Casino Is Not A Wise Gamble
Back in 1993 when the Kalispel Indian Tribe was angling to buy 40 acres of land in Airway Heights, its chairman asserted that “gaming will not be a part of any development” on the land because tribal leadership viewed gambling as a “vice.”
Now that the tribe has secured the property, it wants permission to build a casino there. The Kalispels now claim a casino would be good for the area and their supporters claim that any who oppose it must be racists.
No dice. Even the Spokane Indian Tribe, which cannot easily be accused of racism, opposes this project.
As for the public at large, Washington state voters have stomped pro-gambling initiatives in each of the last two general elections. Most voters elsewhere are responding similarly.
Americans are learning, the hard way, that gambling and deception go hand in hand. Consider:
Under the guise of easy riches, gambling picks the pockets of its patrons. Casinos are founded on the power of popular anecdote to obscure statistical fact: a few win, thousands lose. The real get-rich-quick activity benefits faraway corporate investors - not customers, and not employees, who slave away at service-industry wages.
Under the guise of adding to the local economy, gambling hurts existing business. From New Orleans to Atlantic City to Colorado, flackery has been unmasked as overhyped attractions go belly up or nearby businesses, especially restaurants, lose customers to the neon down the street. As gambling spreads, the pledge to lure and fleece only tourists gives way to a dependence on shaking down the locals. Compared to industries that manufacture, heal, invent, and create new capital, the gambling industry has all the economic value of a leech.
Under the guise of enriching local government with new taxes, casinos stimulate social decay, causing an increase in governmental costs that outweighs the promised gains. After casinos hit Atlantic City, violent crime quintupled. On Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, crime doubled after gambling arrived.
Under the guise of helping politically favored groups such as tribes, gambling preys on other vulnerable groups - the elderly and the poor. A Wisconsin study found the typical casino gambler is between 50 and 70 and is retired or has a blue-collar job. In Kansas, lower-income households spend five to 10 times as much per capita on lottery tickets as do middle-income homes. Desperation breeds susceptibility.
The Spokane Indian Tribe argues that if the Kalispels’ project is approved, authorities should expect Spokane-area casinos for the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene tribes, which have a territorial claim here that the Kalispels lack.
The Spokane metropolitan area has a high poverty rate. It needs to attract industries and jobs that will strengthen the community. A casino would be more curse than cure.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster For the editorial board