Looks like casino gambling is going to be on the ballot in Kentucky this November, driving turnout up and turning the local and state legislative campaigns even more stupid than usual.
From the Herald:
Kentuckians overwhelmingly support putting a casino-gambling constitutional amendment on the November ballot, where it probably would pass, according to a new survey conducted for racetracks and horse-racing interests.
According to numbers released Tuesday, 87 percent of Kentuckians want to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to allow casino gambling. Only 10 percent of those surveyed said they opposed a vote.
Also, according to the poll released Tuesday, 64 percent would vote in favor of the amendment.
"Once again, a new poll shows Kentuckians demand an opportunity to vote on expanded gaming," Gov. Steve Beshear said. "The call for a direct vote by the people of this state has only gotten stronger over the last few years, and we should not make our citizens wait a moment longer to have their voices heard."
The Family Foundation, a conservative advocacy group that opposes expanded gambling, questioned the poll.
"This survey was bankrolled by the gambling industry," said Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation. "It showed what they wanted it to show."
Beshear said one of his top priorities for the upcoming legislative session, which begins Jan. 3, "will be a constitutional amendment to take the gaming question directly to our people. It's time for Kentuckians to decide the state's future on expanded gaming."
Beshear has said that any expansion must include racetracks and the horse industry.
As I noted earlier this month, not only is casino gambling not an economic panacea, it's likely to be even less so in Kentucky as casinos in surrounding states have already sucked up the available business.
I'm tempted to vote for it anyway, if only to drive the freakazoids crazy. But of course the majority of those voting in favor of gambling - and of those who will be taking food out of their children's mouths to lose in the new casinos - will be freakazoid hypocrites. Oops, sorry for the redundancy.
6 comments:
Casinos are the ultimate regressive tax, along with lotteries.
DanP beat me to it!
But, hey, every American rube thinks they're going to win, no matter how much the odds are stacked against them.
The lottery and the casino are the best way out of their coming grinding poverty.
I mean, what other chance have they got?
To get a decent, liveable wage?
Fuck, THEY ARE RIGHT!
You have a better chance of beating the house for millions and joining the 1%, than on expecting the powers-that-be to realize that they need the 99% of the rest of us to maintain their gated mansions and private security forces. Which, believe me, they'll come to need. And they will come to the realization that "shared sacrifice" doesn't mean we sacrifice, but they share what we give up, too late.
And I won't shed a fucking tear.
But in the meanwhile, the rubes have taken the rest of the nation hostage in their race to the bottom.
if the rubes want to throw their mo... hey, you both beat me to it!
and just to quickly riff on gulag's last paragraph, i got into a 'discussion' with my union-member ironworker brother in law on xmas, regarding right to work. cutting to the end, one could sum up my end of the argument as 'but you are cutting your own throat', and his side as 'yeah, at least the mexicans won't get any'. we are rightly flucked.
I figure if the white dawgs want to throw their money away, somebody ought to pick it up and use it.
If only to buy beer.
[sorry, native joke, couldn't resist] I never did "get" the gambling thing, and I've seen a few lose the rent. Sure, it's a part of the whole bread and circuses thing, but I don't buy the "is for people who can't do math" canard. The gamblers on Wall Street are certainly proficient at running the numbers, though that's not necessarily "math", and regardless of getting bailed out by the government the too always lose. It seems to me that on some level folks have to know that they ain't gonna' win.
Like Drugs and Religion, it's another one of those irrational dependencies in the lower orders I'll never understand.
Ten Bear,
People like you and me lose far more often in casino's than we ever win.
And some people lose their rent money, or their house.
Ah, but our gamblers at the Wall Street casino's, well, they're indemnified against ever losing anything.
They, unlike the rest of us, are, yes, you guessed it - "Too big to fail."
So, why not go down and play poker for 3 straight days without sleep, losing your house?
The other losers at that casino, the poorer ones, will pay for you to get your house back - AND a nice bonus!
Nice not-work if you can get it...
I've never been in a casino. Today there's one just down the street from where I grew up. G'da taught me the best way to double your money is fold it in half and put it back in your pocket. Don't get the throwing money away thing.
But I'm a bit of a prude, embarrassingly conservative. I've never even been in a strip joint, fergoodnesssakes. Don't dance, never had a credit card, only debt late in life single parent student debt (that pretty much turned out to be a boondoggle). Never bought a house or a gas-guzzling SUV. Don't get the throwing money away thing.
Except for beer, of course. Beer is food.
Yeah, we all lose when they lose. It's collateral damage.
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