The Race to the Bottom

Don't gamble with expansion

Every gambler comes to a point when a decision must be made whether to up the ante or walk away, thereby cutting losses or conserving winnings.

The Indiana General Assembly may soon be at that decision point with regard to casino revenues.

Ohio already is moving forward with plans for land-based casinos, a move that could erode the market share of riverboats in southeastern Indiana.

Now, lawmakers in Illinois are discussing a plan to more than triple that state's gambling operations, including a land-based casino in Chicago, four additional riverboats and the addition of slot machines at horse tracks.

Even on a smaller scale, Illinois' expansion could badly damage casino operations in northwestern and possibly southwestern Indiana.

Unfortunately for Hoosiers, their lawmakers have bet heavily on the sustained viability of the state's gambling industry. But there's emerging evidence that Indiana and other states have already saturated the market.

"The pie is finite," Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada-Reno, told the Associated Press. "Gaming is subject to the same laws of economics as every other industry, and I think legislators have a hard time understanding that.''

It's hard for lawmakers to accept that reality because the gambling industry is gifted at making promises that can't be kept. There's strong appeal for politicians to believe that through repeated expansions of gambling they can raise ever-larger sums of money without tax increases. However, the necessity of squeezing more money out of a finite pool of gamblers is unsustainable.

Ultimately, state governments, and local governments, are pitted against each other in a cynical game to fool more people into tossing away their money at casinos and in lotteries.

Indiana's government is not at a point where it can suddenly break its addiction to gambling revenue. But legislators, starting with the budget they'll craft next year, need to reduce the state's dependency on gambling dollars.

The other alternative is to go all-in, which likely would mean at least matching Illinois' proposed expansion. And that's a move that almost assuredly would cause lasting harm to families and communities across the state.