Our gambling policies are just insane
Published September 22, 2013
by Tim White, Fayetteville Observer, Septempber 22, 2013.
The winners: 7-10-22-32-35 plus a Powerball of 19.
You didn't have those numbers. Neither did I.
But someone who bought a Powerball ticket in Lexington, S.C., did. One winner, $400 million richer.
That's the stuff of dreams, even for those of us who are mostly nongamblers.
Rachel and I have never been bettors. Never been to Las Vegas or Atlantic City or even Cherokee, N.C. Never even gone to a Las Vegas night fundraiser. Last time I was in a Bingo parlor was with my grandmother when I was 8 or 9 years old. Never set foot in an Internet cafe and have no clue what goes on in them, save for what I read in the paper.
But when the Powerball jackpot gets over $200 million, I buy a ticket or two. What the heck - why not put a toe in that silly water? It's a fun fantasy, even though I'm fully aware that the odds are better that I'll be attacked by a great white shark in my shower stall.
So yeah, I sort of gamble, maybe half a dozen times a year. At this point in my life, I seriously doubt Powerball will be a gateway drug, leading me off to some casino where I'll blow my son's inheritance on the craps tables. Not gonna happen.
But really, it's not much different for my friends who do
go to Vegas. They budget for the vacation, and that includes how much they'll spend on the tables and slots. If they win, they feel free to spend it where they won it. If they lose, they stop at their limit and go see a show. Most people who gamble are like that. A few have problems because they are prone to addiction. And our society needs to have safety nets for addicts of all kinds, ways to get them into treatment so they can function and continue to live healthily.
But as a society, we have a troubled relationship with gambling, a kind of multiple-personality disorder. On the one hand, we cheer about the latest Powerball drawing. And the state announces that effective Oct. 22, it will offer bigger prizes for the Mega Millions game, to better compete with Powerball.
In the same week, North Carolina restated its opposition to letting the Catawba Indian tribe build a casino near Charlotte. But not long ago, it gave a thumbs-up to the Cherokees expanding their casino in the mountains.
And while bingos and Vegas nights are all over the landscape, last week's front-page news included the felony indictments of a Wake County couple who had run a sweepstakes parlor in Hope Mills. More indictments are on the way, apparently, the result of Sheriff's Office raids on local gambling cafes early this year.
Does any of this make any sense? Where, exactly, is the logic here? What makes one form of gambling OK and another illegal?
The police do say that the little gambling cafes drew more than their fair share of calls for service, but is that reason to shut them down, or simply impose more stringent security requirements on them? What other businesses does government shut down before working with them to improve safety? None.
How about some consistency? If government believes gambling is bad, shouldn't government get out of the business? The lottery certainly hasn't brought great new funding to our schools, as its proponents promised.
Shut it all down and let us go back to betting on the World Series (hot tip: the Red Sox are going all the way) or the Super Bowl.
Or be rational. If we're going to embrace gambling, let the Cherokees, Catawbas and, yes, the Lumbees run casinos and let the mom-and-pop street-corner betting parlors set up where they choose - and reap the rich tax revenues they can generate.
It's time to see a shrink about this personality disorder. Either we sanction gambling, or we don't. What we're doing now is nuts.
September 22, 2013 at 11:05 am
Norm Kelly says:
Gambling is a very confusing subject. State-sponsored gambling is good. Private gambling is bad. State gambling prohibits private gambling because every state effort must prevent the same effort in the private sector so the state has no competition. No government entity can survive if it has any competition in the private sector. This is why governments make private sector competition illegal.
The lottery in our once-great state was shoved down our throats by a lobby that was intent on implementing state-sponsored gambling virtually regardless of how the process was passed. The proponents didn't care about the arguments of the opponents. The proponents apparently didn't care if they had to violate laws in order to get it passed. And labeling it 'for the children', a favorite of liberals, was supposed to make it 'right'. Opponents knew when it was being discussed in the NCGA that the major money being proposed for education would not come to pass. Gov Mike promised that passing an education lottery would solve virtually every problem in our state, except perhaps snow on the highways. (go back & listen to some of his speeches about the lottery. after you do, please tell me which ill he didn't say would be fixed by having a state lottery. then also post what has been helped by state-sponsored gambling.)
As for allowing some tribes to run casinos, my only comment (hard to believe!) is that out-of-state tribes should not be allowed to run gambling houses in our state. There are enough in-state tribes to work with for gambling issues without taking in out-of-staters with their gambling desires.
I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've played the lottery since it became legal here. I would have fingers left over when the counting was complete. I know that gambling is bad. I know that state-sponsored gambling is even worse. Since I was and still am opposed to state-sponsored gambling, and since I knew that the money would not be directed where it was promised, I would be a hypocrite if I ever bought a ticket. My standards may not be too high, but they are higher than that. I know that most state-sponsored activities are much better served in the private sector. I find it hard to come up with a state-sponsored activity that isn't better served in private other than police & fire. No matter what the institution, I am able to move my business somewhere else if I get bad service at the first institution. I am not able to move my business elsewhere when it's a government monopoly. I am stuck dealing with less than adequate service simply because the government has outlawed/prevented private competition. Since they know that my business is guaranteed, they have no incentive to improve their service.
