The powers that be have only one purpose for a lot of life-destroying
practices: eugenics. Gambling is only one of them. The idea is to eliminate
the part of the population that has genes making them susceptible to problem
gambling. Their underling servants might be solely interested in making
money, but the women in charge are only interested in "cleansing" society.
As with all such things it's a poorly thought out self-inflicted scam. The
powers that be are really scamming themselves. They'll realize that
eventually the same way they realized they have kiddie clocks after all.