When discussing the issue of "whether legal and regulated gambling can get rich", we need to conduct a rational analysis from multiple dimensions. The following are the key levels of disassembly： --- ###1. Legal compliance is not equal to economic rationality 1. **The existence of legal gambling** About 40% of the world's countries allow commercial casino operations, but legal compliance only means that their business behavior is regulated and is not directly related to whether they can create wealth. For example, Macau casinos generate tens of billions of taxes every year, but the long-term winning rate of ordinary gamblers is only 45%-48% (data from UNLV Gaming Research Center). 2. **Probability trap** All legal gambling projects have been actuariously designed. Taking American roulette as an example, the dealer advantage of single-zero roulette is 2.7%, and double-zero roulette has risen to 5.26%. This means that for every投注100 bet, you will lose分别2.7 /55.26 in the long run, showing a clear negative expectation value. --- ###2. Cognitive bias from the perspective of behavioral economics 1. **Near-cause effect misleading** The casino stimulates dopamine secretion through lighting, sound effects, and intermittent rewards (medium-sized rewards appear every 600-800 spins), causing 85% of gamblers to overestimate the probability of accidental victory (a 2019 study in the Journal of Addictive Behavior). 2. **Sunk cost fallacy** Experiments have shown that gamblers increase their bets by an average of 37% after consecutive losses, and the behavior of trying to recover the losses accelerates the depletion of funds (data from the Behavioral Economics Laboratory of the University of Cambridge). --- ###3. The mathematical nature of wealth accumulation 1. **Warning of Kelly Formula** Even if there is a 51% winning rate, the optimal betting ratio calculated according to the Kelly formula is only 2% (principal*(bp-q)/b). In reality, the winning rate of gambling is generally less than 50%, which means that any bet that exceeds 1% of the principal is accelerating bankruptcy. 2. **Bankruptcy probability model** Assuming that a gambler carries a principal of 1,000 yuan and bets 100 yuan (10% principal) each time, with a 49% winning rate, the probability of bankruptcy for 5 consecutive bets is 68%, and it rises to 91% after 10 times (Monte Carlo simulation results). --- ###4. Dislocation of social functions of regulated gambling 1. **Entertainment pricing mechanism** The average annual guest unit price of Las Vegas casinos is US5583 (according to the American Gaming Association), which is positioned as entertainment consumption rather than investment. Treating it as a way to create wealth is tantamount to mistaking movie tickets as employment opportunities. 2. **Pass-on of tax costs** U.S. states impose taxes ranging from 6-50% on casino revenue, and these costs are eventually passed on to consumers by reducing the odds, forming a double loss mechanism. --- ###5. Rational alternatives 1. **Human capital investment** According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the lifetime income of those with a master's degree is 1.2 million U.S. dollars higher than that of high school graduates, with an annualized return.