Back in 2007, Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed a deal with the Seminole tribe that would have allowed blackjack and other table games in their casinos in exchange for the state getting a cut. The deal was later shot down by the state House and then a second deal was also scrapped. In that situation, most people would give up, say they gave it the old college try and move on. Crist, however, is still fighting for a deal. The question is, why?

I don’t want to sound cynical, but I usually don’t think that politicians make decisions based on what’s best for the people. I think they make decisions based on what’s best for them, which includes covering their butts when they make a mistake. Such may be the case here.

Though I stated it before, it’s worth reiterating that Crist is fighting for money he’s already spent. You see, governors have control over the budget of their state and they allocated funds for each department within the state based on revenue from many sources, mostly taxes. In this year’s education budget for the state of Florida, $433 million comes from revenue brought in by the deal with the Seminole tribe over their blackjack tables. Since earlier this month the House voted down that deal for the second time, that $433 million doesn’t exist.

Folks, if it’s bad financial strategy for an individual to spend money they don’t have, it’s equally bad (or worse) for a state to do that. In fact, many of America’s problems stem from the fact that the federal government is doing exactly that. Now it seems that Charlie Crist, the Florida governor who wants to represent the state in the Senate, has done that as well.

To save face, Crist needs to get a deal done so he doesn’t have to explain why he had to cut $433 million from the education budget. Considering he’s already trailing Marco Rubio in the polls for the Republican primary, that would be a mistake from which it would be nearly impossible to recover. And that’s why Crist is fighting so hard for a deal.

As the recession that Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner won’t admit exists shows no sign of getting better, states are looking at ways to make more money. Right now, most states are hemorrhaging cash and every little bit of revenue is needed. For that reason, Iowa and Kansas are the latest to look at their current gambling laws and discuss whether they need to be changed.

Right now lawmakers in Iowa are considering expanding their legal gambling by expanding the areas where it can occur. Currently casinos can only offer gambling on the gambling floors. The new legislation would allow gambling to occur in other rooms in the casino. The advantage would be that casinos could open poker rooms and start hosting major poker tournaments, which in theory could be a big source of revenue for the state. So it seems that in 2010, the politicians in Iowa finally realized that poker is big and involves a lot of money. In related news, the state legislature has said that they believe that the Internet is starting to catch on. If only there was a way of making money off of the Internet…

Meanwhile, Kansas lawmakers are basically asking for a do-over. In 2007, the Democratic-led Congress passed a law to bring in four state-owned casinos. As early as 2008, they realized that they wrote a terrible law that gave no incentive for anyone to actually buy property, build a casino on it, and open the business. Basically, the state charges way too much upfront for everyone involved and in a bad economy, no one is willing to risk paying that money. This is why Democrats should never try to have anything to do with business or economics. They simply have no understanding of either.

As a result of the bad bill, though the casinos are legal in the state, none exist. Last year, the lawmakers realized that they badly needed the casino revenue due to the recession, but were unwilling to take the time to discuss changing the law because they were too busy dealing with the recession and trying to find ways to help the economy (no, I’m not making this up). So now that, according to the federal government, the recession is over, they want a do-over.

Some Republicans are against amending the law. Republican House Speaker Mike O’Neal said that “they got the deal they wanted. They can live with the deal they got.” The Democratic response was something along the lines of, “Look, we’re Democrats. We always write terrible bills. That’s what we do! (It’s also why we don’t bother reading them). Don’t hold that against us. Let us try again and I assure you we’ll come up with a good one this time!”

The proposed changes in the law are aimed at making it more affordable for companies to come in and start up a casino. Among other things, there would be a drop in the investment that is required of developers from $225 million to $100 million. There is also a fee that must be paid up front to the state for the privilege of allowing the state to run your casino. That fee would drop from $25 million to $11 million. Another change would be to give the developers a larger cut of the profits from the casinos.

