I'm far from a staunch moralist, but it's a sad state of affairs indeed when our best available solution to financial problems is to seek new ways to prey on the weaknesses of human nature to squeeze more blood out of a parched turnip.

For all I have seen, gambling (like any other profitable "sin") does far more damage to a society than can ever be justified by whatever revenues it creates. It is a detriment to everyone except the business owners, the politicians they pay to make their rape of society legal, the employees of gambling establishments (to a far lesser extent than the two prior groups), and the tiny contingent of individuals who manage to beat the odds and profit from gambling.

I know, I know, nobody is forcing people to go to tribal casinos and gamble, and nobody would force people to gamble at non-tribal gaming sites either. By the same token, nobody is forcing people to drink, smoke, (list your favorite sins here). The trouble is that the purveyors of these products realize all too well how easy it is to sway most people to the dark side of a freewill decision.

Of course, our state of affairs is what it is, and I recognize that nobody is supporting non-tribal gaming in the name of morality. At present, it might be a good revenue booster, but I think it will do more damage than good in the long run.

More and more, I think the State should get its revenue from an income tax and get away from the tax system that is predicated on consumer spending. For reasons I don't understand, I don't find a lot of citizens who agree with me on that. I suspect one reason the government doesn't agree with that is that it would make it much more difficult for them to cater to special interests in situations where doing so requires manipulation of revenue sources to make concessions appear possible within the State's budget. I also suppose that income taxes wouldn't allow the government to collect revenue from the unemployed and otherwise impoverished the way sales taxes and service fees do.