Recipients of public assistance should be banned from casinos

Years ago my business was struggling, I was going through a divorce and having a tough time making ends meet. I took a night job dealing black jack in a local casino. It was quite a revealing and educational experience. One thing that was quite striking was that once a month when the welfare checks, EBT cards and public benefits arrived the casinos were flooded with welfare recipients.

We are subsidizing these casinos by allowing these welfare recipients on the floor of the casinos. I don't have a problem with gambling personally or for others that want to gamble. I don't gamble but if that's how you want to spend your money, go ahead, but the state should not be involved in it, as a regulatory agency or promoter. We were better off with bookies in back rooms taking bets before the casinos came than we are now. So make it legal and let the consumer beware and quit trying to justify it and make it a responsibility of government to police or regulate it.

Finally, any recipient of public assistance should be banned from gambling, and if found doing so should be cut off, and the gambling establishment penalized. We need to end the state lottery, but if you want to place bets, there will surely be vendors who will step up to fill the void.

Deregulating it and getting government out of the business of policing it will give law enforcement agencies more resources to pursue the real criminals exploiting our children, selling drugs, human trafficers and other serious crimes against humanity.