Like any con game, this one depends on the gullibility of its targets – or marks. The marks in this deception are Lakewood citizens and outside gambling interests. Here’s how it works.
Keep Lakewood citizens happy thinking the city prohibits more mini casinos from coming in, try to bluff other gaming interests into staying out, keep raking in revenue from existing mini casinos, and hope that no one calls the city’s bluff and tries to bring gambling to a part of town where it would cause an uproar.
Under state gaming laws, cities must either ban casinos or allow any that are licensed by the state Gambling Commission – which by statute must approve any application that passes financial and criminal background checks.
Cities that allow casinos can’t tell them where they can locate. One of these days a mini casino owner might decide to go into a "nice" part of town rather than along Interstate 5 or South Tacoma Way, where the existing casinos are located. And that’s when the con game will fall apart, and voters will likely take their anger out on any City Council members who went along with it.
Gambling has been good to Lakewood, adding more than $2 million annually to city coffers. That amount should be higher, but the City Council cut the casino tax rate at the operators’ request – not a particularly wise move if the goal is to prevent expansion of gambling. Today, Lakewood has more non-tribal gaming tables than any city in the state – 90 at six mini casinos.
Some Lakewood residents want to take the path Tacoma took and phase out mini casinos. They understand the social cost of gambling addiction and the fact that cities, too, can become dependent – on the revenue it produces.
Lakewood has done such a good job of addressing blights like junk vehicles, strip clubs, unsafe motels, gangs and violent crime. It’s a shame that it turns a blind eye to problem gambling, whose cost to society is almost half that of drug abuse, according to economist Earl L. Grinois of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Casino ads show happy people enjoying themselves – and invariably winning a jackpot. But that’s part of the con. Too often the reality includes broken lives and damaged families. Lakewood can and should live without that.
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