“A cultural monster is rapidly smashing old notions of personal and community vice all across America,” warns columnist Marianne Means in a 1999 editorial, “the problem is legalized gambling, which used to be widely considered a dangerous sign of moral decline and a flagrant disavowal of the honest virtues of hard work and responsibility.” In her column, Means calls on policymakers to do more to halt the spread of legalized gambling.

Means’s sentiments echo what economics professor Richard McGowan calls the “ethics of sacrifice.” “Those who subscribe to the ethics of sacrifice are asking the public to sublimate the good of the individual to the good of all,” he explains. In the case of gambling, critics such as Means believe that policymakers should sacrifice the freedom of individuals to gamble in order...