Legal or illegal? Only your politician knows for sure.
(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
In Texas, Tarrant County Sheriff's deputies apprehended over 70 8-liner slot machines, seized four people, and pocketed, uh, confiscated $24,000 in cash during a raid on the J&S Game Room in South Forth Worth in an effort to “stomp out this problem” of illegal gambling.
A person of libertarian persuasion who prizes maximum freedom and minimum coercion might inquire what the difference is between legal and illegal gambling. After all, Texas has a legal state Lotto and its citizens legally participate in the legal multistate Mega Millions and a bunch of scratch-off cards. Grand Prairie in Dallas County has legal horse racing with pari-mutuel betting at Lone Star Park.
Bingo parlors and the 8-liner slot machines can be found all over the state. They're either legal or illegal depending on who's running them, who's looking the other way, and who's pocketing the pelf.
The answer to the question of legality would be that gambling is legal if (a) politicians have used their self-proclaimed superior knowledge and intellect to bless a piece of paper that says its legal, (b) the state is getting a piece of the action, and (c) the Politically Superior Ones get to spend the taxbucks on their pet lobbyist-directed projects while siphoning some of it off into their own pockets.
Always desperate to generate more tax income while never never ever cutting spending, casino gambling, currently illegal in Texas, will become legal for the same reasons. So will marijuana. So will many other practices and products that are currently illegal or not yet taxed.
The determining factor will be who has the most power. Politicians are increasingly salivating over the prospect of legalizing and taxing pot. According to DrugScience.org, "marijuana is the top cash crop in 12 states, one of the top 3 cash crops in 30 states, and one of the top 5 cash crops in 39 states."
But both sides of the Drug War, the drug kingpins (massive profits) and the drug warriors (massive government subsidizes), have a vested interest in keeping it illegal.
In Texas, the 8-liner slot machines exist in a quasi legal/illegal gray area. Keeping them illegal benefits corrupt lawmen. Legalizing them benefits corrupt lawmakers.
Someone somewhere always has a vested interested in the status quo. What is legal or illegal depends on who's the greediest and who has the most political pull.
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