GAMBLING WILL BE LEGAL EVERYWHERE
Courier-Post, Cherry Hill, N.J.
Published: 2/16/2003

Money changes you. But that's not relevant to anyone right now. What is relevant is that the lack of money also changes you.

Thus state governments are changing, since most of them are going broke. States are harvesting less tax revenue because the economy is down; and if political leaders raise income taxes in this dry economy, they will most assuredly lose the next election — to a monkey with a pellet gun, if that's the only opposition available.

If this were a movie, poverty would be ennobling. States would learn to love themselves and recognize who their true friends are. But since this is not a movie, states are legalizing gambling.

In state after state, either one party is accusing the other of trying to legalize gambling (Washington), politicians openly want to legalize various new kinds of gambling (Texas, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Nebraska, South Carolina, California), officials want to expand or legally clarify their gambling (Montana, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Alabama, Indiana, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland), states want to raise taxes on their gambling (Missouri, Montana), or advocates want better treatment for chronic gamblers (Kentucky).

And these are by no means the only states where gambling is legal. They merely stand out because gambling is increasing or stirring up controversy.

A few highlights in all this:

  • Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he doesn't know how he will balance his next budget if his state's 10th riverboat gambling license is still tied up in court, according to The State Journal-Register (of Springfield and central Illinois).

  • Missouri has a limit right now on how much you can lose at a riverboat casino — $500. Gov. Bob Holden wants to ditch that. You could lose as much as you wanted. Tax revenues from casinos would thereby increase by an estimated $57 million, according to The Kansas City Star. The casinos are all for it.

  • Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich wants to add slot machines to state race tracks. So do a lot of other governors. But whereas they frequently run up against Christian groups, Ehrlich is clashing with the Muslims — specifically, his area's Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, according to Capital News Service. A verse in the Quran prohibits Muslims from gambling.

  • Even though Wyoming is just about the only state with a budget surplus, the state's House just voted to allow parimutuel betting on rodeo events. You'll all be happy to know this includes chuckwagon races.

    A broader issue is that state gambling stirs up border wars. One casino developer — Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the board of Las Vegas Sands, Inc. — is playing Rhode Island against Massachusetts, saying that whichever one legalizes casino gambling first will drive the market, according to the Associated Press.

    In the meantime, a bill to legalize casino gambling in Nebraska would set casinos right along the state's eastern border, cutting into Iowa's casino profits. Pro-gambling forces in Alabama say their opponents are backed by casino owners in Mississippi. And Nevadans are no doubt shaking in their dusty boots at the prospect that Californians won't have to drive over the Sierras anymore to lose $50 in nickels.

    We're heading into a different kind of economy, and whereas poverty in the movies creates close friends and a loving family, poverty everywhere else creates crack dealers. If precedents hold true from others who have pioneered gambling in America — Bugsy Siegel comes to mind — Iowa will bust up Nebraska with hatchets and blow-torches, and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn plans to shoot California Gov. Gray Davis in the knees.

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