Tag Archives: Gambling

Gambling & Way Back When

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I can’t remember precisely. I can only approximate it as it occurred near the time Bill Clinton began his campaign for president, in the early 1990s, perhaps a year or two earlier. Suddenly, a number of people decided we, here in DeSoto County, needed to have a casino or three.

The media’s sudden shift was unmistakable. News broadcasts and radio programs flooded the airwaves with glowing narratives about the potential casino development. Their enthusiastic messaging painted a picture of transformative benefits, promising enhanced educational infrastructure, improved roadways, and a tourism renaissance. While the specific architects behind this narrative remained unclear, the coordinated messaging was impossible to ignore.

In general, I could tell that those behind it all were from north of the state line. It immediately brought to question to me, why don’t they stop trying to run our county? What business is it of theirs whether we have or don’t have casinos.

A grassroots resistance swiftly emerged, primarily mobilized through religious institutions. While avoiding direct electoral guidance, these groups plainly conveyed the potential consequences of their ideological stance.

In the contentious debate over casino development, local churches warned that out-of-state businesses would exploit local economic potential, siphoning profits away from the economy. Casino proponents initially promised local investment and economic revitalization. However, the churches’ predictions proved prophetic. Tunica County permitted it and today, every casino in the county is owned by eway outside corporate interests, rendering the original assurances hollow and leaving the local economy largely unbenefited by the gambling industry’s presence.

In a resounding display of community resolve, Desoto County residents decisively rejected the proposed initiative, voting against it down twice with overwhelming majorities. Faced with such resounding opposition, the proponents ultimately redirected their efforts south to Tunica.

Over the years, the expansive business venture appeared to flourish, with grand casinos emerging and thriving, until recent challenges began to surface and test their previous success.

The other day, I heard that one of the casinos is closing its doors and the rest are having problems. There are not nearly the TV ads from Tunica casinos. My best guess is that the gambling crowd has decided to go to the casino in West Memphis, Arkansas, which is closer. If the pattern continues, the city of Tunica will be smaller than when it first started.

There is one advantage for me and the folks here in DeSoto County. We don’t have to put up with Memphis drivers as much. They’ll be crossing the bridges across the Mississippi instead.

Before You Make Your Bet

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I guess I have lost track of the number of ways a person can make a wager; and that’s just the legal ones. In the regular casinos, there must be at least half a dozen ways. Then there are the horse and dog tracks. You can legally make wagers on, I guess, any sport. You can even bet on the outcome of elections. There isn’t a day goes by that I am encouraged to make bets over the internet.

I don’t have any part in it. There is one thing I keep in mind at all times. The odds are always against me.

If you go into the casinos in Vegas, you will see big lavish surroundings. They are expensive, you know. They are paid for by people not like me. The lavish surroundings are expensive. They are air conditioned and well lit, which costs money. Each table takes up space and requires someone to operate it. Besides them, there are people that monitor the area, probably one for every 3 or 4 tables.

The places generally have at least a camera on every table which is likely monitored from who knows where. I would suspect most casinos are kept spotlessly clean. Someone goes around making sure it is kept that way 24 hours a day, you know. Someone pays for that. It is not paid for by the casinos. If it were, they’d go broke. Those that pay are the ones sitting at the tables buying the chips and dropping the tokens in the machines.

It is true, some people who enter those casinos come out with more than they come in with. It is true and they have it down to a science. They can tell you on that day how many will win and how many will lose. They know how much the house will win and and how much they will lose. They also know the winnings will exceed the losses.

Well, I guess there is one situation in which the casinos lose. If no one goes in and makes bets, the casino will close down and declare bankruptcy. I don’t just know this from theory but observation. One of the casinos that originally opened in Tunica, name Splash, closed up and went away. The customers stopped going in there. They went to the big ones that are still there.

Now let me see, one of the casinos implied with their ads that if you went there and gambled, you could, you might somehow become a Hollywood movie star. They actually showed pictures of a woman lying on a bed and clicking her ruby red heels. I wonder were they got that idea. I don’t know if the advertising worked, but they did have a bunch of visitors dropping off their earning for which they worked so hard.

Invariably, every year near the end of basketball season, the places I worked had pools. Every year, that is before I retired, they asked me to take part in it. I never did. I told them I worked to hard to throw my money away on such things. They never let it go at that. They generally tried for about five minutes to talk me into it.

I have no idea why, but it is something the alcoholics share with gamblers. They never want to do it alone. They always encourage others to join them. I never made a dollar off the pools, but then I never lost a dollar either. I made more than one person angry with me over it.

Before you make that bet, you might remember, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” Proverbs 21:20. Even if you are a staunch atheist, you must admit the proverb is rock solid true. (actually, the Bible has a bunch of truth in it, aside of the religion. For instance, a society will be better when it does not allow robbery and murder.)

Hence, invariably the world of gambling consists of fools and those wanting to take advantage of their foolishness.

Even so, the world would not be as it is today without those willing to risk what they have. Even the farmer gambles. Large advances in technology only took place by those willing to take risks. You know them and their invention, Edison and his light, Bell and his phone, Marconi and his radio, for a few.

Certainly for this reason, I cannot completely put down risk takers. It just is, when you put that bet on 23 on the roulette table, you pretty much know you may as well toss that money in the trash. When you buy that lottery ticket, you know you’ve seen the last of that little bit. You are joining the world of fools that keep giving your hard earned money to those who make their living off of fools.

I Must Admit Some Disappointment

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I wrote a post that strongly suggested that Pete Rose should never be put in the Hall of Fame. Apparently, I am mostly alone. I have heard many suggest that, now that he is dead, we should go ahead and put him in now.

Of course, who am I to decide. It just is that, I am disappointed. Many, both conservative and liberal have taken the attitude that it really wasn’t that big of a deal. One thing I have noted is that, the more that folks are in favor of gambling, the more they are in favor of letting Rose in.

I have no say in the matter. I have no TV or radio program. Maybe I just have a few hundred who even know of my blog. However, I do have my ideas of what is right and wrong. I have written many times of the downsides of gambling. Indeed, I keep hearing the advertisements of how fun it is to gamble, though it isn’t but for a second.

A couple of decades ago, it was not that way. I was in the majority in condemning those who gamble and encourage to gamble. It was in that world in which Rose was gambling, not our current world, which loves the lotteries and scoffs and me. It was in that world in which he chose to do his gambling and set the bad example for our youth. Indeed, to some degree, the stories of his gambling might have even added to the desire to loosen the laws on gambling.

As I say, little old me, I have little to say about it. It is an observation. It is one where few agree with me. It leaves me with a statement and two questions. I am disappointed. Is this a good thing, really? Is this the world we want our children to be brought up in, or the one that condemned Pete Rose for blatantly breaking the rules and then refused to repent? I kind of like the way it was, but that’s me.

As an aside, we all make mistakes. Mostly, they are simple mistakes we ignore, other than to try not to make the same mistake again. On the other hand, sometimes we make mistakes that live with us the rest of our lives. In some cases, we make mistakes that outlive us. I suspect, despite all I say, Pete Rose will be in the Hall of Fame one day. Still, it won’t change the fact that Pete Rose made one of those permanent mistakes that will live far beyond his grave. No one will ever be able to say that he didn’t do that which was wrong and he set a bad example for our youth.

When and if he ever gets in the Hall of Fame, it will send the message that, given enough time, given enough ability, all will be forgiven.