Speak Out 3/18/10

Riverboat gambling

FOR every winner there is a loser. The gambling industry tries to sprinkle a sugarcoating of helping education or some other fine cause on the moldy bread of children going without food because a parent gambled away the paycheck. It is instructive to compare the courses, over the years, of Cairo where gambling was permitted and Cape Girardeau which prohibited it. Unfortunately, shady characters gravitate to the gambling business. The economic benefit of permitting gambling will, in the long run, become an economic blight. The sugar coating is the only way to hide the moral and economic barb of gambling's hook. We like Cape Girardeau the way it is without riverboat gambling.