Winston-Salem Journal

When it comes to state-sponsored gambling, one bad idea begets another. The General Assembly’s long and torturous effort to ban video poker has again been undermined. Machine operators have found another legal loophole so they can award prizes, and a judge has ruled that the state’s law is unconstitutional. The judge, however, has stayed action on that ruling for the time being.

Amid this legal turmoil, state Rep. Earl Jones, D-Guilford, says that the state should just go ahead, legalize the machines and derive as much as $40 million a year in taxes from them. Jones’ reasoning for legalizing video poker, in part, is that the state runs a lottery and that amounts to gambling.

There’s little chance Jones’ bill will become law this session, but it shows just how slippery a slope the state is on with regard to the lottery. Gambling is gambling, some will argue, and if the state is going to operate what amounts to a daily numbers game and big-jackpot games, then it should allow video poker and get some money out of it.

But there is a big difference. As bad as lotteries are, they are not as addictive as video poker. To quote state
Sen. Charlie Albertson, D-Duplin, “video poker is the crack cocaine of gambling.” The mesmerizing video images almost hypnotize players, as anyone who came across one of the games, while they were still legal, could have easily seen. The result, all too often, was a family where mom or dad had gambled away the rent and grocery money.

Jones says he is sick of paternalistic talk about protecting adults from themselves. Adults can choose on their own, just as with the state-run lottery. But society does outlaw many behaviors in the interest of protecting people. So, Jones is simply making an argument against the lottery, not one for video poker.

More sensible legislation is also before the House this year. It would declare the General Assembly’s intention to outlaw video poker in all of its forms. If legislators passed the bill, its sponsors say, it would finally quash video poker in the state. But it would also ban innocent product promotions, such as those offered by soft-drink companies that award prizes for a winning number under a bottle cap.

Given the scourge video poker has been, that is not too high a price to pay. So long as the legislature can declare all video poker illegal without interfering with the court case, it should do so.

A state-sponsored lottery is bad enough. North Carolinians don’t need what amounts to state-sponsored crack cocaine.