Is professional gambling a directly unproductive profit‐seeking (dup) activity?

Abstract

Research on the economic effects of gambling is still in its infancy and there have been numerous misconceptions propagated in the literature. For example, recently in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (and elsewhere in previous years) it was argued that gambling might, in some cases, constitute a directly unproductive profit‐seeking activity. This paper explains why gambling (even by professional gamblers) cannot legitimately be considered a DUP activity.