A bad way to pay for a stadium (12/23/04)

So the Indianapolis Colts want a new home, and the city of Indianapolis is prepared to do whatever it takes to provide it.

Fair enough. We don’t even have a problem with the notion that we’d pay higher taxes at Indy hotels and restaurants to foot the bill.

But slot machines in the state capital? Pull-tab gambling? What’s next?

It seems a lifetime ago that the notion of legalized gambling was floated in the Indiana General Assembly. Back then, it was the state lottery which would be a cure-all, a painless revenue source that would pay for everything from teachers’ pensions to a fur-lined Statehouse.

At the time, those who spoke out against the concept — like the late J. Roberts Dailey, who was then Speaker of the Indiana House — were dismissed as backwards-looking fuddy duddies. And aside from Dailey and the United Methodist Church, there weren’t many folks who even bothered to oppose the idea.

Bring it on, the voters told their lawmakers. So, in short order, we got ourselves a lottery, “riverboat” gambling, off-track betting parlors, bingo parlors, racetrack betting operations, and casinos.

All “painless” sources of revenue for government and non-profit organizations, except, of course, that they’re not really painless at all. Money spent gambling is money which could have been spent on something useful, like food on a family’s table.

The “gaming” industry doesn’t like folks to think about that. But then, they don’t like folks to think that “gaming” is gambling either.

And they sure don’t want folks to ponder on the fact that huge amounts of wealth are shifted from those who can ill afford it to those who run the games. It’s all legal as long as the taxman gets his cut.

We’ve come a long way since the first Indiana lottery was introduced, but the movement hasn’t been in a direction we’d call progress. Sure, we’ll acknowledge that we’ve bought our share of lottery tickets along the way; no one is exempt from the appeal of get-rich-quick.

But as Indy scrambles to come up with more than half a billion dollars to hang onto its NFL team, you have to wonder where this road is taking us next. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]