HARD LESSONS FROM EASY VIRTUE

Even before the riverboats begin their excursions and the slot machines are frantically rolling, it should be recognized that Missouri's biggest compulsive gambler is the State of Missouri itself. Written into Gov. Mel Carnahan's FY 1995 budget, which begins in a little more than three months, the state plans to collect seven times more revenue than it receives from taxes on liquor and beer. Allocating casino gambling revenue before the riverboats have even gotten up a head of steam, the state has assigned an estimated $186,400,000 in expected taxes, fees and levies from gambling enterprises for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

To give you an idea how much state government has already become accustomed to large revenue amounts from gambling, it should be noted that Missouri will collect more from gambling than it spends every year on each of these departments and agencies: Agriculture, Conservation, Economic Development, Insurance, Labor and Industrial Relations, Public Safety and the state's judicial system. To salve the collective conscience of Missourians, Jefferson City will allocate some of its gambling revenue to public schools and colleges, yet much of the money earmarked for these worthwhile purposes will serve to free general revenue funds, which can be used for an assortment of programs at the whim of the executive and legislative branches.

What few gambling advocates are willing to concede is that as state government grows increasingly dependent on gambling revenue, the long-term prospects for maintaining such revenue are dismal at best. There are already indications, -more despite earlier glowing promises from fast-buck promoters, that some of the bloom of big gambling money is dimming. Any thought that Missouri would become an oasis among the states for high-rollers should be ended right now. It was April Fool's Day in 1991 that the nation's first gambling boat was launched at the river town of Davenport, Ia., located close to both Missouri and Illinois. After only three years of a proliferation of similar gambling enterprises in Iowa, there is a growing disappointment over the failure of casinos to solve persistent economic problems, while some riverboats have already pulled anchor and sailed to greener waters elsewhere.

When the present schedule of riverboat developments is completed in Missouri, operators will find themselves facing competition not only from Iowa but from Illinois, Mississippi and perhaps Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky. Casinos now operate or are authorized in 23 states, and fully 95 percent of all Americans are expected to live within a three or four-hour drive of one within five years. Casinos won't be as conveniently located as McDonald's, but they are also much less permanently moored and ready for instant sailing when business slows down and the suckers stop coming.

Missouri expects to rack up revenue totaling $90 million from the state lottery in FY 1995, while receiving $69.1 million from riverboat gambling, with an additional $7.3 million coming from bingo levies. It has been estimated by some overly optimistic state officials that revenue from casino gambling will eventually reach a quarter of a billion dollars, but more realistic estimates provided by real experts in the field place the state's highest draw from this source to be less than $200 million, and that's during the peak period, before casinos become as common as convenience stores.

This official infatuation with gambling revenue and the dependence it engenders to stake the funding of important state programs on money lost from family budgets is disturbingly short-sighted. Regardless of gambling's growth in Missouri, it will never be enough to solve any social problems that now exist, but to the contrary, gambling will greatly enhance additional social problems, including compulsive gambling, alcoholism, personal bankruptcy and even increases in crime and acts of addictive behavior. Interestingly, the state has not increased by any appreciable amount any program designed to deal with the crimes and misdemeanors that will be created by Missourians ' high-pitched fever for fast, easy money.

Recent economic studies indicate that gambling casinos actually prove detrimental to numerous businesses that already exist in communities. Such enterprises as restaurants, movie theaters, car dealerships, clothing stores and sporting events all suffer when gambling becomes a major business in their cities. We'll give house odds that no one in Jefferson City has estimated the loss of revenue from bankrupt retail stores.

Voters will probably approve riverboat gambling for the second time in less than three years. It's anyone's guess, however, when citizens become disillusioned with the power of dice to bring Missouri the new pairs of shoes it so badly needs.