Dockside gambling should
be legalized
The House always wins.
Sometimes the casinos win, too.
Thursday the Indiana House of Representatives passed
legislation that would legalize dockside gambling and raise taxes on
casinos.
The bill was fast-tracked and passed in less than
three hours. It still has to face up to the Indiana Senate where it's
expected to crawl along, if it progresses at all.
Why is dockside gambling even an issue? Drawing
a distinction between casino riverboats and dockside gambling is splitting
the very finest of hairs.
Indiana and Illinois led the movement of casinos
into the Midwest, capitalizing on the tax revenue and the ability to
dominate a nearly casino-less market.
We dodged becoming the Vegas of the Midwest by
restricting casinos to boats on state waterways. These boats are not
to be confused with the great riverboat casinos of the past — huge
steam powered paddleboats that cruised the Mississippi back when some
guy named Mark Twain was penning comedy.
These boats are more just boat-shaped casinos,
barely able to move, much less traverse the waterways.
Indiana has already given in to the draw of gambling
in the state; sidestepping around the issue just denies the reality
of the situation: if you want to play a game of chance in Indiana, you
don't have to try very hard to find one.
We made a decision to have gambling on the state's
waterways. Gambling is now an industry, and all industries must be competitive.
If dockside gambling will make an Indiana casino
competitive with similar casinos in Illinois, so be it. Casino boats
don't really sail the waterways anyway.
Representatives were divided on the issue, and
it's expected that the Senate will be even more so.
The economic forecast for the country isn't the
greatest. With threats of a recession in the near future, increased
income for Indiana could cushion the fall.
If dockside gambling becomes a reality, casinos
are expected to pull in more money, but even if they don't, the bill
taxes them more than it does now. Taxes on "sins" such as gambling,
cigarettes and liquor provide income to the state that in turn provides
money to Purdue University.
Why shouldn't those with some of the more acceptable
vices pay more for the privilege?
Opponents to the bill say that Indiana is rapidly
becoming one of the most pro-gambling states in the nation. Of course
we are; we have gambling here and it throws some very large logs on
the fire that keeps us running.
If gambling is such a problem, it shouldn’t
be allowed anywhere — in the state or its waterways. We've got
"boats," why not just 'fess up and accept the docks as well?
At least then we won't have to lie about our casinos
being boats.
* Editorial Board: Keith Thomas, Tom McHenry, Melissa
Davis and Laura Pelner.
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