As the Legislature wrestles with the thorny issue of legalized gambling, the Foundation hopes you will consider the fundamental question: Will gambling really make Alabama a better place in which to live and raise our children?

Please examine the six columns which I have written on different aspects of gambling since January 2024, five published by 1819 News and a sixth by the Alabama Gazette:

Part 1. Should Alabama Gamble with the Good Life? demonstrates that gambling does not create wealth; it simply redistributes wealth, usually at the expense of those who can least afford to lose. A tax on gambling is the ultimate form of regressive taxation, and when gambling is legalized, both legal and illegal gambling increase.

Part 2. Gambling’s Connection to the Dark Side of American History reveals that the first two waves of gambling in America, the first in colonial days and the second during the settlement of the West, brought unmitigated disaster and were made illegal by 1900. Is the third wave likely to be different?

Part 3. Maybe We Don’t Have to Gamble, But We Do Have to Live with the Results exposes the link between gambling, gambling addiction, crime, broken families, and a host of other problems which far outweigh any illusory benefits gambling may bring.

Part 4. When It Comes to Gambling and Crime, Do We Really Think Alabama Will Be Different? shows that, when gambling has been legalized, organized crime always enters the scene.

Part 5. The Scriptures Don’t Say Anything About Gambling . . . Or Do They? explains that the get-rich-quick mentality of gambling by which we win only as others lose, is contrary to the message of Scripture that we gain wealth by working and investing and contributing something of value to those around us.

Part 6. Legalized Gambling: Have We Forgotten Phenix City? brings to life a sordid chapter of Alabama history that should be forever etched upon our minds.

My thanks to 1819 News and the Alabama Gazette for granting permission to reprint these columns and to Mary Huffman for arranging them. We hope you will find these helpful, and may God guide you as you make your decision.

Part 1. Should Alabama Gamble with the Good Life?
Colonel John Eidsmoe, Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law,
Article originally published by 1819 News
(https://1819news.com/news/item/col-john-eidsmoe-should-alabama-gamble-with-the-good-life)

https://www.pickpik.com/roulette-gambling-game-bank-game-casino-profit-casino-141073

Let’s have a Las Vegas party right here in Alabama! We’ll rent a hall, lock the doors, get out the poker tables and roulette wheels, and gamble the night away.

Throughout the night, a lot of money will change hands. But when the day breaks, there won’t be one more dime of actual wealth in the room than there was when we started.

This illustrates my point: Gambling doesn’t create wealth; it merely redistributes it, usually at the expense of the poor. Every dollar spent on a lottery ticket is one less dollar spent on groceries. Every job created at the casino is one less job at a factory. VictoryLand should be called LoserLand because for every big winner announced, there are many unannounced losers.

And the losers are usually those who can least afford to lose. Back in my high school and college days, I worked in a lumberyard in Sioux City, Iowa, across the Missouri River from South Sioux City, Neb., and across the Big Sioux River from North Sioux City, S.D. Iowa didn’t have legalized gambling at that time, but Nebraska had dog racing and South Dakota had horse racing. Every payday, lots of my coworkers would cross the Missouri to bet on the puppies in Nebraska or cross the Big Sioux to bet on the ponies in South Dakota. Almost invariably they would lose, and next week they’d complain that their kids didn’t have milk, that their electricity was going to be cut off, or that they couldn’t make their house payment. “This is stupid!” I remember thinking as a teenager, and I wasn’t even considering the morality issues!

My experience is far from unique. Studies repeatedly show that a disproportionate number of poor people gamble, and they spend a disproportionate amount of their income on gambling. As I note in my book, “Legalized Gambling: America’s Bad Bet,” a 1982 New Jersey study found that residents of low-income neighborhoods played the lottery in a proportion more than half greater than residents of high-income neighborhoods. Additionally, an Illinois study found that residents of the state’s 10 highest-income zip codes spent an average of $76 on lottery tickets, while residents of the state’s 10 lowest-income zip codes spent an average of $221. A more recent study by the Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling reported similar conclusions.

The gambling industry knows this, and they plan accordingly. Prior to opening his Reno casino in 1946, Bill Harrah did extensive marketing research and found that his most likely clientele were low-income people. He therefore arranged a bus service to bring low-income people in from 31 cities and provided low-cost meals as an added incentive. While I was doing a radio interview on gambling in Atlanta, my host advised me that radio stations know the demographics of their audiences very thoroughly and that Georgia deliberately places its lottery ads on radio stations catering to the lowest-income segments of the population. They also concentrate their lottery billboards in the lowest-income neighborhoods.

If gambling is regressive in that it preys disproportionately upon the poor, then gambling taxes are equally regressive. And even if lottery income is earmarked for something like education – a sucker tactic often used to sell the lottery to skeptics – that often turns out to be disappointing, because it usually means education just gets less money from the general fund.

“We need to legalize gambling to drive out the illegal gamblers,” some say. “Would you legalize murder to drive out the illegal murderers?” I respond. In reality, when gambling is legalized, illegal gambling increases rather than decreases. Several reasons include:

• When the state says gambling is legal, people assume that means gambling is moral as well.
• The illegal gambling industry often offers better odds than the legal gambling industry, and they can do so because they do not pay taxes.
• The illegals send “numbers runners” to pick up people’s bets, although the internet now makes this largely unnecessary.
• Unlike the legals, illegals often extend credit – and have their own ways of enforcing payment

Even if legalized gambling were good for business – and it isn’t – is it worth the problems it brings – impoverished families, links to crime, alcohol and drugs, the mob, and the rise of compulsive gamblers?

We expect to see a slew of gambling bills in this session of the Alabama Legislature. Let’s not gamble with the good life we have in Alabama! Tell your legislators to just say NO to all forms of legalized gambling.