Texas Missing Boat On Legalized Gambling

So this weekend I went to Winstar, just north of the Dallas area right over the Oklahoma border...about a one hour drive from the Dallas Metro area....have made this trip many, many times over the years but yesterday was very eye-opening, reaffirming and downright impressive. It was extremely busy even for a Saturday and I have never seen so many cars in the parking lot and the busses full of people ready to mostly play the slots and Bingo.

As is the case on many weekends, the poker room was full with every table in the 50+ table poker room filled and waiting lists of 50 or more for the 1/2 no limit hold'em and loads of lists for many of the other games. The high stakes room was filled also. It is amazing how much money that is on these tables at one time...thousands of dollars may be up for grabs in each hand.

It is not a surprise to see the poker room so busy since the "The River", a huge $3,000,000 tournament that will be held next month (August 2009) is running satellite tournaments for the mega-satellites and the big tournament itself......it is that way every year at this time and it is common for good sized waiting lists for poker.....but the poker situation was not really the amazing part of the story.

The Winstar World Casino is huge....you almost need a ride from one end to another. The majority of the casino is filled with an enormous number of slot machines in addition to the game tables for Blackjack and other house games. In the casino world, the poker rooms are probably the least profitable of all the areas.....slots are where the real money is.

Two things that were so jaw dropping was how crowded the whole facility was...you could hardly walk around the place.....just an extremely large crowd that were there for the sole purpose of spending money on food, drink and lots of gambling.

I got to the casino about 2:30 in the afternoon and had to park in the overflow parking lot so walked through a substantial part of the parking lot and while walking started looking at license plates. On my way in, I counted two that were not from Texas.......Two Not From Texas. I left at 8:30 and made the same long walk to my car and again, I looked for empty parking places and license plates.....again, I saw Two Plates Not From Texas.

When are the people of Texas going to wake up and smell the coffee..???? Each time our State Legislature meets, every two years, bills are introduced to get a gaming bill through so that the residents of our Great State can enjoy the same privileges as those in Oklahoma and Louisiana.....but each time the bills are shot down and we have a governor that has pledged to the Christian Community that this will never pass under his watch.....he wants to run for a third full term and needs that support.

Now Texas politics is very interesting....huge amounts of money have been pumped into the effort to keep the casinos out of Texas by the Christian Right........the funny thing is that a lot of this money comes from the Indian Casino interests in Oklahoma......strange bedfellows to say the least. Also, follow the money trail to the politicians who take the campaign funds from these same groups....very interesting indeed.

Texas residents for the most part have no idea how much revenue they are losing....it is a staggering amount. Yea, Yea, Yea.....I know all those arguments from the Religious community....crime, degenerate gambling, organized crime, etc.......well folks, we already have that and we are footing the bill and getting none of the benefits. The people that engage in those behaviors just drive to Oklahoma and Louisiana to do what they do, but they live here in Texas. They don't pay their taxes here in Texas, they get their food stamps here in Texas, their kids get CHIPS here in Texas, when they need to commit a crime, they do it here in Texas.......

Now let's be clear here.....a very, very small percentage of the people enjoying the adult games in Oklahoma are responsible for any criminal or irresponsible behavior....most of us like to go play games, slots, eat/drink and just have a good time in general. The bad element is going to be there whether it is in Oklahoma, Louisiana, or Texas. I am not even mentioning the dangerous underground gaming that exists all over Texas right now...that is a whole other aspect to this subject.

The bottom line on this is that we Texans are paying for and/or supplementing the educational and operating costs for three states not just ours. That makes us mighty generous....but with budgets the way they are, can we afford it. Is it fair to our own residents? Is it fair to our children? Is it fair to our senior citizens on fixed incomes? Is it fair to the property owners?

Texas is missing out on billions of tax revenue and thousands of jobs. The State of Oklahoma rakes a fee off the top of every single dollar spent in their casinos. That is Texas money. The range of jobs we could have in our State touches all levels from custodial workers, food workers, office jobs, security and all the way up to upper management....we are talking about good jobs.

So to deal with the element of bad behavior brought on by gambling (which we already have) the State would have the revenue to add social service programs, education for our kids, and tax relief for everyone. There would be money for more health care, better roads, and adequate law enforcement. We are letting our neighbor states create the perceived problems associated with gambling and sending them home for us to deal with the associated costs.

Yes, politics makes for strange bedfellows....while some in the Religious community want to keep us pure....keep to their standards, just the opposite is happening...they take the money from the gaming interests to keep it away from here so in effect, they are already supporting the industry in a back door way. Why not be in control? Nothing is being stopped.....people are still able to gamble legally, just not in our own State....we are sending our kids money out of state so that we can uphold a principal and by doing so has opened the door to all around us to swoop in and capitalize on our failure.

I challenge anyone opposed to allowing gaming in the State of Texas to drive to Winstar or any of the other casinos in surrounding states on a Saturday, look at the parking lot, they go inside and mentally calculate the number of jobs and tax dollars that could be ours and to reasonably judge how much of humanity we are really saving. Do we want to continue to be a nanny state and keep our head in the sand.....just take an honest and objective view and the answer is there.