Stop Predatory Gambling

Why predatory gambling interests spend so much money on lobbying

by spgadmin

Over the last twenty years, there are countless examples how predatory gambling interests will spend whatever it takes to overwhelm the political process. Just yesterday, the Associated Press reported that casino interests spent more than $3 million lobbying in Massachusetts to legalize slot machines during 2010. It means they have now spent more than $15 million over the last decade just in that one state.

Such uncontrolled spending allows them to relentlessly promote a fictional ‘‘jobs, revenues and inevitability’’ narrative and to keep the focus away from the real questions about how their business works.  If every legislator across America was outspent 5 to 1 during his or her campaign, never mind 500 to 1, nearly all of them would lose reelection regardless of their merit. Yet we allow casino operators to tout polling numbers as genuine evidence of public support, despite their incomparable spending advantage.

As the recent 60 Minutes segment showed, the government program of predatory gambling will be one of the biggest stories of the new decade. In 2011, casino operators are going to need spend even more money on lobbying in their bid to push aside the truth that they are the most predatory business in America and their windfall is coming at the expense of every taxpayer in the country.