Arkansas Blog: A lottery's slippery slope

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel chimes in on a problem we've mentioned repeatedly about the proposed state lottery. Once lottery games are allowed, the door is open for the legislature to approve just about any kind of game of chance, state casinos even. Doesn't mean they will. But the advent of games far different from standard lotteries is a fact elsewhere in the U.S.

The attorney general said the proposal "does not prohibit" other lottery games.

"From a voter standpoint, I've served in the Legislature and I know there will be, if passed and if available, there will be an awful lot of powerful interests trying to push the law to the full limit," McDaniel said.

"I know there will be (legislators) that want to do that and members that won't want to do that, and whether they do it in the first round or not, they may do it years down the road," he said.

The attorney general said he has traveled to other states that have the lottery and on occasion plays those games.

"But I also have seen in some states where there is a sign out in front of a gas station that says 'casino inside,' and when you walk in it really is a handful of video slot machines plugged into the state interactive lottery computer," he said. "You see folks sitting there plugging money into a slot machine ... I would have a problem with that."

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"the door is open for the legislature to approve just about any kind of game of chance, state casinos even. Doesn't mean they will."

The Arkansas General Assembly? Give me a break. This is the same body producing Creation Science Legislation, 356 school districts, refusing to endorse the cherished American concept of Separation of Church and State, and on and on.

Give you 50 to 1 odds that.........

Posted by: Cato | November 9, 2007 07:25 AM

Yep, it's a safe bet that the Arkansas ledge will go down that slippery slope. Ironically, their constituency that thinks Christian rectitude should prohibit risking some of your almost-nothing on a chance that you might get big-rich (although it is okay, if you are already rich, to expect 20% or 30% returns on your investments) also tends to believe that a supernatural being is going to make everything right in the end-time, and, therefore we should hasten that time! My point is that the state, if this amendment makes it possible, will end up not just offering a lottery, but also pushing magical thinkers to increase the lottery's revenue. The Iowa Lottery is about to run a radio ad with a janitor saying that someone in his office gave him "a magical holiday gift" last Christmas -- a lottery ticket.

Posted by: Snapback | November 9, 2007 09:54 AM

The casino crowd will just be looking to get a toe-hold and then expand from there.

If you remember, the Mississippi people were concerned that local po' folks would blow all their paycheck on their way home. To combat that the casinos were to be a riverboat excursion and had to sail for a minimum 4 hours.

That way a local po' man couldn't duck in there for a quickie without his wife figuring out.

That went for a little while but then during a Mississippi River flood the casinos wanted relief because they weren't able to sail. The state said ok if they still locked everyone on for 4 hours at a time.

Then the casinos wanted to build a hotel and wanted to be able to build a little lagoon for the casino to sit in by the hotel and have people come and go as they pleased.

The state said ok. That is why all the casinos are floating in a little pond of Mississippi water that has a culvert running to the river. It is not obvious that the casinos (not hotels) are floating but if you look it is easy to see.

That is the chip, chip, chipping away that the casinos will do until we have full blown casinos.

Now you might think I am warning you against casinos but actually I will probably go a couple times a year.

Posted by: Citizen home | November 9, 2007 02:42 PM

Arkansas Blog

A lottery's slippery slope

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