Scams and Scammers 0
I have never been a fan of states’ choosing to raise money through gambling. I have nothing against a friendly game of poker (though I will not participate–I spell “gamble” “L-O-S-E”), but I’ve always considered state-sanctioned lotteries, casinos, and slots to be legislators’ pusillanimous strategy to avoid facing up to doing their jobs, to avoid their responsibility to “govern.”
Taxes are the price of life in a civilized society. (One could go further and argue that those who oppose all taxes on “principle” ipso facto oppose civilized society, but that’s another post.)
Establishing state-run lotteries and authorizing slots parlors and casinos with the justification that they raise revenue to pay for essential public services such as schools, pensions, roads, and the like is, at best, a dodge, and, at worst, a scam. It is legislators’ and governors’ admission that they are too cowardly to govern.
It is fundamentally dishonest.
In Pennsylvania, the scam is starting to fail.
In New Jersey, it’s been failing for years.
Atlantic City started the year with 12 casinos. By Labor Day, it could be down to nine.
For years, economists and analysts talked in theoretical terms about “casino saturation” in the northeastern United States. But there’s nothing theoretical about what’s happening in Atlantic City now.
Buy your Powerball ticket if you must, but, as you do, remember two things: You have a better chance with Publishers Clearing House and you are suborning fundamentally dishonest governance.
