Government-Supervised Gambling, Still An Issue

“It’s so destructive; the longer we have this, the more people (there are) who know someone who has been affected by video lottery,” said Dan Brendtro, a Sioux Falls area attorney who is leading the fight on behalf of Forward South Dakota. His group gathered enough signatures to put Initiative No. 7 on the Nov. 7 ballot...But Larry Mann of Vote No on 7 says gambling opponents far overstate the social cost of video lottery and that the video-lottery industry is weary of going through repeated elections.....Video lottery to face fourth vote, Dan Daly, Rapid City Journal, 10/26/06

The arguments surrounding votes on this issue, which lingers despite decades of government-supervised gambling in many states, have not gone away. On the one side, those of serious moral convictions argue that gambling loots the poor by offering an unreasonable hope for gain. On the other side, a position that has not varied in the change from gangster-supervised to government-supervised gambling, proponents claim that what people do with their money isn't anybody's business, and that people who gamble will do so regardless of the law. This has had some ironic consequences. As mentioned in a recent post, the Offtrack Betting Corporation in New York, created to generate income for New York State schools, has been a perpetual money loser. Why? It's not hard to figure out. OTB became a source of patronage jobs, and the beneficiaries ate up the profits. Picking up the tab for your friends was always frowned upon by the old gangster management of local bookies. If you expected to be protected, never mind made, you were supposed to be an earner. As to the argument, as familiar from gangsters as from the government, that people would bet on whatever they thought worth playing regardless of the law, it's undeniable. And as to the argument that gambling soaks the poor and makes a few people rich, that's also undeniable. As always, the issue pits moral convictions against cynicism. Most likely the latter will win again in South Dakota. But it's good that the issue is still being debated; we need to be reminded daily that there are still substantial numbers of people who prefer idealism over cynicism, who still think of future consequences, not just immediate satisfaction.

Luther