He he! I'm never playing a board game with you!
When I wrote the post, I was using rules and laws a bit interchangeably, as you and a couple of others have pointed out, there is a distinction. Although some have chosen the criminal conviction to denote laws, and monetary fines to denote rules.
I think I do agree with you (not so much on cheating in board games!), laws are the foundation of our societies (speaking from the point of view of a first world Western liberal democracy). Sure they sometimes restrict our freedom, but the main point of them is to protect the freedoms of others. As I had recently read in a post by @zen-art:
Where your freedom begins, mine stops