The reason why casinos is being regulated is not to protect consumers. If it was for consumers sake, then what have they been doing to help those addicted gamblers and in which way are they helping to promote the knowledge of responsible gambling? I believe that their main reason for regulations is tax collection and monitoring of money laundering issues.
We have seen thousands of scam accusation complaints on the internet. How many of them were resolved? In most cases, the scam happens once the user wins a hefty amount of money in a casino. They do not scam a hundred dollars; they always target big amounts, which are usually bigger than a thousand dollars. Sometimes, it's life-changing money for some people. But since it's an online casino, players usually don't know what to do and where to complain.
Only a tiny percentage of players create scam accusations in the forums, and some others end up contacting mediator services like Ask Gambler and Casino Guru. Imagine the real number of players who got scammed but never got any help from anyone. Has the license provider ever audited any casinos? I don't think so.
Taxes from the gambling industry are huge and if there is no regulation then there will be no taxes, I also think that why the government implemented that every casino must have a license to operate its gambling services, because they need to steal money from casinos, then, KYC and other frills are some other purposes as a way for them to work so that they are not considered as thieves completely under the pretext of supervision, we haven't whether or not there is a true audit of the casinos, because there are still a lot of frauds that are true even by licensed casinos, I think the audits that are done are only on the user database and the financial flow of the casino, and that does not include audits that are supposed to be intended for user safety. LOL
I won't categorically assume or say that governments are stealing from casinos through license and taxes, and this is because on the norm, businesses are supposed to have a license to operate, this is what shows that they are government certified which also proves that the government has found them and their services worthy for the citizens of that country and the world.
And the taxes this businesses pay to the government is what is used to build and develop the country where they business is operating on, like build good roads, provide electricity, provide good healthcare for the supposed customers of that same business because they need to stay alive ans healthy to continue to patronize that business or company, and so on and so on.
The only area the government, or would I say the body of the government assigned to issue and maintain licenses to companies, which is the regulators, fail is that, they are now doing a half job, they issue license to companies, collect taxes, collect license renewal fees, but fail to make sure that the companies are not using that same license to scam their customers.