A devastating development

'A devastating development for South Dakota.'

By legalizing video gambling, Illinois is poised to go down a path that led Sioux Falls, S.D., to accumulate mom-and-pop casinos, pawn shops and payday lenders on almost every major street.

The gambling outlets do not have clocks on the walls and curtains are drawn, leaving gamblers no hint of how much time they have spent inside, said De Knudson, a City Council member and wife of a gubernatorial candidate. Money is only a few steps away and snacks are free, so even gamblers' stomachs don't rebel.

Knudson said most residents she talks to have friends, relatives or co-workers with a video gambling problem.



The machines are "so convenient. They're everywhere. They're so addictive," she said. "Video [gambling] was a devastating development for South Dakota."

Illinois lawmakers, who passed video gambling months ago, and Gov. Pat Quinn, who signed it into law on July 13, had their eyes on the prize: a new revenue stream. They wanted tax money collected on the gambling to finance a construction program for roads, mass transit and schools that also would put people to work.

A statement from Quinn's office emphasized that video gambling will provide only one part of the funding for the effort expected to create 439,000 jobs over the next six years. It also said the law increased regulations and options for municipalities to prohibit video gambling.

Analysts say that as many as 45,000 machines could dot the state, reaping $300 to $641 million a year. The yield can be unpredictable, especially in light of a drop of nearly 15 percent in gaming revenues from casinos, the lottery and horse racing in Illinois last year.

Lawmakers passed video gambling without holding public hearings. If they had, they likely would have heard statistics about these effects:

* Easy accessibility leads to the notion that such gambling is socially acceptable, which promotes more frequent wagering.

* It takes about a year for video gamblers to become compulsive, compared to 3 1/2 years when betting on horses, sports, etc.

* More video gambling and lottery machines tend to be placed in poorer neighborhoods.

* Those with lower incomes are more prone to see wagering as a way out of economic misery.