The pro-gambling lobby is ratcheting up its rallying cry for the Alabama Legislature to overhaul the state’s gaming laws to allow casino gambling (as neighboring Mississippi has done) and to launch a statewide lottery (as neighboring Florida has in place).
While such legislation likely would open the door to more tax revenue for Alabama, it also will soak the poor and the weak-willed who don’t give a second thought to squandering their hard-earned money on games of chance, putting aside other needs such as food and clothing. Therein lies the biggest reason to shun casino/lottery legislation.
Alabama already has three casinos operated by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians (Atmore, Wetumpka and Montgomery). The state also has four flourishing dog tracks – one in Theodore southwest of Mobile, another just east of Montgomery, a third just inside the I-459 bypass northeast of Birmingham, and a fourth track near Eutaw southwest of Tuscaloosa.
Taken together, isn’t this enough?
Casino/lottery proponents dangle the carrot of at least $700 million a year in lost revenue at the end of the stick they’ll use to beat back what they’re calling very little organized opposition to expanding gambling opportunity.
That kind of hot air amounts little more than swamp gas. You cannot lose something you don’t have in the first place. And before you count your money while you’re sitting at the table, you better first take stock of what the state will spend in infrastructure costs, crime prevention, fiscal accountability on the new revenue, and enforcing the new gaming laws.
Don’t be fooled by the pro forces trying to pass off a casino/lottery bill as economic development legislation. What’s to say the bulk of the potential revenue won’t be diverted into pet political projects instead of funding such initiatives as rural health-care expansion, more money for elementary and high school classrooms, broadband internet growth and tuition assistance for students pursuing trade-school certification and college degrees?
So, does the insatiable greed for more state tax revenue by any means outweigh the moral responsibility that Alabama has shown thus far by rejecting a statewide lottery and by rejecting casino gambling in the non-federal private sector? Hardly.
If you had a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, a father or a mother who simply did not have the intestinal fortitude or the raw intelligence to shun today’s version of the three sirens who seduced Hercules in Greek mythology, would you want to open new whirlpools into which they would rush to dump their paychecks?
Many of us pride ourselves in doing the right thing. In this case, the right thing is to contact your legislators and tell them that this time, the status quo is enough. Let’s leave our neighboring states’ vices and devices to themselves.
No need to gamble more, Alabama
07 Thursday Oct 2021
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