Good news. It seems as though the California gambling propositions 68 and 70 will be defeated.

I was in Las Vegas this weekend. The casinos all seemed to be running $250,000 giveaways. To be eligible, all you have to do is cash your paycheck.

What do you think insurance is? A love of gambling is an integral part of human nature. Heck, it's how I got into mathematics. It's perhaps my favorite activity when I'm out of the kitchen.

Governments love to use gambling and vice taxes as revenue generators because it is the one form of taxation that actually produces more income when the economy is down.

I live 3 miles from the local Indian casino, Mystic Lake. We go there occasionally for shows or for the Sunday buffet, but the walk through the rows of slot machines is depressing. You see mostly elderly people glued to the machines, pulling the lever like the subterranean slaves from "Metropolis".

Oh man, Dalrymple will go nuts over this one.

Ouch.
Since I manage a small casino (15 tables, no slots allowed) I always hate reading about this issue on brothersjudd. We have a slot intitiative on the ballot that would boost my income about 70%. Go ahead and disparage my industry, just please, keep it down until after November 2nd. Here in Washington State, Indian casinos have permission for 18,000 slot machines and we have none. They are allowed 5 times as many tables, bigger limits and longer hours of operation and they pay absolutely $0 in taxes, but I have the feeling the only sympathetic ear at this sight might be Bart.

Robert Duquette, I live in western WI, 30 miles from the Indian casino in Turtle Lake. After I retired, I would go there in the forenoon to get a prime rib sandwich (good and cheap) and risk $20 on the slots. You are correct about the elderly there. I think about them everytime I hear how they can't afford their prescription drugs. A lot of them are in wheelchairs with oxygen bottles mounted on the back.

I don't think that state lotteries should be allowed to advertise, but that's as far as I'd go.

People must ultimately decide for themselves how they're going to live their lives.

If one has a gambling addiction, don't move to Vegas, and so on.

Pat H, I'm not very sympathetic. Slot machines, after Keno, are the worst games for "gamblers" to play, and their spread is a testament to the ignorance of the general public. (Scare quotes because slot players aren't gamblers, they're suckers).
Also, after the way that Native Americans have been treated during the past 500 years, it's a delicious irony to see them robbing Americans, and using American courts to enforce long ignored treaty provisions.

Michael:

The problem is that Vegas wants to move everywhere else, and the people don't want that.

Vince, you really fit HL Mencken's definition of a puritn, you live your life with a quaking fear that somewhere someone might actually be enjoying himself.

What people?

If the question of whether Asbury Park could open to casinos were put on a Jersey ballot? It would pass by about 90-10. The same is true of NYC gambling on a NY ballot. The sole problem with 'Indian gaming' is the notion that only Indians should get casino windfalls.

Pat H,

While I wouldn't illegalize slots, I would never play them. It's a masturbatory fool's game.

As a general point, I really resent the existence of state lotteries while I can't bet on a football game legally.

The proposed Gambling Bill actually contains both liberating and restrictive measures.

The flipside to the sanctioning of Vegas-style 24 hour casinos with unlimited jackpots, is harsher measures to prevent underage gambling, and the removal of fruit machines (slot machines) from otherwise non-gambling locations: taxi ranks, takeaways etc.

There's no doubt that our gambling laws are out of date in Britain. People can bet 24/7 now anyway on the net (I should know - I've got 3 accounts, and it's damn good fun - though I only use them to add a bit of spice to big sporting occasions, honest!).

On the other hand, it would be fatuous to deny that there's a link between widespread availability of massive-jackpot slots and the evil of widespread gambling addiction.

Australia, for example, has plenty of both.

Gambling and heroin: both are simply too corrosive for a civilized society.

Jim,

If all forms of gambling were legal, I'd do perhaps marginally more than I do now. Actually, I'd quit going to the track, because the odds are lousy.

If heroin were legal, I still wouldn't use it any more than I would eat raw seafood, which I most emphatically do not. Both are bad for my health and in fact could potentially kill me.

So, explain to me again, why I need laws which prohibit me from doing an activity that affects only myself and no intelligent, sane person would do anyway if it were legal.

Vince:

No, Vegas absolutely does not want to spread everywhere else.

A city of two million people, and the very state of Nevada itself, are supported by gambling and the knock-on spending, such as food and lodging, plus dice-themed souvenirs.

If Las Vegas were the only legal place in America to gamble, they'd be as happy as a pig in slops.

If "the People" don't want gambling to spread, how do you explain the establishment, over the past twenty years, of riverboat gambling in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, and the regular casinos in Mississippi, Colorado and Louisiana ?
None of them have any relation to the Indian Casino movement.

