ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 11, 1996 TAG: 9601110082
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
IS VIRGINIA prepared to raise the stakes on legal gambling?
It can and, as things now stand, it will - but that is subject to change if the matter raises an outcry from opponents.
May their numbers swell.
The governor's proposed 1996-'98 budget depends on a jump in revenue from the state lottery, which plans to produce these riches by introducing Keno and Powerball to Virginia.
That is, the Lottery Board would like to introduce Powerball, a multistate super lottery in which the jackpots are bigger and the chance of winning even more astronomically small. Virginia must be permitted to join that party, and Powerball players West Virginia and the District of Columbia might turn to hardball to keep competition out of their 'hoods.
Anyway, if the state can get a piece of that action, and add Keno, it would take in an estimated $75 million in new lottery revenue over the next two years - a tempting sum for a state facing tight fiscal projections.
Such growing dependence on gambling, though, is part of what opponents rightly warned against when Virginians passed a referendum for a lottery less than a decade ago.
When the commonwealth ventured into state-run gaming by establishing the lottery in 1987, it was to be done with Southern gentility: no hard-sell promotions actually trying to entice people to part with their earnings on what until then had been considered a vice.
Now, of course, the lottery pitch is unrelenting. Who can be unfamiliar with Lady Luck's sorry lack of fortune as she continually loses track of her magic wand, needed to bestow the jackpot on some schmo who would be a millionaire today - had he not forgotten to play?
We'll unfurrow our censorious brow long enough to acknowledge that the Lotto ads are clever and funny. But their entertainment value is of importance only so far as it accomplishes their purpose: to part people from their hard-earned money, to make them losers.
Keno would do this more efficiently.
New numbers can be drawn in Keno as quickly as every few minutes and floated across a television screen, allowing gamblers instant gratification in testing their luck - and setting them up to test it over and over again. Drawings can be limited to once a day, but once the game is offered, it would be just a matter of time before pressure built to crank up its money-draining potential.
Proponents of legalized gambling say losses are simply the cost of entertainment. Money that one person might spend to see a hockey game, another might spend betting on one. Who's to say how someone should spend his or her money? Proponents also call state gambling a voluntary tax. Who's to say it is more objectionable than coerced taxation?
These proponents ignore the addictive nature of gambling, the difference when gambling is state-sponsored and state-encouraged, and the regressive impact on lower-income families that tend to play the lottery more often.
The Allen administration has figured the increased lottery earnings into its two-year budget, but has shied away from endorsing Powerball or Keno. Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, plan to introduce anti-Keno legislation that would limit the Lottery Board's authority and block the introduction of that game.
We wish them luck.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB