**TL;DR - What constitutes as gambling is a very grey area, however there should be more restrictions on gambling** Gambling is an addictive past-time. It plays on the idea that ‘it could be you’ who wins the next game, round or race. I don’t think it should be banned, we live in a free society where people can use and invest their money as they please. However, I believe the restrictions need to be enforced and tightened. - An example of a country with more restrictions on gambling is in Japan. Gambling is not completely illegal, however it does come with many restrictions. You can only bet on [bicycle, horse and motorcycle races as well as football] (https://www.tsunagujapan.com/7-things-about-japanese-gambling-you-probably-didnt-know/). - I watched an Amazon Prime documentary starring James May about Japan. On one of the episodes he addressed the game of [Pachinko] (https://www.tsunagujapan.com/7-things-about-japanese-gambling-you-probably-didnt-know/). This game is a form of gambling that works on a loophole in the restrictions. You can’t win money, but only toys/gifts that you can then exchange for money. What this example shows is that you can only [restrict gambling so far] (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55899644). I also think that there is a grey area now with what constitutes gambling, as there is more ‘gambling’ online now. An example of this is You-tuber Jake Paul promoting mystery boxes to his young and impressionable audience. [Is this gaming or gambling?] (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-mystery-boxes-jake-paul-loot-box). Personally I think gambling is a very grey area that needs addressing, more restrictions but not banning!

Gambling could, i think be reasonably defined as waging a stake (money or anything else) on a game of chance, or on a proposition, or activity with an uncertain outcome, with the hope of winning a prize. The prize could be money or something else. However using this simple definition, investing in the stock market is a form of gambling. I think, the form of gambling being referred to here is where the activity, proposition, or thing being bet on, exists as a form of sport, competition, which partly exists so that people can bet or wager on it. By this definition, i think, betting on horse racing, or in a casino is gamblng but investing in the stock market is not. Gambling is an activity where people try to get money without working for it. I am defining "work" here as "a contribution to society". So in my later definition investing in the stock market is a contribution to companies, that add to society, while betting on horse races or the casino, is an attempt to win money and only adds to companies, whose existence is not focused on providing a service to society, other than giving the opportunity for people to gamble. I think, for this reason, gambling should be banned. Because it promotes the idea of gaining money, in a way that does not attempt to add to society in terms of work or gain money due to need, but instead, gain it through games of chance that are divorced from need and the idea of supplying societies needs, through work. If gambling of the type defined above was abolished, all the energy that some gamblers put into winning on games of chance, might be put toward gaining wealth through contributions, through work, to supply the needs of society. Gambling should be abolished so that gamblers can focus on socially useful contributions to gain, wealth. Banning gambling would enrich society.