One of the principal reasons I'm against gambling in Alabama is the usage of the word "gaming" as its substitute. It's an artful dodge at best and deliberately misleading (read: lying) at worst.
Check out http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/game for the exact definition of a game. Focus your attention on entries 2a and 3a. You'll notice words like "strategy" and "participants in direct opposition to each other."
In light of this, please tell me the last time you heard of someone using strategy while playing slots. For that matter, was the machine is direct opposition to the player?
Slots = gambling. Pure and simple. There's no strategy involved. Only blind, zip-a-dee-doo-dah, hope I chose the right slot machine, luck--if you're so fortunate as to win.
When you attempt to change the nature of the debate to find a word or label (like gaming) more palatable to the masses, something inside you surely must realize: Hey, what I'm advocating is questionable.
There are other reasons I'm against gambling in my beloved home state. Let it stay in Las Vegas, Mississippi, New Orleans, etc. Alabama has more pressing needs.
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"No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."
ReplyDeleteH.L. Mencken said that, and I suspect he had a lot of Alabama friends. I mean, folks will vote down a tax increase designed to raise funding for the schools to "adequate", but they seem to want to gamble and lose tons more money .. so a little bit can go to government and a ton to the gambling proprietors.
Go figure.