Democracy and Gambling
Taylor Branch on Democracy and Gambling
Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the Civil Rights Movement and biographer of Martin Luther King, lays out why the government policy of predatory gambling undermines the core democratic principles our nation was founded on: “State-sponsored predatory gambling is essentially a corruption of democracy because it violates the most basic premises that make democracy unique: that you can be self-governing, you can be honest and open about your disagreements as well as your agreements, and that you trust other people that you are in this together. That’s what a compact of citizens is. And the first-step away from it is to play each other for suckers. We’re going to trick them into thinking they are going to get rich but they are really going to be paying my taxes.”
The first document below is a opinion piece written by Branch for the Baltimore Sun in 2004. The second item is a feature story on Branch’s activism that appeared in the Sun in 2008.
Taylor Branch – Slots and Democracy
Taylor Branch – Slots Foes Bag a Literary Lion
Taylor Branch Speech at SPG Foundation National Convention in 2008
This is a video featuring Taylor Branch from SPG’s 2008 National Convention in Washington, D.C. He begins to specifically address the government policy of predatory gambling after the 6:00 mark. Daniel Hunter of Casino Free Philadelphia was invited to introduce Branch.
The Lottery: A New England Horror Story
In this 1990 article from New England Monthly, historian Taylor Branch gives an overview of the development of state lotteries in New England and the danger this poses to our democracy.
The Lottery – A New England Horror Story by Taylor Branch
Government-Run Gambling Bigger Than Organized Crime
Should our democratic institutions be competing with organized crime for revenue? Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Monica Yant Kinney discovers an important distinction between illegal underground gambling and government-sponsored predatory gambling: “Bookies don’t prey on gamblers. Bookies don’t solicit. Gamblers find them.”
This lies in stark contrast to state governments using taxpayer money to solicit our fellow citizens to play the lottery and providing tax incentives to allow casinos to come to town.
Pennsylvania Competing with Mob Bookies
Lotteries Place Disproportionate Tax Burden on the Poor
In this Reuters opinion piece, David Cay Johnston examines the shift in how in 11 states, lotteries, the most heavily taxed consumer product in America, generate more revenue than state corporate income taxes. Johnston also raises the interesting point that the increasing trend toward easy reliance on lotteries has not translated to increased revenue for states.
U.S. Lotteries and the State Taxman
Government-created Gambling Addicts Are Not Equal Citizens
In the news video below, WPRI recently spotlighted how more than HALF the revenues from government’s casino program comes from citizens who have been turned into gambling addicts- citizens just like Sandy Hall who appears in this story. She lost almost everything she had to an electronic gambling machine operated in partnership with government, “regulated” by government and her enormous gambling losses were simply considered part of government’s revenues.
We are told the public benefit of government’s gambling program is to “create jobs” but the results show it creates far more gambling addicts than jobs. According to the Illinois Gambling Board 2010 Annual Report, the number of people who have put themselves on a “self-exclusion” list to help them stay out of casinos because of gambling addiction – about 8,300 – is over 20% more than the number of people employed by the casinos – about 6,900.
In a nation where everyone is equal under the law, how can government continue to promote a failed policy where more than half the profit it collects is a direct result of treating hundreds of thousands of citizens like Sandy Hall as subhuman? Why are the lives of people like her considered worthless and not protected by our government?