The problem with gambling is that as a vice its harm is not self-limiting. There are spouses and children who suffer from lack of money because of this.

Indian casino gambling is out of control, and there will be some political crises within 20 years to limit it. Already the political power of these casinos are causing trouble.

I don't mind Vegas, Atlantic City, or a handful of smaller places around the country. There's bound to be some of it, it needs to be severely limited. It's becoming an epidemic.

Bart: it is simply not true that heroin and gambling affect only the users.

Heroin use makes it very difficult to hold down a job and necessitates using other means of acquiring the drug that are often destructive to the society that lies beyond the user.

Gambling creates poverty not just among gambling junkies, but their families (e.g., Cecil Fielder, who made 47 million and whose family now depends on his son for food and shelter). Gambling is also antithetical to the core morality that drives our country: you work for what you get.

I would err on the side of the traditional wisdom that outlaws both because, in these cases, tradition contains quite a bit or wisdom; even if such bans do not align with limited government.

"Gambling is not a liberty anymore than drinking and smoking are."

Of course gambling is a liberty. We are born free, with all liberty intact. In that state, we are free to do anything, including murder another human.

Society, via government, then places restrictions on that liberty -- like outlawing murder. Or outlawing gambling.

The difference is that outlawing my freedom to murder is justified, because murder infringes the freedom of someone else. Outlawing my freedom to gamble infringes only my freedom.

Orrin Judd, however, is essentially a socialist. He likes the idea of designing society in a way that suits what HE likes or dislikes, regardless of others' freedom. He wants to choreograph the behavior of other humans, even if it means taking away their freedom.

Thankfully, the ultimate arc of social evolution is one that points toward more freedom. Bit by bit, century by century, we are becoming more free. There are dips and corrections here and there, but the line is ultimately pointed upward in the direction of freedom. All of us will be dust in the ground by the time it happens, but there WILL be a day when the arbitrary values of an Orrin Judd won't be oppressing others.

Chris,

If someone eats too many fatty foods, baked goods, and candy, gets to weigh 450 and then plotzes of a heart attack at age 50 like an attorney friend of mine, it has an impact in society. By your logic, we should illegalize fatty foods, baked goods and candy.

My point is that only an idiot would use heroin, that gambling is really cool in moderation, and that we should treat each other like adults and be treated like adults by the government.

Jim,

Heroin use makes it difficult to hold a job, so does booze. Many employers will not hire a smoker because of health care costs. Do we illegalize booze and tobacco because of this? Like virtually every other illegal drug, it is the illegal nature of the drug that keeps the price high. Heroin is cheap to produce. Hell, you could grow your own poppies in the backyard.

Gambliing is antithetical to the 'core morality that drives our country'????????????????????? SAY WHAT, HOMES? I seem to recall something about people packing up all their belongings in something called a 'covered wagon' and heading out West to seek their fortune. The entire notion of quitting your crappy little Russian shtetl, Hibernian bog or Sicilian hollow to come to America with no realistic means of getting back is basic to our national story. Now those are lots bigger gambles than putting a 25 dollar chip on ODD at the roulette wheel. The entire free enterprise system is about risk. What do you think goes on in the stock market?

>It is a vice, and while prohibiting vice
>outright is often self-defeating, promoting and
>encouraging its spread and general availability
>can only bring serious harm.

Case in point: Bullhead City, Arizona.

Bart: if you cannot acknowledge the difference in kind between heroin and alcohol, we'll need to move on to another topic. The percentage of those-who-try to those-who-are-addicted is much, much higher with heroin, turning it into a whirling tornado of social destruction. We don't allow people to intentionally infect themselves with smallpox and, for the same reason, we should not allow people unrestricted access to heroin.

5 years ago I was opposed to any further expansion of gambling in Washington. Tribes wer doing well and the small casinos like the one I run were doing ok. There was some equilibrium. Unfortunately, the tribes here have so much political power, that they have been granted an insurmountable competative edge and the private cardrooms are struggling to survive. These expansions include:
Slot Machines - from 0 allowed to 500 per tribe to 3000 per tribal casino.
Tables - From 50 to 73
Casinos - from one per tribe to 2 per tribe to as many as 7 per tribe as long as they are spread 20 miles apart.
Hours of operation - from 20 hours per day to 24 hours per day.
Location - from having to be on reservation land to being on newly purchased land adjacent to the res, to a new push that would allow them to purchase land far from the reservation and put it into trust and build a casino.
They do not have to pay the state minimum wage, payroll taxes, excise tax, or any taxes for that matter.
Tribes are the biggest contributors to Democrats in Washington.
Tribal casinos now generate well over $1 billion per year in Washington and they use this money to align themselves with the local liberal media to bully the state to the far, far left. I hates them, I do.