It will be interesting to see if the Kansas lawmakers do end up rewriting the gambling bill and if so, whether it will bring any casinos to the state. If not, they can always try again. If at first you don’t succeed…

Things are getting more interesting in the great state of Kentucky in regards to gambling. The state has always been a little indecisive in regards to gambling. Horse racing is legal and a matter of state pride, the state has a lottery, yet table games and slots are banned. Online gambling, though not expressly banned in the state, has been a source of controversy ever since Governor Steve Beshear attempted to seize the domains of 141 online gambling sites.

The Senate President, David Williams, attempted to make things more clear. Like the rest of the country, the Bluegrass State is hurting financially, and any extra revenue would be helpful. Many see putting slot machines in the state’s many horse race tracks as a way to generate much-needed revenue. Some lawmakers, however, are opposed to the idea.

Williams, the leading Republican in the Senate, had a novel idea: let the voters decide. After all, the state, like the rest of the country, is supposed to be a Representative Republic, after all, which means that the people are supposed to get a say on what laws are passed.

Williams introduced a bill that would have called for a state-wide vote on the slots. The bill was blocked by the Senate Democrats, which makes sense. To Democrats, there’s no idea crazier than listening to the people. I mean, if you let constituents decide things, they may not decide what you want! And then what?

The House had previously passed a bill for gambling expansion, but with Williams’s bill shot down in the Senate, it’s back to the drawing board. Many of the Democrats who voted against the bill are actually for putting slots in the race tracks; however, they don’t want the people to vote on it for fear that the idea would be rejected. Now they may end up with nothing.

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If there’s one thing the American government is good at (aside from taking people’s money), it’s mistreating Native American tribes. Well, Florida has done it again. Today the Florida House rejected a proposal by Governor Charlie Crist that would have allowed the Seminoles to operate blackjack tables in their casinos in exchange for sharing some of the revenue with the state government. The deal was voted down 17-0. This was the second time they reacted this way. Back in 2007, Crist signed a deal that allowed blackjack in Seminole casinos, but the House voided the bill, stating that Crist did not have the authority to offer that deal. (Oh, so suddenly the government cares what they have constitutional authority to do!)

In a separate vote, the House gambling committee voted 15-2 to give extra help to the tribe’s main competitors, allowing pari-mutuels unlimited poker limits, expanded hours of operation and a lower tax rate. So it seems that they’re willing to help anyone but those “red-skinned savages.” Maybe they’re still holding a grudge because the Seminoles have still yet to surrender to the United States.

In another vote, the House decided to invade Seminole territory, burn down their casinos, and steal all of their money… Okay, I made that up. The Seminole tribe has also taken another route in their request for table games, pointing out that some pari-mutuel facilities in Broward County are offering virtual blackjack games. At the tribe’s request, pencil-pushing bureaucrats from the National Indian Gaming Commission took a trip to south Florida yesterday to check out those machines.

Under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, the Indian tribes are allowed to offer any game on their reservation that is allowed elsewhere within the state in which the reservation is located. Therefore, if a racetrack in Florida is allowed to offer blackjack, the Seminoles have the right to offer it as well. Dan Adkins, who operates one of the virtual blackjack games in question, says that the game is more like slots and isn’t really blackjack at all.

This is a legal battle that is likely to rage on and it will be interesting to see how things play out. I doubt that the government will send feds into the reservation to shut down the tribe’s blackjack tables, since the Seminoles don’t take kindly to government men telling them what to do. Whatever happens, one this is for sure. The government doesn’t have the best interest of the Seminole, blackjack players or taxpayers in mind. They have their own agenda, whatever it may be, and are looking out for themselves.

Professional athletes are rich and spoiled. If there’s one thing they like more than making a ton of money, it’s flaunting that money. That can include buying a new stretch Hummer limo made entirely of 24-karat gold, residing in a house that rivals Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu, or just going around in strip clubs throwing $100 bills at people. Oftentimes it also includes gambling.

