Stop Predatory Gambling

What other government program produces this result?

by Les

The Philadelphia Inquirer puts a spotlight (again) on how the government program of predatory gambling impacts children and how these new social costs are billed to taxpayers. Read below:

“Turns out the Parx Casino doesn’t have a monopoly on gamblers abandoning kids in cars.

A couple left three kids in a minivan last week while they gambled inside a Pittsburgh casino. A 10-month-old girl, a 3-year-old boy, and a 10-year-old boy were left alone for 45 minutes while a Washington County couple gambled in the Rivers Casino.

A passerby alerted security. The couple were charged with child endangerment and leaving an unattended child in a vehicle. The children were placed in the care of youth services. Chalk up the police, court, and youth-services time as the latest social costs of gambling billed to taxpayers.

Not to be outdone, Tan Truong, 38, of Northeast Philadelphia, was charged last week with leaving his two daughters, ages 8 and 6, in a minivan outside the Parx Casino. The car alarm went off around 12:50 a.m., alerting security. Truong was inside the casino celebrating his birthday. The girls’ mother had arrived hours earlier and was also in the casino.

This eighth incident of adults’ leaving children in a car at the Bensalem casino since June makes the odds of finding a child left in a car at Parx about the same as, or better, than hitting it big.

This is just one of the unconsidered legacies of gambling made possible by Gov. Rendell and the state legislature in 2004. The politicians have been blinded by the tax revenue rolling in, but the destructive problems associated with gambling continue to mount.”