Elected officials take an oath to protect citizens. But the legalization and expansion of gambling by state lawmakers has a negative impact on the family unit as well. Read how families are affected by the increased access to legalized gambling that has been enabled by elected government officials:
"Here we are, protected, free to make our profits . . . ninety miles away, in partnership with a friendly government."
— Hyman Roth,
The Godfather Part II
Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Taylor Branch says that "state-sponsored gambling is an essential corruption of democracy."
See the 60 Minutes report on how more and more states have become addicted to gambling as a source of revenue. In the report, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell tried to defend the explosion of state gambling by lashing out at correspondent Leslie Stahl. WATCH
"It's a terrible way to raise money. It's a tax on ignorance. . . . I don't like the idea of the government depending, for certain portions of its revenue, on hoodwinking citizens."
— Warren Buffett
There was a time when elected officials understood the downsides of casinos. Giants like New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia launched campaigns to root out gambling as seen here.
Are Casinos Like Cocaine for the Brain? A discussion on the still unaddressed public health and ethical consequences of expanding casino gambling in New York State.
"Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. Winston had nothing to do with the runnning of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware . . . that the prizes were largely imaginary."
George Orwell's 1984
Paul Davies is the editor of www.GetGovernmentOutofGambling.org and the Maggie Walker Fellow at the Institute for American Values.
