Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 14, 1994 TAG: 9406270126
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By H. ODELL "FUZZY" MINNIX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Ralph is an apprentice brick-mason earning $8 an hour and looking forward to the day he reaches journeyman level and the good money. It's Friday at 5 p.m., and Ralph just got his check. Minus taxes and Social Security, it's a little over $270. He got no overtime this week, so it's going to be tight.
On the way home, Ralph heard that commercial again: "Six - would you believe it? Six chances to win. How in the world can you lose?" Wasn't someone always winning in the TV commercials? He had to stop for gas, and the convenience store where he stopped also sold - you guessed it - instant winners, and the promise of thousands of dollars.
This was no back-room numbers racket, no high-stakes, hide-them-in-the-closet poker game. This was Doug Wilder, George Allen and all that's good about the Old Dominion. Why not take a chance? Ralph bought two tickets.
After paying for his gas and pulling clear of the pumps, he scratched off the barrier to his magic kingdom and, lo and behold, the first ticket was a $5 winner. "They're right," he thought. "It's here for the taking." Although the remaining ticket netted him nothing, he had spent $2 and made $5.
"They say there's a good chance you can lose, but if I hit one of the big ones, we could make the house payments for a whole year and maybe the wife could take some time off from baby-sitting to be with the kids." He went back inside and bought 30 more tickets. "He who hesitates is lost" - or is it "a fool and his money are soon parted"? In those 30 tickets, he had four winners: three for $2 and one for five. He had spent $30 and got back $11.
You can see where this is headed. In just over an hour, Ralph lost $220 of his pay for that week. What would he tell his wife? Ralph decided he needed a drink to calm him and help him figure out what to do, so he stopped for cigarettes and a visit to the ABC store. (The state getting its cut again).
After three or four hard hits on the bottle, it was clear there was only one choice - play it all and hope for a winner. At 8:15, in a semistupor, he pulled into his driveway and stumbled into the house where, with children crying in the background, his wife asked for money to go to the store so she could fix supper. Ralph hit his wife in the mouth with his fist, knocking her to the floor.
With the babies crying and his wife in a daze on the floor, blood pouring from her mouth, Ralph went out on the front porch, kicked a bucket of potted plants into the yard, sat down and began to sob. He wondered what he'd done for the past three hours.
The above is one lottery commercial you'll never hear or see.
It seems only yesterday that I was hearing, "The lottery is the answer to everything. People are going to gamble anyway, so why not get the benefits from it?" The cry went out: no more shortages for schools; teachers will get a decent wage; all our secondary roads will be repaired. ... Anyone want to buy some land in Florida?
Now the next big stride for Virginians will be betting, on- and off-track. After all, they're Virginia horses, people will say. Besides, enthusiasts will just go to neighboring states to bet. Many will say, "lt's recreation for me. Some people like to play golf; I like to go to the track." It's a hard argument to defeat.
This will be small potatoes compared to where organized crime wants us to go. It's just a matter of time until our beach and resort areas will demand casino and gambling establishments that take hundreds of millions of dollars out of our economy each year, money that would have been spent on new cars, down payments on homes, refrigerators, air conditioners, new carports, decks, carpet, and on and on. In short, it would have been kept here in Virginia to support our businesses and trades, to keep our economy strong.
Do you think the gambling money will stay in Virginia?
Unfortunately, many who have a strong influence on our society will promote this insanity. After all, they will say, look at all the new jobs. Look at the taxes they will pay.
What they need to look at is beyond the ends of their noses. Almost without exception, where multi-million-dollar gambling operations have begun, they have been accompanied by organized crime. Crime syndicates get involved, sometimes through honest and well-meaning people.
The casino bosses know that to get business, you must supply the special perks the high-rollers demand. So here come the hookers and the pimps, the crack and coke trade, and a multitude of things that, before, people wouldn't have tolerated.
A recent report on gambling in Connecticut revealed that, in addition to a number of crooked schemes and violations, people are becoming addicted to gambling at an alarming rate. The report went on to say that this might be only the tip of the iceberg. Programs have now been set up in that state to help these addicts.
What are some of the hoaxes that many people fail to recognize?
Hoax No.1: You can gamble your way to prosperity.
If that were true, the lottery, the race tracks and all the casinos would be busted in two days. Have you ever known the house to be a big loser? Short answer: You're going to lose.
Hoax No. 2: Gambling is great for the economy.
Last year, at a meeting with Virginia officials to fight a proposal to withdraw part of the state funding for constitutional officers, I asked this question: "Can lottery money be used to offset part of this unfunded mandate?" Answer: "No, because by the time we pay for the prizes and the staff to administer them, there's not much left." Then why have the lottery?
nHoax No. 3: The gambling industry is a wholesome, respected enterprise that has only the good of mankind in mind.
In reality, the sum of its total productivity is equal only to the amount of misery it generates. Virginia needs industry that produces products of which we can be proud. We have the people with the skills to create, design, build, manufacture and sell these products. We need an outlook that says that we can succeed with hard work and determination, not one that says we can win without working and life owes us a living. The latter philosophy already has put our nation $4 trillion in debt.
I will be the first to admit that, if you choose to gamble, it's your business and none of mine. But please spare me the lecture on what a great thing gambling is and how much it does for our society. Just ask Ralph's wife when she gets up off the floor.
H. Odell "Fuzzy" Minnix is a member of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors.
by CNB