(I wrote this as a comment re the casino at a mall near Penn State. Could apply anywhere.)
Gambling is gambling, is gambling no matter the type, location or the place/ cause where the spoils go.
Gambling itself produces no new wealth. It only recycles it. Many call it a form of theft as there is no product or service but is taking something of value without the socially acceptable means of getting what belongs to another or others by buying, earning, trading or getting as a gift or reward.
PA’s casino legislation’s purpose was to “save a dying horse racing industry.”
The legislation to allow horse racing to continue was to be sunsetted. So, at the end of the budget year, as we are now, all of a sudden over Fourth of July weekend, a thirty-three page bill on background checks for people who worked at the race track that languished all year until the end of the session morphed into over four hundred pages passed turning us into PennsylVEGAS. There were no actual hearings on the entire bill.
The legislation was blamed on Ed Rendell but GOP votes were needed and that suppository came by telling the citizens fighting for “property tax relief” that it could come from slots/ casino gambling. That was not in the ACT but was passed early in the following session, as promised, to get the needed GOP votes.
There was no cost – benefit study but information was given repeatedly at hearings on gambling expansion by experts and members of our statewide diverse coalition, PAGE, (of which I was a founding CITIZEN member) which had held off this disaster for sixteen years using common sense positions by those in the coalition and a passion for doing the right thing for the common good of PA citizens and our Commonwealth.
The lure of revenue and campaign funding not dumping UNnecessary harm won the hearts and minds of those elected officials and the gambling interests have been in charge ever since. Ongoing gambling expansion and continued economic drain from money poured into legalized theft/ gambling is reprehensible at the very least. Imagine putting the needed resources into public education than supporting a cruel and deadly sport which causes death to horses every year and economic burdens to society-at-large via the fallout from gambling.
Every bill of an activity or substance causing unnecessary harm should have to have a cost- benefit study. Sales pitches: impact studies lure the naive. We want discerning elected officials willing to stand up to the snake oil salesmen.
Legalizing something harmful never removes the harm. It just changes the legal consequences usually for those who promote, produce or in other ways profit financially from the “legalized” substance or activity with little to no regard for the negative impact on individuals or society-at-large.
Then GOP Rep. Paul Clymer presented a one page bill repealing the slots/ casino legislation but we were refused a hearing. As a person from Penn National once called me, I was relentless. After giving so many years fighting this egregious invader, I arranged a Citizen’s Hearing which was broadcast by PCN.
Laws that cause unnecessary harm can and should always be repealed. Stop allowing gambling interests to rule. People will make their own decisions about gambling but government should not be the enabler.
(I was “vice” chair of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling for nine years which was an unpaid position and I continue to try to stop the gambling interests to this day.)