Stop Predatory Gambling

The predatory gambling movement heats up in Arkansas

by spgadmin

Check out this news story about the South Carolina Lottery. Here’s an excerpt:

“A review of demographic studies commissioned by the South Carolina Education Lottery, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that although low-income and minority groups may not be targeted in the lottery’s advertising, they are more likely than other demographic groups to play the lottery frequently.” The studies also “show significant differences between frequent lottery players, or people who play lottery games more than once a week, and the general population.”

Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize winning historian of the Civil Rights Movement and biographer of Martin Luther King, has been one of America’s most outspoken voices to stop state-sponsored predatory gambling. Here’s Branch in his own words about how state-sponsored predatory gambling defies the democratic principle of equal citizenship. From a Baltimore Sun story dated April 20, 2008:

“Basically, I would say a lifetime spent studying Martin Luther King and the civil rights era steeps you in what democracy requires, because that’s basically what the whole civil rights movement is about. What does equal citizenship mean?” he said. “To me, the first rule of the American experience is that we don’t play each other for suckers. The government shouldn’t play its own citizens for suckers – ‘We need public money, and we’re going to fleece people who are foolish enough to go in and pull one-armed bandits.’” Or in this instance, buy $20 instant scratch tickets.

Dale Charles, president of the Arkansas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, deserves recognition for putting Branch’s message into action.