Friday, July 21, 2006
Slots for Tots
Now comes news reports that toddling children are to be become licensees to supply slot machines to casinos in Pennsylvania.
The silliness arising from the state’s incredibly screwed up gaming legislation just keeps coming. And little wonder. The law was put together by legislators who were looking to create moneymaking opportunities for as many of their friends as possible. Nor did they rule out making some money for themselves as potential investors in a casino.
Because of a politically motivated refusal to sell the licenses though a bidding process, and the preposterous insistence on having middlemen suppliers for the slots machines, the process toward actually having operating casinos is mired in public relations wars between seekers of licenses and one scandalous, unflattering story after another emanating from the Gaming Board.
This whole gaming affair is an object lesson in what happens when legislators who have no notion of how markets work try to establish a system they can milk for personal and political gain.
The silliness arising from the state’s incredibly screwed up gaming legislation just keeps coming. And little wonder. The law was put together by legislators who were looking to create moneymaking opportunities for as many of their friends as possible. Nor did they rule out making some money for themselves as potential investors in a casino.
Because of a politically motivated refusal to sell the licenses though a bidding process, and the preposterous insistence on having middlemen suppliers for the slots machines, the process toward actually having operating casinos is mired in public relations wars between seekers of licenses and one scandalous, unflattering story after another emanating from the Gaming Board.
This whole gaming affair is an object lesson in what happens when legislators who have no notion of how markets work try to establish a system they can milk for personal and political gain.
