The reason investing is treated with greater scrutiny than gambling is because of the psychological factor. When you gamble, you're under no illusion that you're guaranteed to win. But it's easy to be fooled into thinking there's a way to hedge risk without putting in the time and effort to learn how.
Every single time I see democratized access to riskier financial markets actually make it to the public, I can hold my breath and wait for the news reports to come out about the scams and grifters that come out of the woodwork to take advantage of little old grandmas, who wouldn't ever think of pulling the cash out from under the mattress that she's saving for little Penny's college fund and going to Vegas, but can easily be talked into "investing" it in the brand new wave of "tech" sweeping the nation.
It's not Joe Average these laws protect. It's Joe Average's less cognitively-blessed parents. It's so easy to fool old people that if we don't take positive steps to stop it from happening, it becomes an industry.
You can't get rid of all of it, but you can at least push the wolves out to the periphery.
