Is legalized casino gambling in the cards for Hawai’i? There are a variety of viewpoints on whether it’s a good idea. Some folks believe legal gaming would bring money into the state coffers without doing any real harm to citizens.
Is legalized casino gambling in the cards for Hawai’i?
There are a variety of viewpoints on whether it’s a good idea. Some folks believe legal gaming would bring money into the state coffers without doing any real harm to citizens. Another sizable contingent believes casinos would negatively affect the state’s moral fiber without truly aiding the state’s economy.
The national Gambling Impact Study Commission has reported that 5.5 million Americans are problem gamblers or pathological gamblers, driven to uncontrolled spending by the slap of the cards and the roll of the dice.
People with gambling problems cost society $1.3 million per 100 bodies in social costs, including courts, jails, therapy and lost job productivity.
Pathological gambling is defined by medical experts as a chronic disorder characterized by emotional dependence. The condition leads to a progressive loss of control which almost always has negative effects on the gambler’s social and professional life.
Kaua’i County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Soong has no real opinion pro or con on lotteries. But he’s firm in his opposition to casino gambling on Kaua’i.
“I am definitely against casino-type gambling. That’s pretty much agreed upon, as far as law enforcement,” Soong said. “Organized crime is one of the problems. And also the effect that gambling has on the people who gamble.”
Better that Kauaians fly to Las Vegas, “gamble for three or four days and then come back,” Soong said. “I think it’s good the way it is now. I don’t have a problem with people gambling occasionally, but I don’t want it here.”
The Honolulu Police Department is on record as believing legalized gambling will not lessen the amount of illegal, private gambling already going on in Hawai’i, and that legal-style shouldn’t be allowed.
Governor Ben Cayetano, a shoot-from-the-lip kind of guy, has been all over the map the past few years when the subject of gambling arises. At times, he has supported lotteries and pari-mutuel gambling proposals. But early this year, Cayetano told reporters that if casino gambling is allowed in Hawai’i, it should be limited to one casino built along the Kona Coast of Big Island.
Cayetano also advised a that he didn’t consider gambling to be a moral issue.
Kaua’i County Mayor Maryanne Kusaka is steadfast in her opposition to gambling here.
“My position hasn’t changed. I oppose any form of gambling in the state of Hawai’i,” Kusaka said. “We should be proud that we are one of only two states in the nation that does not have some form of legalized gambling. We have too fine a community to risk the negative social impacts that accompany legalized gambling.”
Other opponents, including the Hawai’i Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, have come out against suggestions that revenue from state-approved casinos would benefit Hawaii’s schools.
According to the national Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, in 1988 only two states had large-scale casinos. That number was 27 states by this summer. And after New Hampshire instituted a lottery in 1964, 36 others states have since followed suit.
The last two states in the union without some form of legalized gambling are Hawai’i and Utah.
Legalized gambling includes casinos in cities big and small, riverboat casinos, Native American casinos, video lottery machines and pari-mutuel betting (horse racing, trotter, dog racing, lotteries and jai alai).
Riverboat casinos began operating in Iowa in 1991. By 1998, there were more than 40 of them in Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, and another 50 riverboat and dockside casinos in Louisiana and Mississippi.
In 1988, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against California’s attempt to regulate Native American gambling on reservations, 70 casinos and bingo halls were recognized. In 1998, there were 298 Indian casinos operating in 31 states.
Americans spend an estimated $50 billion on gambling in some form or other annually, more than movies, sports, music and theater (39.9 billion) combined.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
