Gambling can destroy lives and extract wealth from individuals and communities. Spending on gambling has little new economic impact as the money would have gone towards other entertainment, or in some case, household expenses. Read some of the many personal horror stories here that how this government policy has a negative impact on states:
"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.
