Gambling is a short-term fix with long-term consequences
Wednesday, April 23, 2003 9:54 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleTimes may be tough, but tough economic times can't justify luring more Washingtonians into gambling away their futures on state-sponsored games of chance. That's a message former and current public officials took to Olympia Tuesday in an effort to block a legislative proposal to dramatically expand Keno lottery games.
The rally at the Capitol was called by a newly formed Citizens Against Gambling Expansion, which counts former Govs. Booth Gardner and Mike Lowry among its members.
Cowlitz County Commissioners Jeff Rasmussen and George Raiter and county Treasurer Judy Ainslie have joined CAGE in opposing the Keno expansion. State Reps. Ed Orcutt, R-Carrolls, and Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, also have come out against the House bid to increase gambling revenue.
We applaud this collective effort to hold the line against gambling in the state, and wish it success. The goal these public officials have set for themselves will take considerable effort to accomplish.
The lure of easy money from gambling is tempting for lawmakers here and in other states, where budgets are billions of dollars out of balance. More than three dozen states currently are considering gambling-related bills.
The proposed expansion of Keno may appear fairly tame when compared to gambling legislation advancing in some states this year. It would raise some $29 million over the biennium by allowing Keno games every five minutes instead of just once a day and more than doubling the number of places in the state.
But poor public policy, in small or large steps, is still poor policy.
Gambling is not the quick and politically painless fix that many lawmakers believe it to be. As former Gov. Gardner has noted, it's more of a "gimmick" that "comes with high budgetary and human costs."
Just ask Oregon officials.
That state has invested heavily in gambling in years passed. Oregon's more than 9,000 video poker machines rake in tens of millions of tax dollars annually. Yet, the state is struggling to put together a budget that mortgages its future and further cuts funding for schools, law enforcement, health programs and other services.
Gambling has provided no stable, long-term source of revenue for Oregon -- or any other state that has become addicted to it. A wealth of research has shown that state-sponsored gambling is a short-term fix that takes its greatest toll on those who are least able to bear the costs.
Washington is fast developing a gambling problem of its own. This ill-conceived House proposal would only worsen that problem.
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