Here We Go Again!

Two days ago, I had a conversation with a young man who had grown up in Middleboro. The conversation was unrelated to gambling, but when he discovered that I lived in his home town, he raised the issue of the proposed mega casino and said he hoped that the casino never came. He told me that 5 of his classmates had committed suicide because of gambling addiction and debts. We spent some time discussing the issue at length, but the human cost of what casino facts has been saying developed faces and personal stories.

In a recent statewide referendum, Question 3 supporters voted to ban greyhound racing.

Since greyhound racing is slowly fading in popularity, the 'handle' is declining, the track's contribution to the its host community is dwindling, and employment is declining, rather than to allow it a graceful death, as voters intended, Rep. "Slots" Flynn continues to grab media attention promoting the leeches of the gambling world, slot machines.

It should not go unnoticed that House Speaker DiMasi's ethical conduct remained unchallenged until the House voted down casino gambling. Coincidence, ya think?

Commenting on handicapped access to the track, Carney, owner of the Raynham Dog Track said -

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The park has not received one complaint about handicap access, Carney said. “Most of our client base is elderly nowadays, so we have to be able to get them in there,” he said.

Raynham Dog Track Owner, George Carney, who now professes such great care and devotion to track employees, fired two female employees for refusing to work on Christmas Day --

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The ACLU of Massachusetts (1996) filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on behalf of two women who were fired for refusing, on religious grounds, to work at a racetrack on Christmas Day.

Now let's just pretend that there was a statewide vote on a business that voters found objectionable. Why should the state, in essence, subsidize that business?

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And why should the state, that continues to display its inability to live within its means, endorse a revenue source that lures the gullible?

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And why should the state endorse a currently illegal new source of revenue for dog tracks?

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Why are the voters entitled to less respect for their vote than Mr. Carney, the owner of the Dog Track?

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Is it strictly campaign contributions? I'd like to believe that Rep. "Slots" has simply misunderstood the disasterous consequences of legalized slots.

StopPredatoryGambling offered this --

The goal of slot technology is no secret: how to get people to play longer, faster and more intensively. Every feature of the machine- the mathematical structure, visual graphics, sound dynamics, seating and screen ergonomics- is geared, in the language of the predatory gambling trade, to get gamblers to

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"play to extinction"

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- which means until their money is gone.

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The proposed Middleboro Mega Casino would house 5,000 slot machines. Rep. Slots is proposing that each of the dog tracks would have 2,500 slot machines. That's half a mega casino in each location.

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And we already know it won't stop at simply two locations because they can't exclude the horse tracks and then there will be other locations as an excuse for revenue generation. Ahhhh....the addictive quality of gambling!!

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The issue has ALWAYS been about slot machines. Voters said NO.

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Please tell Rep. Slots.