Editor:
I feel that legal social gambling in Sweet Home would be the lesser of two evils. It would keep gambling money in Sweet Home and would provide for more social interaction among participants.
Granted, gambling is not a good thing. And yes, some people do spend their rent money on gambling and then can’t pay their rent. But so long as there is legal gambling available in the area, these people are going to gamble.
Where do these spend their gambling dollars now? They play the lottery locally, and the bulk of this money leaves town and goes to the state. They play in card game tournaments in nearby towns where they are legal and leave their money there. Or they play card games on the Internet and send their money out of state.
There is a lot of losing going on, and a lot of money is leaving town.
If social gambling were allowed in Sweet Home, some of this money would stay in town. Sweet Home residents would lose their money to other Sweet Home residents. This would be better than sending this money elsewhere. At least one lucky person could pay the rent.
I feel that people who are going to gamble are going to gamble. Those who are currently not gamblers are not going to start. I don’t foresee my “church-going” neighbors suddenly flocking to the bars if social gambling is legalized.
Then there is the video game generation thing. Many people these days are glued to their video games or TV. They have very little social interaction with other people. This is not healthy to say the least. I know some gambling types who are constantly glued to lottery video games or are glued to their computers. I know that if social gambling was legalized in Sweet Home, these people would play in these games. And perhaps they would get a bit more social interaction by doing so. This would be good.
I feel keeping the money local would be a good thing and providing a means for gamblers to have more social interaction with other people would be good as well, the lesser of two evils.
Also, remember this is supposed to be a “free” country. I think most people would prefer to see more of the “freedom” part and less of the “restraint” part. And with this said, note that you probably will not see me participating in these tournaments. But I might watch a few every now and then. It might be a bit of fun.
Bill Davis
Sweet Home