Hi all, my first post in the Maryland forum. My question is on slots

I just don't know how I want to vote on the issue. I don't really like the idea of it, but it's better than our taxes going up.

Does anybody have any opinions about the slots?

them or not. Then I started counting up the people I know of that go to Delaware Park to play them. Figure we might as well have them here and get some jobs and money out of it. Then I thought about listening to Ehrlich whining for them every time he opened his mouth but refusing to let the people vote on them. Then he came out against them now and I knew I had to vote for them. It did help sway me that the state did not forget my county really is in Maryland and will put some here.


I am not a fundy and not a gambler so it isn't a big deal to me.

and I was working as a newspaper reporter when they allowed casino gambling in Atlantic City. One of the most heartbreaking stories I ever wrote was about a group of of corrections officers from a state prison. Their treasurer ripped off ALL their hard-earned pension savings and gambled the money away in Atlantic City.

He was such a high-roller that one of the casinos used to send a limousine to his house to pick him up and drive him 80 miles to Atlantic City on a regular basis. This guy was a correction officer on a fairly low salary, but he lived pretty high on his co-workers' life savings. He was convicted and did jail time, but that didn't bring back the hundreds of thousands of dollars he stole to feed his gambling addiction. Many of those guys lost every penny they had struggled to save.


And that was one of countless stories my colleagues and I wrote about the unseen effects of gambling.

I will also tell you that when a close friend first started working as a computer programmer, he worked for a relatively small state agency that, among other things, kept track of casino revenues and how much of the money was used for education. He discovered that they kept two sets of books. The secret books showed that the casino profits were far higher than reported to the public, and were skimmed off by the casinos before reporting the smaller numbers used to calculate the amount provided for education. In other words, the state was getting far less money for education than it was supposed to. Two newspapers refused to touch the story because nobody wanted to get the casinos and the mob pissed off.

I think letting the government create opportunities for gambling is wrong.

... I really had no opinion either way but voted yes because, like the first poster said, better the mnoney go here (in state) than to DE. I'm such a Libra - unless I feel passionately about something, it's all grey to me (most days).

I do know a lot of people who go to WVa, Penn and Delaware. I also happen to enjoy horse racing which is a dying industry in this state. By adding slots we will keep that industry afloat here I think and save a lot of jobs in the state.

I've been worried about the horse-racing industry. I kind of hate the idea of slots at places like Laurel and Pimlico but I hate the idea of them going under even more.

going to the big outside gambling interests and the schools will end up with jack shit. They pull the same bullshit about gambling everywhere else, and yet the schools still end up on the shit end of the stick.

:grr:

Let the fuckers in Delaware and else gamble themselves senseless.

That the money HAS to go to the schools.
AND this will help with employment in the state. AND I do think that the locations of the slots (like Pimlico track) will see revenue as well..AFAIK, other states that have slots DO get a good chunk of that income . We have state lotteries, and horse racing..this isn't that different.

It is a regressive tax, that will affect those that cannot afford it the most. Look at who plays the lottery and where lottery outlets are. I would hazard a guess that there are much less in Columbia as compared to South Baltimore.

:shrug:

I don't gamble, have no desire to, not a big fan of casinos, but the money supposed to go to schools, right? so...I don't know. It's not a black or white issue, I think.

It will be difficult to get rid of the measure since it was approved since it was amended to the State Constitution, and the education budget will still get cut anyway. Not to mention there will be another another hike in the sales tax.