Stop Predatory Gambling

Why you pay higher taxes because of predatory gambling

by spgadmin

The Morning Call, a newspaper based in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, ran a story yesterday revealing that much of the roughly $4.8 million a week being lost at Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem is likely coming from people who are poor.

According to a survey taken by the Lehigh Valley Research Consortium, 48 percent of Valley people living below the poverty line said they intended to gamble at the casino in south Bethlehem.

Of the 450 people surveyed in January and February 2009 — four months before the casino opened — people making less than $20,000, by a wide margin, said they were likely or very likely to gamble at the casino.

That compared with 29 percent for people making $20,000 to $60,000, 33 percent of people making $60,000 to $100,000 and 20 percent of those making more than $100,000.

The idea that the Valley’s poorest residents are doing much of the gambling was a sobering reality to consortium researchers, who say it should sound an alarm for officials statewide to commission a more comprehensive study about exactly who is losing the more-than $40 million every week at the state’s nine casinos.

There can be no dispute that the government program of predatory gambling continues to play a major role in shrinking the middle class in America. It has turned tens of millions of people who are small earners with the potential to be small savers into a new class of habitual bettors – the Lottery Class. They represent the 1 out of 5 Americans who, according to the Consumer Federation of America, think the best way to achieve long-term financial security is to use state-sponsored gambling products

And who do you think is paying for the other government programs intended to help people living below the poverty line while predatory gambling pushes them into even deeper debt? You and every other citizen who pays taxes.