What are the odds that gambling improves your economic future?

By David McElroy · August 22, 2011

Gambling is a hot political issue in some places, but the centerpiece of the economy in a few others. In all places, though, gambling is a bit like a tax on people who don’t understand math.

I don’t understand the allure of gambling, so it’s never been a temptation to me. (But the various other things considered vices have never been of interest to me, either, so that’s not a surprise.) But if people choose to waste their money on gambling as a form of entertainment, hey, it’s their money, not mine. The people who make arguments against gambling on religious grounds or social grounds are basically asserting the right to make the decision for other people — and that’s wrong.

A friend asked me this over the weekend:

“What do you think gambling does to the economy? Of course I don’t think it should be illegal, but I don’t think it’s necessarily good for our economy, either. But I don’t know because I don’t have enough information on that to make a decent conclusion. Now playing the lottery is what my cousin always called ‘the stupid tax’ (and I agree there, because you’re really just giving more money to the government unless you’re one of the very few who wins), but I wonder about casinos and such, too. It’s so intricate, because where there’s gambling there’s addiction and people going into debt.”

First, I agree completely with my friend about the legality of gambling. If you want to gamble, that’s your business. It’s your life. It’s your money. I don’t think it’s a wise decision, but you probably don’t think some of my decisions are wise. I don’t have the right to control you any more than you have the right to control me.

Second, I think that people who claim gambling is a good thing are ultimately deluding themselves. It’s true that it does enrich certain people — casino operators and the state, mostly — but gambling doesn’t produce anything. It adds nothing to the economy, so it’s nothing but a drain on overall wealth. But I have to point out that the same thing can be said about almost all segments of the entertainment and leisure industries. So while spending money on movies, music and gambling might give us some enjoyment, I don’t think you can argue that you’re increasing the wealth of a nation. They’re merely sucking up some of the excess wealth that a strong economy produces. The problem is that a nation accustomed to frivolous spending has trouble putting on the brakes when times get bad — as we’re seeing today.

Third, real people suffer when they destroy the wealth they’ve accumulated. It’s their right to do it. As long it’s their money, it’s even their right to do it is it’s not the best decision for their families. But I can’t ignore the fact that millions of people are materially worse off because of gambling.

Fourth, a nation is most prosperous with people who produce more than they consume. The more industrious we are and the smarter we are, the more things of value that we create. The more lazy and dull we are, the more we destroy of the wealth that’s been built up by previous generations. They modern idea has become that all spending is good. (This comes from the insane ideas of John Maynard Keynes in the ’30s, of course.) But spending to consume (which ultimately reduces wealth) doesn’t have the same result as spending to produce (which ultimately increases wealth).

We’re a nation today of consumers. People think of themselves that way. Politicians use the word. It’s true that we have to consume in order to live. But when that becomes the focus of life — as it is for a growing percentage of our population — people quit doing the things that made the United States into a world economic powerhouse.

Gambling destroys wealth. It should be completely legal in all of its typical forms. But I see it as a cancer. It will make a few people wealthy, but it will make a lot more people poor. It’s a drain on the economy.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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