Massachusetts’ House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo’s decision to drop his bid to add slot machines at racetracks apparently sealed the deal to add three commercial casinos around the state, The Boston Globe reports.

Negotiations broke down last year because DeLeo wanted slots at race tracks. At the time, his tough stand was supposedly to protect blue collar workers at the track, where his father once worked. But a year later he threw them under the bus to get a casino deal done with Gov. Deval Patrick. Now he is trying to spin his backing down as a positive.

Memo to DeLeo: more legalized gambling is not a lifeline for working-class residents, it is more like cement shoes. Sure the casinos create some temporary construction jobs and permanant gambling-related positions. But the addition of a casino sucks more money out of the pokcets of hard-working people than it puts in. Remember this is an industry model built on taking money from people. It produces mainly losers. More specifically, it leaves many customers deeper in debt and leads to an increase in crime, bankruptcy and divorce.