Click HERE for the story that triggers this morning’s recollection and reflection.
Richard and I walk through the big doors of the giant casino. We’re there to pick up a charitable contribution from a casino. We enter the space between the big outside door and the big doors that lead into the vast space of cachinging slot machines.
I’m going through the second set of doors when I realize that Richard isn’t going in. He’s standing in the no man’s land between the two sets of doors. He’s frozen in his tracks.
“I can’t go in there,” he says. “I hate this place!”
“What’s happening? Why? What’s going on?”
“My wife’s in there. We’re broke. We’re losing our house.because of this damn place. Can’t pay the mortgage or the water bill ’cause she’s throwing our paychecks into a slot machine. I hate this place! I don’t want their —– money!”
Eventually we walk together through the doors. Richard points across the room. “That’s her,” he says. “Let’s go this way. I don’t want her to see me.” We go to the executive suite to pose for a photo-op with the casino’s executive. He hands us the blood money. “Smile,” says the casino photographer. I smile a disingenuous grin. Richard has too much integrity to sacrifice himself on altar of the golden calf.
The story of the mother who left her children in the middle of the night to head for the casino reminds me of that day years ago when we went to pick up the check that came from ripping off Richard’s wife and this latter victim of false hope.
The State of Minnesota considers expanding the “gaming” industry to generate revenue for a tight state budget. We need to change our language. It’s not a “game” unless there’s a level playing field. The casino always wins. And we lose…not only at the slot machines and pull-tab tables. We lose our homes, our children, our souls, and a culture of shared responsibility. All because…well…because we prefer slot machines to taxes. We sneak out on our kids at midnight, knowing full well that if we do, the whole house could burn down.
Views from the Edge 
Powerful. Thanks for how you said it and what you said.
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I tried to take this tragic incident as a window into the larger cultural disease. Unfortunately, as often happens with illustrations, it’s hard to keep the reader from turning the incident into a moral tale about an irresponsible mother who deserves scorn. What happened to the abandoned child didn’t happen to him out of the blue. It happened because of a society that prefers fantasy to reality, the false promise of escaping poverty by throwing coins into a slot machine or by buying enough lottery tickets. This is the opium of the people – the false promise that is drugging us into a stupor. It’s become the Larger Catechism of American culture.
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Where there is no hope, people reach for false hopes…….
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Indeed.
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Yes, that’s it in a nutshell.
The last period of time when my mother could go out alone, she spent a lot of time at one of the casinos here. I’ve never been there but I hated the place, the very idea of this place that sells nothing for such a high price. The poorer you are, the more they draw you in with your dreams.
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You hit the nail on the head. Here in Minneapolis, the casino sends buses into the poorest neighborhoods to provide “free” transportation to and from the casino. It’s not a mistake. It’s deliberate. You can call it predatory, parasitic, sinful, unjust, evil, selfish, abusive, immoral, irresponsible…you can call it lots of things, and they would all be true. But the one thing you can’t call it is illegal. Wicked, but legal. JLike the drug lords in Mexico and in the U.S., the peddlers and lords of “gaming” are winning. And American culture increasingly heads into the stupor of opiate addiction. Thank you, Sparks, for sharing here. Glad your dreams today are real!
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Casinos and parents – not a good mixture. The story in our city was a mother was arrested for leaving her 3 children in the car for 1 1/2 hours while she was in the casino. And to beat all, she had signed a letter at her Gambler’s Anonymous meeting she would stay out of the casinos. Oops, guess she forgot. Oh well, she’s in jail and the kids are with SRS. I just don’t understand these parents!!
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By the way, great article!
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