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IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerHamilton Nolan
9/09/14 10:28am
I live in Louisiana, where gambling has been legal for, shit, I dunno....call it 20 years. I remember when they were on the way, with all the glitz and glamour and promise of newer, brighter days (cue chorus). New houses went up all over town, and a dozen casinos were fucking packed 24/7/365 (why it was assumed that everybody would have enough to afford a house note because a casino opened, nobody really knows). But then the GM plant finally wheezed out it's last congested, struggling breaths (funny how nobody really wanted to keep buying shitty small pickups anymore), and closed for good. Those new houses? Sold for half their value after only a couple of years. The school system that was supposed to get rich? Not quite. The sister city across the river from my city? Did the smart thing, and banked the percentage they got from the casinos, and vaulted past this dump in only a few short years. Our city can't find new ways of making jobs that earn more than the minimum wage paid by the casinos, but we have LOADS of new places to actually spend money (Chipotle! WE MADE IT!). How they manage to stay open is far beyond my brain.

The casinos are still open, and still populated mainly by people who can't fuckin' afford to gamble, but hey! Merle Haggard's coming to town soon, and everybody likes....that guy, right? The cheesy casino commercials promise a Las Vegas experience, but without the actual, you know, Las Vegas experience. The only people who made out like bandits are, of course, the casinos. Another state, duped by the promise of almost suffocating under piles of scrait cash, homie. And we were so clusterfucked, we bit on the extra pittance we'd get from them, because there was no other way to get it.
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  Anti-LacrossIAMBlastedBiggsLostBurner
  9/09/14 11:30am
  I have relatives who live near, and have worked in the Connecticuit casinos for most of the last 20 years. They're shedding staff like crazy right now. And beyond that, everyone from New Haven, Ct to Westerly, RI has a story about a friend or family member who lost his or her house due to gambling losses at Mohegan Sun or Foxwoods.
  
  The legalized and taxed sale of heroin and cocaine would have a less negative impact on society.
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  IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerAnti-Lacross
  9/09/14 11:39am
  Yeah, but heroin and cocaine dealers don't have that helpful "Gambling problem? Call (insert number)" tagline, in tiiiiiiny letters down at the bottom of the billboard, right below the pic of the people having the time of their fucking lives. The only people who actually REALLY benefit from gambling? Casino owners, of course. Why people walk into those places thinking they have a valid chance of winning, I have no idea. I don't know why they don't just walk up to, say, me, if I tell them something like "For every $100 you give me, I'll give you back $10" and give me their money.
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RealAmurricanHamilton Nolan
9/09/14 10:14am

U.S. states are now just trying to steal gambling business from one another.

States have long been competing this way. Whether its through tax breaks to ply companies into relocating across state borders, or by dismantling unions to drive down wages, the Red states have been racing to the bottom for some time now.
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  EvanrudeJohnsonRealAmurrican
  9/09/14 10:19am
  You think this is just Republicans, Michigan under Granholm and NY under Cuomo both offered tax cuts to wealthy Hollywood moguls for film tax credits.
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  fun-with-headcheeseEvanrudeJohnson
  9/09/14 10:33am
  There are commercials in Mass about the benefits of relocating business to NY. It's pretty pathetic actually.
  
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UKStory135Hamilton Nolan
9/09/14 10:08am
When you can't tax the rich, tax the stupid.
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  Genius of NazarethUKStory135
  9/09/14 10:19am
  We need a math tax, to level the playing field.
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  ScelestusUKStory135
  9/09/14 10:49am
  Sad. And also true.
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toothpetardHamilton Nolan
9/09/14 10:09am
But if we make every business a casino, our odds of winning just go up!
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barracoburnerHamilton Nolan
9/09/14 10:12am
There's this New York State Lottery commercial that plays all the time and drives me absolutely nuts. It's the one where an old guy is in a hover-chair, and he's watching a younger version of himself almost NOT buying a scratch-ticket which would get you $1,000 for life. The younger version of himself, to his relief, does end up getting the ticket, thus setting him up for the windfall that allows hover-chairs (but not hair transplants, for some reason).

The state, our state, is explicitly saying: It is a sound financial decision to buy a scratch ticket!

How do we allow our government to lie to us like this? I mean, I'm not against scratch-tickets; I buy them sometimes. But I also buy them on a lark, not because I think I'd be a fool not to.
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Taylor BermanHamilton Nolan
9/09/14 10:43am
Interesting side note: I've lost more than a dozen dollars to Hamilton in boxing bets.
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bbilbo1Hamilton Nolan
9/09/14 10:31am
The Mississippi Gulf Coast is in similar trouble.

We also need economic stability, and Casinos seem to be the one note the locals keep playing.

We technically have beaches along the gulf coast, but they've been closed recently because of high levels of bacteria as the result of sewage and storm drain run-off emptying into our water.

And they had the audacity to openly question on social media why they don't get the same tourism as Alabama and Florida coastal areas.
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