No

by Gerard Coulombe

Created on: June 03, 2009   Last Updated: June 06, 2009

Exchanging a dollar for a piece of paper with a series of numbers, plain old favorites or luck of the draw, is often rewarding for its own sake. The win, if there is even one, is like an unexpected bonus. The large payout that a few collect now-and-then just in terms of people playing, can be exciting and for a very few may even represent financial security, assuming that the planets align themselves in the right order.

For anyone who has been a peripatetic observer of the gathering at the lottery machine to bubble-in their numbers or who prefer taking a chance, it is a study in itself to observe the choreographed dance of addicted gamblers putting down all the money they struggled to set aside for just this moment. It's a repetitive dance, week after week for these hungry, genial losers.

Keno, Lotto, Bingo! Connecticut is looking high and low for a cash cow. Our legislators won't find one here. They may wish it were here, but our legislators are as unlikely to find it here, as they were unlikely over time and changing economies to find it in lottery ticket sales. However, there are reports that Connecticut Lottery officials are ready to promote new games if authorized by the State Legislature. Keno evidently is one of those games that just might bring in the sums that would close the gaps in the State Budget.

Reacting to a probable increase in his New York State taxes, Rush Limbaugh promised to relocate his New York studio elsewhere and to forsake his New York apartment, which he uses while he works in The Big Apple. Many argue that some of Connecticut's wealthiest would join in an exodus, as well to seek a more favorable tax haven elsewhere in the country or even abroad.

The flip side, other than taxing the wealthy, is the subterfuge of sharing the pain among those who yearn for the big prize, a chance to win the biggest prize of all at Mega Millions and Power Ball. Don't you wish! Some bet their week's wages on it. Bingo, Lotto and Keno, are games invented for the purpose of sharing the pain, by promising big gains to a few players.

Currently with declining dollars to play with, some in the playing/gambling public continue to play, enticed by the State with promises of even more chances to win. Keno simply adds another form of gambling for those folks looking for another game and changing luck.

Studies of legalized gambling in the form of Keno, Lotto and Bingo, have shown that all these betting games seriously deplete the pockets of cash from people who can least afford to be separated from it, on a bet that their special numbers or that their automatic random picks will come in.

Usually, after all winners and expenses are paid, a State can usually count on walking away with 40% of the pot. The effects on compulsive gamblers and others who can least afford to play, are enormously destructive and frequently detrimental to a State's social, mental and policing entities, in terms of cost for services that many losers will need.

The risks to problem gamblers will not go away with more statewide alerts on the problems of gambling. The State itself is joining the ranks of the problem gambler, by betting that it will not lose the income derived from its arrangements with the State's two mega casinos, whose agreements with Connecticut contribute hundreds of millions to the State treasury. We are gambling those hundreds of millions, for the forty million that Keno might generate for the State, if the State were to go ahead with the Keno idea as an additional fund raiser.

Increase taxes on the wealthy in the State, and save the poor or problem gambler from more enticements.

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