The Gilbert Arenas story has once again linked gambling with professional athletes. Many teams, in response, have banned their players from gambling. Instead, it seems like they shouldn’t hire athletes that they can’t trust to play a friendly game and not end up pointing guns at each other (if that even happened). The reports of what happened keep changing, with the most recent version I heard being that it was all a misunderstanding and that they were joking around about shooting each other over a gambling debt. Maybe teams shouldn’t hire athletes who don’t know that you shouldn’t joke about gun violence while wielding loaded guns. Just thinking out loud here…

There are people out there that are going to blame the situation, which resulted in the indefinite suspension of the superstar guard, on gambling. They will say that if you don’t let the players gamble, these things won’t happen. These are the same people who think whenever someone is shot and killed it is the fault of the gun instead of the shooter. Both arguments have the same problem (well, then anti-gun argument has a lot of problems): It ignores individual responsibility.

We at Gambling Review have always said that people need to gamble responsibly. That means to never bet money you can’t afford to lose, never bet money that would lead to you owing someone, always pay off your bets (to avoid gambling debt), and treat it like a fun game. If you’re not having fun, to the point where you feel like bringing guns into the mix, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Banning athletes from gambling won’t keep them out of trouble, unless you also ban them from drinking, driving, going to strip clubs, going to dance clubs, bachelor parties, and whatever else they like to do for fun.

The point is this: Professional athletes need to be responsible, just like everybody else. Some say they are wrong to throw their money away by gambling it rather than donating it to a charity. Maybe. If so, though, isn’t spending money on anything nonessential irresponsible? Is it irresponsible to buy a big high-definition TV? You don’t need TV at all and even if you want to watch television, there are cheaper sets out there. What about a new car? There are plenty of clunkers out there that you could buy for less (except those destroyed by the government). Why waste money on a house when there are plenty of cheap trailers out there? Why go to Disney World when you can have fun skipping stones across a pond?

Yes, I know that there is a line out there where wasting money is wrong. Why should Michael Jordan bet $1 million on a golf hole while impoverished children in the Chicago slums can’t afford to wear his Nike sneakers? Be that as it may, a person has a right to use their money as they choose. If you want to satisfy both urges, the urge to gamble and the urge to help people, there are lots of charity gambling tournaments out there. I think hitting those is a great idea for millionaire athletes with plenty of money to spend.

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Folks, if there’s something I want you to learn from Gilbert Arenas, it’s this: pay your gambling debts. Wait, let’s back up for a second. Let me change that: Don’t have gambling debts. In order to have gambling debt, that means you wagered with money that you didn’t have on you. You should never do that. Only gamble money you have and can afford to lose. That’s gambling rule #1 as far as I’m concerned.

For those who don’t know, Gilbert Arenas, the superstar Washington Wizards guard, and some other basketball player who I don’t know (turns out his name is Javaris Crittenton) allegedly drew guns on each other in the team’s locker room after the game. The dispute was supposedly over $60,000 that he owed Crittenton over a gambling debt.

This is stupid for many reasons, the main one being that two teammates allegedly drew guns on each other. Look at it this way. Arenas supposedly owed $60,000. He has a $111 million contract! That means he can afford to pay. And what about Crittenton? Is his electricity going to be cut off if he doesn’t get the money right away? Only if he wastes electricity like Al Gore. Crittenton will make $1.5 million this year.

Unfortunately for Arenas and Crittenton, they’re going to get in a lot of trouble. Washington, D.C. has the most fascist anti-gun laws in the country and even in states with lax gun laws, it’s illegal to point a gun at someone for a reason other than self defense.

I believe in the second amendment and support the right to bear arms, but you need to do so responsibly. Unfortunately, there seems to be a large number of NBA players using guns irresponsibly. In fact, sports books are currently placing odds on which NBA player will be the next to be busted for gun possession. Right now, Kobe Bryant has even odds, Lebron James is +500 and Allen Iverson is +250, to name a few. Is Iverson still playing?

Though I already said it, I’ll say it again to make sure my point is crystal clear. Never bet money you don’t currently have on you. Never bet money that you can’t afford to lose. Always make good on your bets. Also, if someone owes you money, pick a more civilized method of reminder than sticking a gun in their face. Thank you.