Arkansas Blog

Oh, please. Let's just be honest. If Arkansas had legalized gambling back in the '20s and '30s, Hot Springs would be what Las Vegas is today. And, like Nevada, Arkansas would have no state income taxes and would rank as the top-growing metropolitan state (like Nevada).

It would be THE tourist destination in the country, and THE Entertainment Capital of the World (as Vegas bills itself, perhaps rightly, above Los Angeles and New York).

But, nah.

Despite our magnificent scenery (not that there's anything wrong with desert beauty) and our magnificent people, Religionists (mainly Baptists) sought (and continue to seek) enforcement of their beliefs on everybody else.

There's no need for more "studies" to be done on the effects of gaming on a city or state. Las Vegas history IS the study. Does Vegas have problems? What city doesn't!

Arkansas long ago missed its chance at becoming the global tourist Mecca that is Las Vegas. Maybe we didn't want to be. Maybe we didn't have the vision to be.

A lottery now won't help (or hurt) much. As usual, thanks to what the country still perceives of Arkansas as a racist, hick, bigoted, religious state, we'll still be one of the last to jump onboard the Lottery Express.

It's too late to matter, now.

I'm pretty tired of the sleazy-ness of it all. We are a nation of laws and loopholes and people who say one thing and do the other. Since the Republicans have been in power we've learned a whole list of names of people who say one thing and do another...Foley, Abramoff, Ralph Reed, DeLay, Vitter, Craig and on and on. Our very own Huckster has a foot on either side of the fence at all times.

Drive-thru windows are for Baptist who don't drink. Hooker client lists are filled with good Christians. The anti-drug crowd...a bunch of boozers and prescription pill junkies. Our public servants serve up a bunch of the public's money for their pockets. That sweet Mark Pryor loves torture and war. I smell a corner-shitting cat!

You'd think no one in Arkansas likes gambling, why, Arkansas is an anti-gambling state! Except for Hot Springs and West Memphis. And pay no attention to the thousands and thousands of cars with Arkansas tags parked at casinos right over our borders. Don't be counting the folks crossing state lines every day to buy a lottery ticket in another state. Don't count all the church raffles and bingo games. Don't count the Arkansas ip addresses hooked to online gambling sites. Don't count the Half n Half drawing at every Northside High School football game. McDonald's puts out that Monopoly game all the time because they like printing up tiny Marvin Gardens stickers.

Except for late night visits to kinky porn sites, I like being who I am at all times. I still put on a little good boy show for my Ma's old friends and I suck in my gut when a pretty girl walks by and after 34 years I still hide my smoking from my father's side of the family. Oh....and I hide my real name from most of youse, of course. But really...the rest of the time I'm just me, warts and all.

It's just silly to pretend people who live in Arkansas don't like gambling. It's silly to pretend the state or anyone else can keep them from gambling. It's stupid to send our folks to other states to do their gambling. It's insane to think the state government of Arkansas is too busy or too dumb to run a state lottery. Saying we can't find a way to run a lottery operation without being ripped off is an admission that we're electing idiots to supposedly work for us. It goes along with being told one time that only the existing old time liquor distributors in LR can be trusted to pay their Arkansas sales tax, honestly....that's what I was told by the old lawyer at ABC when I asked why 3 or 4 businesses were allowed to have a monopoly when it's against the law for the rest of us. More corner-shitting cat activity if I ever saw it!

If you'll remember, the last 2 or 3 times some group tried to get the lottery question on the ballot in Arkansas, it wasn't the voters that shot it down...it was a judge....here kitty kitty kitty. And you have to ask yourself....can the Cella family have enough power to control the state government of Arkansas for 3 generations? Would anyone like to make a bet on it?

Robert, you hit the nail on the head, buddy.

Roberto you may add to that Vegas list of goodies-they have the highest paid school teachers and RNs in the nation.
Believe me, without gambling Hot Springs had it's fair share of problems.

I agree with you. That ship left harbor in 1967 when Rev Phelps (Quacihta Bapt) spearheaded the drive to defeat (initiative) casino gambling in Garland County. Las Vegas' payoff for that outstanding effort was huge.

