The last thing Louisiana needs is another casino, but even against the
will of the people, especially in the parish where this proposed monster would
be located, we may get one.
An article on this page reports a thumbnail sketch of the efforts underway
to bring a new casino to the Cypress Bend Golf Resort on Toledo Bend near Many.
Read the article, and you will see that the people of Sabine Parish, where the
casino would be located have already voted out video poker machines. The parish
police jury has voted three-to-one against establishing the casino. Yet, the
resort shrewdly brought the Jena Indians into the ownership of the management
company. If the Jena Indians buy land adjacent to the resort and the governor
approves the casino, look out.
The last thing Louisiana needs is another casino, but even against the
will of the people, especially in the parish where this proposed monster would
be located, we may get one.
An article on this page reports a thumbnail sketch of the efforts underway
to bring a new casino to the Cypress Bend Golf Resort on Toledo Bend near Many.
Read the article, and you will see that the people of Sabine Parish, where the
casino would be located have already voted out video poker machines. The parish
police jury has voted three-to-one against establishing the casino. Yet, the
resort shrewdly brought the Jena Indians into the ownership of the management
company. If the Jena Indians buy land adjacent to the resort and the governor
approves the casino, look out.
What a tragedy if this casino is established.
Every week, secular news media discover another severe downside to the land-based
casinos and floating riverboat casinos. No lesser news institution than the
Wall Street Journal documented another tragedy of Louisianas gambling
houses to add to the already encyclopedia-size volume of gambling-related tragedies.
On October 23, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article about the frequent
mayhem riverboat casinos cause by serving free drinks to gamblers. According
to the Journal, a common practice of riverboat casinos is to dole out free alcohol
to gamblers. Anyone who knows anything about alcohol knows it loosens ones
inhibitions and dulls the drinkers judgment. A drinking gamblers
mind is not as sharp, so he or she does not gamble as well and loses more. Also,
a drinking gambler is less likely to know when to quit and keeps piling up losses,
and the riverboat keeps racking up wins. A drink that costs the riverboat pennies
ends up making them big bucks.
Good for the riverboats so they can keep building fancy accouterments to lure
more gamblers. Bad for the people on the roads of our state and surrounding
states.
The Wall Street Journal chronicles tragedy after tragedy caused by people who
went to a riverboat casino, loaded up on free alcohol and then went out as drunken
drivers to turn their vehicles into mobile death machines.
Judge Samuel B. Kent issued a preliminary opinion in one lawsuit brought against
Players casino in Shreveport saying Louisiana casinos use free drinks “as
the bait to entice…residents of Texas and other states to flock in huge numbers
to their casinos to drink too much and return home in a murderous condition.”
In that case, Harrahs Entertainment Inc. paid $1.3 million to a family
that lost members when a man left a Louisiana casino obviously drunk and caused
an accident on the way home. The Journal says that in recent years, casinos
have quietly paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits involving drunken riverboat
gamblers.
The Journal says handing out free drinks on riverboat casinos is even more
devastating than in land-based casinos. In land-based casinos, many of the drunk
gamblers have only to stagger to their rooms. But the vast majority of riverboat
gamblers drive to the casinos and then drive home. So, in addition to the tragedy
that alcohol multiplies on gamblers by money losses, there are the multiples
of tragedies caused by drivers loaded up on free drinks at the casinos. Although
the point of the Journals article was not on what the free flowing spigot
of alcohol does beyond drunk drivers, think of the devastation it must cause
on families and businesses.
A 1997 Louisiana insurance commissioners study found the highest rates
of injury due to drunk-driving crashes occurred in parishes that surround the
states casinos. The Commissioner concluded the parishes with casinos “are
paying a terrific price in terms of accidents and fatalities.”
Has our state sold its conscience and soul to the casinos? Are we unable to
feel responsibility and even guilt because we have turned the monsters of casinos
loose on our fellow children of God? Are we willing to say, “There are
downsides, but look at all that building going on around the casinos,”
and thereby gloss over the unscrupulous ways the money to do all this building
has been gained from people, many of whom are ruined financially?
What is wrong with a state that refuses to see beyond the whirling neon lights
to the crushed lives upon which these illusions are built?
And now, the strong majority of Sabine Parish say they do not want a life-crushing,
morality-dissolving machine inflicted upon their parish. So, will they get it?
While the proposed casino would be in Sabine Parish, this is certainly a statewide
issue. The issue now goes to the Governor of Louisiana. If he approves the casino,
the forms of the foundation will be built the next day.
The citizens who have had enough of the wreck and ruin of casinos should flood
the Governors office with letters, phone calls, faxes and e-mails imploring
him not to sign the agreement for the casino. Mike Foster was elected as he
ran on an anti-gambling platform; rejecting the request for the proposed casino
is a way to fulfill his promises.
Contact the Governors office today at (225) 342-7015, fax (335) 342-7099,
e-mail www.gov.state.la.us/contact/contact.htm.,mailing
address Governor Mike Foster, P.O. Box 94004, Baton Rouge, LA 70804.
Questions about gambling
This editor has resisted strong urges to write frequently about gambling in
Louisiana to avoid being a one-issue editor. But while this writers blood
is boiling, let me ask the citizens of Louisiana some questions about gambling.
1. Has your life improved because gambling was legalized in Louisiana?
2. Have your taxes gone down or your state government services improved since
gambling was legalized?
3. Have the schools in your community improved because gambling was legalized?
4. Has your church grown as a result of the casinos? Have your churchs
benevolence distributions increased because of casinos or video poker parlors
near your church building?
5. Do you know of someone who has lost everything they owned at a casino or
video poker parlor? How many people do you know whose marriage is stressed because
of gambling?
6. Do you know someone who has stolen from his or her business, church, family
or friends to cover gambling debts?
7. Has there been a new house built in your neighborhood because someone “got
a good job” at the casino? Or, have people who had the money to invest
in some casino-related business (motel, RV park, fast-food place, gasoline station)
gotten richer, but folks earning minimum wages in other places got other minimum
wage jobs at the casinos?
There are reasons to fear Louisiana has sold its conscience and soul to the
casinos, and that all we have gotten in return are wreck, ruin and the flash
from neon lights.