Feeding Into The Gambling Addiction

Letter to the editor, published in The Salina [Kansas] Journal, June 6, 2007, which refers to an earlier article (part 1 and part 2) on how a whopping 2% of the gambling profits will be spread about.

TLC
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Gambling on addictions

Some of the huge gambling profits, besides going to line the pockets of politicians who have voted to legalize casino gambling in Kansas, will be spent to “fight addictions”— drugs, alcohol and gambling.

At present, gambling addictions are relatively rare in Kansas, but will now explode with the major expansion of legal gambling.

By spending some of the profits on drug and alcohol treatment, two more powerful interest groups will now become addicted to the gambling industry.

The effort to “fight” gambling addiction will likely be as underwhelming as the feeble motions made by the tobacco companies and the government, both of which profit immensely from the sale of cigarettes, to “fight” smoking.

It is also worth noting that there is no “restitution fund” to compensate gambling’s victims — the gambler, their family and the businesses (as well as the employees and suppliers of those businesses) who will not ever receive payment for goods and services because the gambler had “a higher priority.”

—TERRY L. CLARK