Ah, but it's not gambling. Gambling is essentially glorified coin tossing, where pure luck determines the outcome. These are "skill games", totally different. It's ok to fleece poor people of their money when you call it a skill-game.

There's an old gas station up here by my that has been half-hollowed out with a dozen of these things sitting along the empty walls, where people just sit and feed their money into it. Who are we helping by allowing these things? Shitty gas stations? Shady "skill game" machine companies? Sure, the additional tax revenue is nice, but that revenue comes from the poorest segment of society.

This is an example of where a dogmatic adherence to principle, in this case free market capitalism, leads to a net negative for society.