Stop Predatory Gambling

One day closer to getting government out of the predatory gambling business

by Les

The Daytona Beach News-Journal rips the failed government policy of predatory gambling in a must-read editorial. Read it below:

Lawmakers escape into gambling fantasyland

Florida is on the cusp of becoming the Disney World of gambling.

Uh, make that gaming — sounds a little more Disney-like.

This is the vision of state Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican and co-sponsor of a bill to allow three multi-billion-dollar “destination resort casinos” in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

“Basically, we could become the Disney of gaming,” Bogdanoff said to the Naples Daily News. “Disney was built here and brings in tourists from around the world. Gaming can do the same thing.”

Bogdanoff and other lawmakers who want to expand gambling have entered the Magic Kingdom. They’re looking at a down economy and another lean state budget and imagining that there is a politically painless solution to these problems. And whenever public officials start looking for an easy way out of their budget dilemmas, the nation’s massive and hugely profitable gambling industry is there with an answer.

We’ll turn your state into one big Disney World of slots, poker tables and roulette wheels! Step right up and place your bets on the new tax — make that gaming — revenue machine!

It’s a sucker’s bet. Florida will never become the Disneyland of casinos. Even if “destination” casinos pop up all over the state, legislators will still struggle to balance the budget, the schools will still need more funding and Medicaid will continue to devour a large percentage of state revenues.

“Gaming” is pervasive in the United States. Various forms of it are legal in 48 states. More than half the states have casinos. Las Vegas and Atlantic City are “destination” resorts — and states like Mississippi lure tourists and locals with gambling and entertainment complexes.

Florida already has plenty of gambling: Parimutuel betting at 23 sites, the Florida Lottery, poker rooms, slots in Broward and Miami-Dade and eight Indian casinos. And then there are dozens of Internet cafes that operate within what some law enforcement authorities call a “gray area” of the state’s gambling laws.

All this gaming hasn’t turned Florida into a wonderland of prosperity and good jobs. A few mega-casinos won’t do the trick, either.

Most state lotteries were sold on the idea that they would relieve all worries about funding education. Now we hear that casinos will cure all budget ills. We’re always just a few billion bucks in lost bets away from salvation.

Volusia County Chair Frank Bruno offers a realistic view of the impact of gambling. Bruno, a New Jersey native, told The News-Journal, “The thought is, why should our people be going to places like Biloxi and Gulfport and Las Vegas or even Atlantic City? But let me tell you, (in Atlantic City) that whole area is like an oasis in the middle of the slums. It was not the catalyst to clean up the area around it.”

An “oasis in the middle of slums.” Doesn’t sound like Disney, does it?

Bruno’s comment indirectly makes another key point. It’s “our people” who would be pumping money into the one-armed bandits. Not Europeans in search of the perfect casino destination.

And our government would bear the social costs associated with the dark side of gambling. Earl L. Grinols, an economist and a former economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, calculated those costs eight years ago and came up with an annual price tag for the nation’s growing obsession with gambling: $54 billion.

Grinols included increased crime, bankruptcies, domestic violence and lost workdays in his analysis. You don’t hear much about these things when legislators talk about “gaming,” but they most definitely are part of the deal officials make when they decide government should profit from the losers.

Lawmakers should abandon their dreams of Disney with slots and focus on the hard work of balancing the budget. Floridians will be better off if their representatives don’t shoot for an illusory jackpot.