Crippling debt from unwise impulsive gambling by a teenager is probably worse than whatever occurs from a teenager scrolling Twitter all day.

The latter may not be great, but eating potato chips all day also probably isn't, and I don't think the government should outlaw minors eating potato chips. Plus it's variable: some get positive, educational, pro-social, productive outcomes from social media and some don't. Gambling is always bad in the limit.

A simple rule could probably be that if a website can make you lose over $200 of real money, it should probably require age verification. I don't see why other things should.

> Crippling debt from unwise impulsive gambling by a teenager is probably worse than whatever occurs from a teenager scrolling Twitter all day.

The cynic in me says that's not why governments want identity confirmation for gambling websites. It's so you can't dodge the taxman

That's true. It's probably at least 50% the latter. And I don't really blame them.