Robert Reich: ‘Turning America Into a Giant Casino’

Source:Robert Reich- left-wing political economist and blogger Robert Reich.

Source:FreeState MD 

“Anyone who says you can get rich through gambling is a fool or a knave. Multiply the size of the prize by your chance of winning it and you’ll always get a number far lower than what you put into the pot. The only sure winners are the organizers – casino owners, state lotteries, and con artists of all kinds.

Organized gambling is a scam. And it particularly preys upon people with lower incomes – who assume they can’t make it big any other way, who often find it hardest to assess the odds, and whose families can least afford to lose the money. 

Yet America is now opening the floodgates. 

In December, the Department of Justice announced it was reversing its position that all Internet gambling was illegal. That decision is about to create a boom in online gambling. Expect high-stakes poker to be available on every work desk and mobile phone. 

Meanwhile, states are increasingly dependent on revenues from casinos, lotteries, and the “Mega Millions” game (in which 42 states pool their grand prize) to partly refill state coffers.

Given who plays, this is one of the most regressive taxes in the nation. In the most recent Mega Millions game – whose winning tickets were drawn last week and whose jackpot rose to $640 million – lottery ticket buyers shelled out some $1.5 billion, most of which went to state governments. 

And then there’s the “Jumpstart Our Business Startups” or “JOBS” Act, which President Obama is expected to sign into law Thursday. It allows so-called “crowd funding” by which people whose net worth is less than $100,000 can gamble away (invest) up to 5 percent of their annual incomes in any get-rich-quick scam (start-up) that any huckster (entrepreneur) may sell them.” 

From Robert Reich 

To respond to Robert Reich, I’m going to give you both a practical response for why we have legal organized gambling in America, as well as a philosophical one.

States (whether they’re run by Democrats or Republicans) can only tax so much. There are only so many people that can afford pay high taxes in each state. Which is one of the main facts that Socialists will probably never understand about American economics. Which means to have the high quality schools, roads, bridges, law enforcement, tourist attractions to each state, they have to have the revenue to pay for those things. Without business, workers, and money in the economy and not in the government’s, government would never have the revenue to pay for the services that every developed economy has. 

My philosophical argument for organized gambling in America: there has yet to be a government anywhere in the world that is more qualified to make the personal and economic decisions for the individuals, than the individuals themselves. With any life comes at least a certain amount of risk (at least in a free society) otherwise life wouldn’t be worth living for most of us. The way to reduce risk in a free society is through regulation and taxation, not prohibition, which doesn’t work. Just look at the War On Drugs or prostitution.