Gambling is destiny

If you watch the latest gambling news, you'll see that laws are in the works in North Dakota, Arkansas, Florida, and several other states to expand each state's stance on gambling. The opponents are concerned, rightly so, about how this affects our economy and does it send a set of poor people even deeper into the poor house.

But, so far, the bills are all passing, and treasury departments are lusting over their passage. Why? Because pretty much every state has budget problems. And money, ultimately, is what gambling is all about.

For a politician, raising taxes is a pretty good way to lose your next term. But gambling, well, nobody is going to fire you over gambling right now. People may not like it, but its an easy way to fix a budget crisis.

Now, my question is - why is every state in our nation facing a budget problem? Why do we constantly have budget problems year after year? I think the reason is that our governments are handicapped. Our government leaders are not as smart, and also not as motivated as the leaders in the corporate world. Corporate leaders walk all government all the time, and the government leaders actually walk away thinking they got a good deal. Take Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders and the city of Oakland. At the time he struck the deal to come back to Oakland, he got a sweetheart deal. The city just had to guarantee to sell a few expensive luxury seats, and the city would make tons of money. If the city couldn't sell them, well, tough luck, the city would take the loss and not big Al. (If you don't know, the city took a HUGE loss) This is just one example among many where the corporate world can do anything with government, because the politicians are just not skilled enough to handle it.

Gambling is going to go the same way. You know that lobbyists are pushing for legalization of gambling. They are probably telling the politicians "it will work", "you'll get lots of tax revenue", etc. But will that really happen? Or will the governments get almost nothing while the casino operators walk away with all the money? Sadly, I bet its the latter... At the end of the day, we'll have gambling in place, but the governments will still have their budget problems, and very little revenues coming in from gaming.

Sorry to be so pessimistic today!