[ Home ]

[ Slots News ]

Baltimore Sun Endorses Slots (3 of 3)

The anticipation of slot game revenue alone would allow lawmakers to breathe a little easier and make the choice to borrow against cash reserves with the knowledge that it could inevitably be repaid. The devices would bring untold masses of new patrons to Maryland’s horse racing establishments, which have been in crisis and decline for years. Jobs connected to the horse racing industry would be maintained, and the horse breeding and farming businesses would stay intact, perhaps staving off “relentless” suburban sprawl.

This is not to say that the newspaper’s endorsement of the controversial gambling devices is completely wholehearted. The Sun editorial remained critical of slot machine proponents, who have made a number of statements regarding expanded gambling that may be construed as “misleading.” The Sun’s biggest concern is the almost-inevitable increase in problem (or addicted) gambling that will come with easier access to these one-armed bandits. Additionally, the paper cites “bankruptcy, family dissolution, and crime” as risks tied in with a greater percentage of slots throughout the state. Although the Legislature has already promised to earmark funds for the treatment of problem gamblers in the event of the law’s passage, the Sun argues that such an effort would hardly be fully sufficient “to ameliorate the adverse impact” of the newly-legal slot games. The article suggested that faculty from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health should be commissioned to examine and evaluate the issue.

The editorial concludes with the statement that O’Malley and state lawmakers will still undoubtedly be plagued with “painful” decisions vis a vis the troubled economy, but that the damage to Marylanders’ quality of life without the slot machine income would be too great to bear.

Back to October 2008 Archive.