{"id":950,"date":"2012-09-21T01:45:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T01:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/09\/21\/casino-gambling-a-suckers-bet"},"modified":"2012-09-21T01:45:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T01:45:00","slug":"casino-gambling-a-suckers-bet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=950","title":{"rendered":"Casino gambling: a sucker\u2019s bet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-issues\/gaminggambling\/john-montford-tt-interview\/\" href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-issues\/gaminggambling\/john-montford-tt-interview\/\">http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-issues\/gaminggambling\/john-montford-tt-interview\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A friend of mine just returned from a vacation in the Bahamas and brought back an interesting view of what he saw there.<\/p>\n<p>He and his wife saw lots of casino gambling activity in the island nation \u2026 right next to some dirt-poor poverty. His takeaway? He doesn\u2019t think casino gambling is much of an economic tool.<\/p>\n<p>I mention this today because of a Texas Tribune interview with former Democratic state Sen. John Montford, who believes casino gambling ought to come to Texas. Funny. I always thought a lot of the ex-Lubbock lawmaker-turned Texas Tech chancellor-turned AT&amp;T executive. I still do. But I also think casino gambling is a bummer of an idea for Texas.<\/p>\n<p>My friend\u2019s observation of what he saw in the Bahamas illustrates a point I\u2019ve tried to make many times.<\/p>\n<p>My family and I spent a number of years at the other end of Texas, in Beaumont, which is about an hour\u2019s drive from Lake Charles, La., where riverboat gambling has been active for years. We haven\u2019t been back there in quite a long time, but I remember distinctly the sight of the gambling boats moored on the Calcasieu River, just blocks from decimated neighborhoods. What I saw was little economic ripple from the riverboats. Downtown \u201cLake Chuck\u201d didn\u2019t have much to commend it to visitors.<\/p>\n<p>And we ought to have the same concerns in Texas. Gambling \u2013 and I refuse to call it \u201cgaming\u201d \u2013 preys on people\u2019s weakness. That\u2019s why I dislike the lottery. I\u2019m just not sure that casino gambling is going to be the panacea that some of its proponents \u2013 such as John Montford \u2013 say it is.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019ll make money for casino owners \u2026 but who else?<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-issues\/gaminggambling\/john-montford-tt-interview\/ A friend of mine just returned from a vacation in the Bahamas and brought back an interesting view of what he saw there. He and his wife saw lots of casino gambling activity in the island nation \u2026 right next to some dirt-poor poverty. His takeaway? He doesn\u2019t think casino gambling is much of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=950\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Casino gambling: a sucker\u2019s bet<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}