jobs, and taxes for the government.
Some countries restrict or even ban casinos, they fail to realize that there are revenues in casino industries while minimizing the exposure of their citizen, in the case of Macau they restrict their people and only allow tourists to play in casinos in their countries and they benefit a lot from this.
Well, in the case of my country, the former ruling president did not think about casinos or gambling like that, he was quite closed-minded in the use of casinos to attract tourists or as a way to collect tax money.
He did not thought there could be a reliable way to exclude his own citizens from gambling, while encouraging citizens from all around the world to spend money at casinos, because since the beginning, we have not been a quite attractive touristic destination in many years, in part because the same policies of that same president.
It is a contradiction if you ask me, a politician who talks about freedom and social security of their citizens, but at the same time is unwilling to use the means necessary to get that money he knows the governments needs to keep people happy and the system working.