No, but plenty of people (stupidly) gamble at a casino and hope for returns to fund their retirement, and no one is clamoring to outlaw gambling.<p>To expand on this analogy - gambling is legal because, as a society, we&#x27;ve decided that the upside of &quot;entertainment value&quot; outweighs the downside of &quot;unsophisticated &#x27;investors&#x27; (gamblers) may lose more money than they can afford to.&quot; If this is the case, it seems obvious to me that we should also accept crowdfunding, which has exactly the same downside, but infinitely more valuable upsides: normal investors get more opportunities for investment and businesses get access to more capital.<p>Securities regulations should protect investors from shady businesses doing illegal things, not from themselves.