Deregulation and the general decay of governance are the major drivers but it should also be pointed out that inequality is a huge driver of gambling. Charlie Munger had a whole speech once about how dumb poor people are for playing the lottery, but thats spoken like a true rich person - from the poor persons perspective, the lottery is one of the only realistic ways out of your current predicament, saving $5 a week will do nothing and just get eaten up elsewhere.