THIS IS FOR CASINO GAMBLING

Humankind been enjoyed gambling as a pastime for over several millennia. In America, if you were to ask “honest” Abe about the issue of legalization of casino gambling, he would have stared with a look of puzzlement: until religious groups gained control of the government in the early twentieth century, gambling was unrestricted and was an accepted part of American life. Thomas Jefferson saw gambling as a much more acceptable form of funding the republic’s government than compulsory taxes that imposed on the individual’s rights. Today, casinos augment the personal freedoms of senior citizens, folks who describe gambling as a socially responsible pastime. comparing the effects of pathological gambling with statistics revealing that twenty-five percent of Americans have been involved in auto accidents and another twenty-five percent smoke, a leisure activity that usually results in death shows that pathological gambling really isn't prevalent or deadly. Finally, taxes paid by casinos annually are two to three times the estimated cost of casinos to society. In addition to taxes, casinos sponsor everything from education to senior activity days.

Seniors represent over one fifth of the populace visiting casinos annually in day trips that are organized by casinos to provide seniors with a cheap, accessible, form of leisure activity. Studies show that older adult gamblers are motivated toward maintaining social relationships. More importantly, gambling can have a more positive impact on a senior’s mental health than isolation, which is often the only alternative for low-income seniors. Sixty-three percent of senior gamblers are unable to afford other leisure activities, meaning that casino gambling is saving lives by keeping seniors from retreating into despair, isolation, and questioning their will to live.

Keeping in mind that the number of Americans who rely on gambling is ten million+, the half million pathological gamblers are a sick, mentally ill minority who often have histories of alcohol and drug abuse. There are nowhere near as many pathological gamblers as, for example, smokers or people involved in auto accidents. Both of these activities have high fatality rates and each smoker spends as much on cigarettes biannually as a problem gambler will lose during his entire gambling career . Gamblers cost society between five and mentally ill pathological gamblers incur fifteen billion dollars to society annually. Anti-gambling groups claim that the social disaster known as a pathological gambler is a relatively new phenomena created by the modern gambling industry. Anyone whose read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Gambler knows that pathological gambling has been around much longer than current day casinos. Most importantly, it should be recognized that blame for any mental illness cannot be pinned on anyone and as a sign of good faith, casinos expend millions of dollars every year for helping problem and pathological gamblers.

Having determined that casinos actually help ten million people get through their final years by providing them with an economic activity to look forward to and finding that pathologic gambling is a mental illness that existed long before the arrival of casinos, casino gambling has already provided many more benefits than harm. In addition to the lives saved, there are great economic benefits received by local and state government. Every year, Americans wager five hundred billion dollars, fifty of which stays the casinos retain as profit. Of this between thirty and fifty percent is paid in taxes depending on local regulations resulting in over twenty billion dollars that the government collects from an industry that results in a maximum of fifteen billion dollars in costs.