Via Wikipedia.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 9, 2024 | One topic is up front today from disparate elements: the National Football League and the Georgia Legislature: gambling.
Here before Super Bowl Sunday, does it appear to you that the National Football League wants to have its cake, and eat it, too?
Have you noticed how cozy the football league is cuddling up to gambling?
- Right in front of us, on national television, televised games are gobbling up advertising dollars from national gambling companies.
- Inside at least one NFL stadium, there is an open bookie operation .
- This year the league is playing the Super Bowl in the mecca of gambling, Las Vegas.
- After years of not allowing a NFL team to land in the gambling mecca, now the NFL has a team known as the Las Vegas Raiders.
How cozy does the NFL want to get with gambling? Will we next see NFL players allowed to bet openly, perhaps on games in which they are not playing? It seems headed in that direction.
Gambling per se, and betting our hard-earned money, is something we never considered. In the past, parents taught their children that gambling should not be tolerated. Yet it has flourished in all ages in many cultures. It’s not unusual for individuals to be seriously harmed by the habit of gambling.
To bring the topic closer to home, it appears that members of the Georgia legislature have not remembered what their parents taught them: gambling is a no-no.
For years the gambling lobby has been licking its chops to gain a foothold in Georgia. In ages past, they tried to bring horseracing to Georgia. After all, they reasoned, we already are housing horses in the wintertime in Georgia, training them for the spring races. (That was focused in the past in Hawkinsville.) Year after year, the gambling industry pushed for horseracing to be legal in Georgia, but it has never passed the Legislature.
We recognize that Georgia already has gambling in the Georgia Lottery. While many Georgians opposed its coming to the state (including this writer), the Georgia Lottery with former Populist Gov. Zell Miller solidly behind it, finally became legal on June 29, 1993. It was sold as an educational measure. Indeed, it has helped pay for thousands of high-achieving students to attend Georgia colleges.
So now the gambling industry is seeking to convince Georgia legislators that sports betting should be allowed in the Peach State. Why, “everyone else is doing it” they suggest. That means that if Georgia doesn’t jump on this bandwagon, they will be missing out on substantial revenue, and yes of course, we might could reduce taxes because of that.
Poppycock!
Gambling certainly won’t reduce our taxes. They may even go up if it passes.
The gambling measure has the approval in the Senate, and is now being considered before the House of Representatives. But thanks to a measure added to the bill by Sen. Bill Cowsert of Athens, should the House pass a gambling bill, it would be only to seek passage through a Constitutional Amendment. And we’re willing to bet!, that such a bill wouldn’t pass muster of the Georgia voters.
However, before it is too late, get in touch with your representatives. Tell them to vote “No!” to keep Demon Gambling out of the state of Georgia. Continue to keep Georgians as pure as we can be.
Now go enjoy the Super Bowl this Sunday without having to bet on it. Go Chiefs!
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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