Before you cast your vote regarding the legislation that would authorize the introduction of “legalized” casino gambling into Massachusetts, I ask you to reflect upon why the adjective “legalized” is used as it is in describing a certain kind of gambling. We don’t have “legalized” checkers, nor have we “legalized” lawn-mowing or “legalized” tennis. We say “legalized” in referring to gambling to differentiate it from gambling in general. Casino gambling is generally unlawful and for very good reasons.

As a society, we have been sufficiently wise historically to limit the degree to which persons are permitted to engage in certain activities likely to cause injury to themselves, their families and society as a whole. We limit the degree to which people have access to narcotics, to tobacco products, to alcohol, to firearms and to explosives. We know that some people have malevolent dispositions while others don’t possess the faculties necessary properly to handle dangerous substances or devices. Indeed, not only do we seek to prevent people from physically harming themselves or others, we take steps regarding the degree to which people may be permitted to takes risks with their assets. Ironically, the little guy can’t make certain financial investments because the SEC says they are “too risky” but we now propose letting him lose his entire paycheck, and maybe more after that, in a casino.

When we hear the word “casino”, we are put in mind of glamorous images of men in tuxedos and alluring women in splendid gowns playing high-stakes games in Monte Carlo, where everyone at the table is stunningly rich, no one has ever worked for a living, and everyone drives a Bentley or Ferrari.

The reality of “legalized” gambling is that the people who are drawn to it, many literally unable to resist, are people who have very little to begin with, people who are in no position to lose what little they do have. They are people at the bottom quartiles of the income distribution, timorous little souls hoping their time has come and that the god of the slot machine will save them, at last, from a lifetime of despair and privation.

I am sure you know that the people who can afford to gamble do not in fact do so. They don’t buy lottery tickets nor do they engage in other wasteful pursuits. Instead, they invest their money, buying the stocks of companies such as Las Vegas Sands, MGM Mirage, Wynn Resorts and Trump Entertainment, companies that profit handsomely from preying upon the weakness of low income people who hope that, finally, one day, fortune will favor them and a slot machine will pay off. You also know that that day never comes. How many men, women and their families have been destroyed as the result of the loss to a slot machine of paycheck after paycheck, social security check after social security check, and indeed welfare payment after welfare payment.

We’re told that “legalizing” casino gambling will ease our unemployment problem. I understand that several states with “legalized” gambling nevertheless have unemployment rates higher than is the national average. Even if that weren’t the case, we should weigh carefully the kind of employment casinos offer…that of shuffling cards and pushing alcohol onto already weak people, hoping they will inebriate themselves and prove even more pliable targets for a scheme mathematically certain to separate them from their meager assets, to leave them a charge upon their families and possibly upon the Commonwealth itself. There is a kind of ironic justice in the latter, I suppose.

Aside from the pernicious effect casino gambling has upon the weak, the poor and the elderly, reflect upon the experience of states where such gambling is permitted. Consider the nature and degrees of crimes, including quite violent ones, committed against persons in and around gambling establishments. Recall that nothing is free and every solution to every problem creates problems of its own. Introducing casino gambling into Massachusetts will be no different.

Over the weekend, reporters asked travelers at Logan Airport about the wisdom of locating slot machines there. A Dutch business man rejected the idea, saying “gambling is for loonies”. Yes, indeed, gambling is for loonies and losers. It is shameful to think that, knowing that fact as does each of us in his or her head and heart, the Commonwealth nevertheless purposes to engage in an act of willful blindness, if the “take for the state” is high enough.

You won’t find James Bond in any of the casinos in Massachusetts. What you will find is a set of loonies and losers, made that way by an odious industry well equipped to separate such people from the few dollars they have.

Creating jobs shuffling cards, pushing drinks and running a sophisticated scam on the weak, poor and elderly to filch their funds … do we need a man from Holland to tell us that this is a bad, a very bad, idea?

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Richard E. Savoy
7 Beach Avenue
Salem, MA 01970