Last month, the Rhode Island Lottery Commission postponed a decision about a dramatic increase in video slot machines in Rhode Island. The members said they wished to match the number of new machines to the needs of the state budget (using a per-machine revenue estimate).
This is severely flawed logic. Video slots -- no matter how much money the state squeezes out of them -- are a bad deal for Rhode Island.
Hoping to beat the odds, people feverishly feed these machines. A portion of the take goes into the state's tax coffers, to be sure. But much goes to the owners, including out-of-state investors. And money dumped into the slots is money not spent on the kinds of goods and services that produce a lot of local jobs. Thus, gambling ultimately costs the state revenue, because it drains away dollars that could otherwise be spent in the local economy or invested in more fruitful enterprises. Of course, that's a hard thing for many lawmakers to comprehend when all they can see are piles of loot generated by slots.
There is another heavy, hidden cost to massive gambling, too -- in ruined lives, in broken families, in desperate people living on the edge. By preying on the pathetic addictions of people, the state is making life worse, not better, for its citizens.
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