"Saying we can't find a way to run a lottery operation without being ripped off is an admission that we're electing idiots to supposedly work for us."

DBI, I think we admitted that a long time ago. And my cats categorically deny . . . .

As a person who is right now planning to vote for the lottery but is not a strong proponent of the measure, I could easily be persuaded to change my mind. Arguments from the church gentlemen that gambling is a sin will not do it. Arguments that people will be gambling away their paychecks will not do it. People with a gambling problem, like people with a substance abuse problem, will find a way to feed their addiction until they deal with the underlying problem; and I suspect there are enough of whatever the gamblers' version of drug dealers or bootleggers is that they have no problem finding someone to take their money. It might as well end up in a fund that will provide a few scholarships.

But the wrong answers to the questions raised in the last paragraph of Max Brantley's post would be the kiss of death to any chance I would vote for the measure -- particularly the question of where the start-up expenses will come from. We do not need something that will end up being a net loss to taxpayers or just another way for out-of-state, or even in-state, corporate interests and greedy legislators to line their pockets.

Most of the ending questions in AT post are bogus Vegan. Start up funds? Just how much do you think a lottery management firm will need to connect 90 cities to a main terminal? If anyone is truly interested there's 30 something states with histories on how it can work.
Halter's wording of the initiative sure leaves room for leggies to skim the top initially just like they do with everything else that involves large sums of money changing hands.
Lwood

ARK. BLOG: You think those lottery terminals in convenience stores are free? You think printing is free? You think a payroll of lottery administrators is free? There's going to have to be significant capital invested before the money comes in. How much?

Who of you are smart enough to see that a damn lottery will cost more than it will pay out.
Damn it you ignorant people know if a lotto has a hundred million dollars going for it only half of that will be awarded the lucky person who has the right number. That is fifty million that no one know what or where it goes for. Fifty million thrown away!
It would be more efficient to raise taxes than to have a damn lottery. I say damn because that is exactly what it is... Damned. a bunch of suckers in Arkansas dreaming of the highlife. BS
It is wrong to do an evil even if you knew for sure something good would come from it.
Lottery would create a monster right here is Arkansas!

I attended Michael Nelson's presentation at the Clinton School today. One thing he made clear is that study after study has shown that lottery tickets are bought disproportionately by low-income people and the scholarships benefit mostly middle class students. I think that makes it a regressive tax. He also estimated that about 30 percent of the total revenue of a lottery was net income to the State. That adds to the injury of regressive taxation the insult of extracting from the people more than three times the revenue necessary to meet the stated public purpose.

Already several states that have lotteries or considering leasing them to private corporations. Even if a state doesn't privatize what is properly a function of government, it seems to me that a lottery is abdication of open and honest leadership and education of the people from whom a government is supposed to derive its just powers in a democracy. Chasv is right: "It would be more efficient to raise taxes than to have a damned lotter." More honest, too. And more responsible. And more likely to foster accountability.

So, the other 42 states are all wrong on the lottery issue and Arkansas and the other seven abstainers are correct, eh? B.S.

Technically Chasv IS right, Snapback (although it pains me mightily to say so). It would be more efficient (and honest and responsible) to just raise taxes. But with the legislature being what it is, and the law in Arkansas being what it is about what is required to raise said taxes, what are the odds? Isn't this the same legislature that won't even rein in payday lenders, or did they finally do something about that?

And I just really don't like the argument that we must protect poor people from their own choices. Government should protect us from dangers that are not readily recognizable (like lead paint on toys or the amount of interest really paid on a payday loan), but I don't want old white men being my momma and daddy on the lottery issue any more than on the abortion issue.

However, the privatization argument hit its mark. If it's one thing I detest, it's government contracting out governmental functions to some corporation with little or no accountability. And with all due respect to eLwood, Lwood and/or Knoc Knock (what is up with your user names, eLwood? I just learned how to type the one with the little e in front of it -- I protest any further change), I still find the start-up costs question troubling.