Bart:

You are a typical, non-thinking libertarian: it is all about you. Just because you won't do something, does not mean a lot of other people won't either. Don't you get it?

Tomas:

All nations are socialist in the sense that we are collective. We are all collectivists, including Ayn Rand; she only associated with people who absolutely agreed with her, and she forbade her FOLLOWERS from reading the works of people she deemed evil. The truth is we live in a society where the majority rules, and the majority has decided they don't want gambling or heroin because it does impact them.

Michael:

The people in those states mentioned don't mind gambling on riverboats because it is not near their communities. Riverboat gambling is probably not a good alternative, but that is what those people wanted.

Jim, the two most addictive drugs are cocaine and tobacco. Your smallpox analogy is inexact as smallpox is contagious. We keep people from infecting themselves with it because they can infect others. By contrast, when someone injects heroin into himself, he creates no immediate health hazard for others. You would certainly admit that excessive alcohol use can cause problems for others in society. Again, I have no idea whether heroin induces the kind of violent reaction that excessive alcohol use has been known to. My understanding has always been that opiates put one into a stupor, such that you don't do anything much less harm others directly. Because heroin is so easy to produce, if it were legal it would have a minimal cost, so your crime rate arguments come to naught. You don't see any drive-by shootings over booze and tobacco do you? And heroin is cheaper to produce than either of them.

Vince,
The government is not supposed to be everyone's mommy. It is also not supposed to invade matters which are properly the sphere of the individual. If other people choose to overeat, should I have to pay a special tax or get a license or go to a pusher in a bad part of town whenever I want to chow down on a pepperoni pizza?

Every state except Utah and Hawaii has some form of legalized gambling, so please stop referring to yourself as being in the majority somehow. First of all, it's irrelevant. I really couldn't care if the whole world disagreed with me on something. Didn't your mother ever ask you when you were a kid if you would jump off a cliff because everyone did it? Secondly, given the evidence, it's fatuous.

Pat H, the whole Indian casino thing is a scam. I've often thought of starting my own tribe. I mean if Mel Brooks could do it in Blazing Saddles, why can't I? I know they claim it's a treaty thing, but isn't the Constitution the Supreme Law of the Land, not some treaty?

Bart:

Why should the government not interfere with matters that affect everyone?

By the way, it seems as though you did not heed your mother's advice.

Bart:

"I really couldn't care if the whole world disagreed with me on something."

You know, I think we could have guessed that.

Vince,

One simple reason. It's not the government's job. Do you really want the people who run the Post Office, the IRS and the public school system to tell you how to run your life?

Even now, I always heed my mommy's advice. If other people jump off the cliff, I feel no need to follow suit and their choice ain't my problem. The more other people foul up, the greater opportunities I, as a proud bottom-feeder, have.

Bart:

Why is it not the government's job to protect us from the harm others do to us?

Vince,

YOU don't have a moral right to tell me that I can't gamble. It doesn't matter if you have the other 299,999,999 million Americans on "your side." My gambling doesn't hurt any of you.

I don't bother you, and I certainly don't exploit the mechanism of government to try to control your life. Please offer me the same respect. Quit wasting so much of your time thinking so hard about specific "issues," and just let individuals have their individual rights. Please respect me and yourself by respecting the American idea.

OK, cue Orrin Judd to step in and say something irrelevant about secular-this or Judeo-Christian-that.

Tomas:

There is no right to gamble. The American idea is to respect the Judeo-Christian philosophy for which it was founded upon. Please, stop imposing your atheism, secularism and libertinism on the rest of us.

Vince,

In Colonial America, gambling on everything from cards and dice to dog fighting was widespread.

What harm are 'others doing to us' should I choose to gamble or to use drugs? What harm would I be doing to others should I gamble or use drugs?

Vince:

Until Bart advocates a law forcing you to gamble, he isn't.

"Stop imposing"? You're the only one who's talking about imposing anything. I'm talking about being left alone, and about leaving you alone.

As Jeff says, you wouldn't be imposed upon if I gamble; you would be imposed upon only by a law that forced you to do it too.

Tomas:

Gambling causes a whole bunch of problems. By allowing it, you are imposing harm on me and my family. How dare you impose your atheist, secularist, libertine lifestyle on me.

Bart:

Read above but replace gambling with drugs only that is far worse.