Gambling Bets Again on Ohio

Video Slot Machines Coming to Ohio?

An on-line Cleveland Plain Dealer article asks if the recently passed legislation in the Ohio Senate, “Is a bill allowing instant horse-racing machines at Ohio's tracks a back-door expansion of gambling or just a faster way to get a bet down on the ponies?” I think it is the former rather than the latter.

One thing you can say about the gambling industry, it is persistent. It never gives up; there is a lot of money to be made in Ohio apparently. What color is greed? The gambling trade offer a lot of pretenses of “saving the horse race industry” and “financing Ohio’s “under funded” schools”, but these too are lies. They want a piece of the action, plain and simple. They don’t care that gambling leads to addiction, causes personal bankruptcy, is a big factor in destroying families, is a magnet for crime and is a potential source for bribing government and law enforcement officials.

According to a Columbus Dispatch article this past Thursday, the citizens of Ohio had rejected slot machine proposals in 1990, 1996 and last November. Isn’t it bad enough that we have the state-sponsored lottery, bingo parlors and horse racing? We need more gambling in any form or fashion as we need higher gasoline prices. Let Ohio be a safe haven of sort for its citizens. Who cares that Ohio losses some cash by people leaving Ohio to gamble in surrounding states. Because everyone else is doing it does not make something right.

The front-page Columbus Dispatch article said that some supporting senators call SB 125 the “horse bill”. Those who support the bill say that it would help save the horse racing industry which contributes $700 million to Ohio’s economy. One opponent of the measure, Senator Ron Amstutz, R-Wooster, compared Senate Bill 125 to bottom feeding carp in the state’s economic development fund. I agree with Senator Amstutz. Let this predatory horse racing industry die if the market will not sustain its viability. The horse track, the horse racing industry has cost society more in terms of social woes, than it has ever contributed economically or otherwise.

From what I understand the “racing devices” are merely a repackaged form of slot machines. I like the quote i read made by Senate Keith Faber in the Cleveland Plain Dealer article, “"If it looks like a slot machine, rings like a slot machine, pays like a slot machine, it just may be a slot machine."

I will be urging my state representative to vote NO in the Ohio House on Sub SB 125!