Stop Predatory Gambling

A huge ripoff even by the standards of a business based on ripoffs

by spgadmin

The Baltimore Sun reports Maryland state government agreed this week to pay nearly $50 million to buy about 1,000 slot machines for the planned Cecil County casino. Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot, a longtime leader against the government program of predatory gambling, strongly challenged the contract calling it a “windfall” for the gambling industry.

The contract was approved by members of the Board of Public Works who were given just hours to review the deal, in which the state will spend an average of about $46,542 per video lottery terminal, nearly five times higher than the typical cost of an electronic gambling machine.  

Our government is investing billions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq to build roads, bridges and schools to improve the living conditions in those countries. Yet many of the big public works projects in our own country focus on building casinos and adding slot machines – a government program that milks existing wealth rather than creates new wealth. And on top of it all, our government grossly overpays the gambling interests to do it like what happened in Maryland. A huge ripoff indeed.