It's not though. As a kid I had a habit of trying to get out of putting my seat belt on. It was uncomfortable and I didn't understand at the time why I needed to be uncomfortable when I could stretch across the back seat without it. It just so happens that not wearing seat belts is something that society (at least in the US) has dictated that one must be protected from doing. I learned that as I learned other things growing up and accepted it and moved on. Granted I can understand and decide now to wear a seat belt myself, but it's still a behavior that society has decided we needed legislation on.
I'm sure somebody can point to a flaw of mine and say we need to regulate that, and they very well might be right. If I'm particularly obstinate about the topic I might resist, but that doesn't mean that it isn't something that should be legislated. That being said, I'm not calling for widespread legislation to protect us all from our problems, I'm just pointing out that it is a valid opinion to desire more government regulation on personal behaviors. Although it is an uncommon opinion.
I don't agree with seat belt legislation any more than gambling legislation. That's not to say I don't understand statistics or the arguments behind wearing seat belts--I just feel that it's an encroachment on personal liberties.
Risking all of my money (or more) on a big gamble is one of the liberties I not only am glad to have, but have exercised in the past, including becoming a professional poker player, starting a bar business, buying a large property, and riding a motorcycle.
I dislike that I'm required to wear a seat belt, and even more than that, I dislike that other people get to demand it of me.
What makes the seat belt analogy shaky is that society pays for the people who don't wear their seat belts in the form of 1. increased insurance premiums and 2. increased health care costs, both of which are spread over the entire population, those who wear and don't wear seat belts. If you don't wear your seat belt, and hurt yourself, that comes out of my pocket. Society has the right to keep those costs down and collectively decided the best way is to ban this costly behavior.
It's a bit harder to argue that there is a great cost of gambling that is spread across society, however I'm a poker player myself so a bit biased.
A problem with that argument, of course, is that it leads down the path of banning everything that's risky and where society shares the downside. We don't want to do that, so society picks and chooses the highest risk (or worst downside) activities to ban.
Like I said, I understand the arguments for seat belt laws. What makes them a little shaky is we're again picking an arbitrary thing to police. All kinds of things that I can legally do also take money out of your pocket, including many of the things listed above. Motorcycles are a great example in the same niche. In my state we don't even have to wear helmets, it's our choice. I'm guessing the average consequence is a lot greater than skipping a seat belt.
We've picked seat belts as the one to police, probably to give a lot more leeway to police to pull people over and generate income.
Anyway, you say society has the right, and I'm not sure I agree, at least in the seat belt example. They have the power, sure, but I don't think they (ought to) have the right.
I'm sure somebody can point to a flaw of mine and say we need to regulate that, and they very well might be right. If I'm particularly obstinate about the topic I might resist, but that doesn't mean that it isn't something that should be legislated. That being said, I'm not calling for widespread legislation to protect us all from our problems, I'm just pointing out that it is a valid opinion to desire more government regulation on personal behaviors. Although it is an uncommon opinion.