Is there any business in all the world that promises more and gives less in return than gambling? It is always a long shot, a shot in the dark and the constant encouragement to “go for broke” even though it is designed to produce far more losers than winners.
Since gambling is founded on breaking, taking, robbing, destroying and has broken the highest moral codes of civilization it accepts no responsibilities for the betterment of the society in which it operates. It has no foundation or support for being honest and upright. It is designed to make failures of all who participate. It is parasitic in nature, like a leech and a bloodsucker to its victims.
Empty slogans and hollow promises are at the forefront of the business. It is glamorized on television, large billboards, colorful newspaper adds and bolstered by the words of thoughtless, uneducated and uninformed politicians, get-rich-quick-business operators and those who think gambling will pour more millions into county and state coffers.
The picture is never presented as it is played out in real life drama to include the final act and last grim and vulgar scene of what really happens. The accurate results are never presented.
As a child I watched men, booze bottle and addictive nicotine cigarettes in their hands, gamble sway their paycheck that deprived their family of clothing, food and the other necessities of life. Gambling and its by-products lead to divorce, shattered childhoods, child molestation, ruined health, an infiltration of thugs, drugs and drug addicts, prostitution, crime, mental illness, murder, suicide, poverty and everything else that is undesirable by carting and concerned people. I do not know of a county or city in the United States that needs more of the filth of the low-life style of living gambling always seems to bring.
The picture is a gruesome and undesirable one that I paint. It comes from what I know and have experienced. I know what it is to have someone you love take his own life with another man’s gun when under the influence of alcoholic beverages and leave his wife and children to fend for themselves through many lonely and difficult years.
What city or county wants more tourism of the kind increased gambling will produce? For every dollar received from gambling the city, county and state will have to spend from $1.90 to $3.00 to clean up the filth they leave behind. Many of the jobs it brings will be an increase in police officers, firemen, hospital emergency room workers, doctors, social workers, counselors and others who will attempt to patch up and clean up the messes it produces.
The accurate story is always the same -- deception and destruction. It is an increased payday for those who control it. A friend of mine has a grandson who has been, for the last few years, a blackjack dealer in the casinos of Las Vegas. I recall the excitement when he started. He recently left because of the low pay, less than $18,000 per year, and a terrible and killing lifestyle.
Eat the devil’s corn and he’ll choke you on its cob. Surely we can all understand that bit of wisdom, plain and simple. Gambling is a losing business for all who get involved except for the vultures that clean up on all their victims. Like the big filth-eating vultures I’ve seen in the wilds of Africa they will not quit until the carcass has been picked clean. Unless you want that kind of final result, vote “NO” to every form of gambling and every attempt to increase it. “Like a thief in the night it will come to steal and to kill.
Publisher's Note: Bill Ellis, Award Winning
Syndicated Columnist, P.O. Box 345, Scott Depot, WV 25560.
Phone:304-757-6089
www.BillEllis.Net.
