On Thursday, the Indiana House approved a bill that would require deadbeat parents to pay child support before collecting their casino winnings. The bill passed the Senate earlier and now has to go back to the Senate for a few changes to be approved.

Once it is signed into law, anyone who wins an amount of $1200 or more at a casino must first have their name run through a database before they are given their winnings. If they are shown to be at least $2000 behind in child support payments, part or all of their winnings would be withheld and given to the correct party as a child support payment. Of course, that would be after the state takes their cut of the winnings for taxes. $1200 is the minimum amount that requires a tax form to be immediately filed in the state of Indiana.

This bill is a tough one to gauge as far as whether it’s a good idea. On the one hand, who is going to stick up for deadbeat parents who aren’t helping support a child that they had no problem creating? Certainly I won’t. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of the government taking the possessions of private citizens, either. If you win money at a casino, that is your money. What right does the government have to take that money and use it for what they deem appropriate? The answer is none. The government does not have a right to do that.

Representative Trent Van Haaften, who voted for the bill, said that it is just “another way to ensure that if you plant a seed, you tend the garden.” Certainly anyone who creates a child should do their part in helping raise that child. Ideally, both parents raise the child together, but there are circumstances where that doesn’t happen, in which case one of the parents (usually the father) pays child support instead.

So the government is doing this because they care about the children, right? Umm… Sort of. It seems to me that if the children were the primary concern, the government wouldn’t tax the amount until the child support is paid, either, but that’s not the case. Instead, what the government is saying is that if you win money at a casino and are behind in child support payments, you can’t take your cut of the money until the child support is paid. The government, however, will take their cut right away, even if that means less money is paid toward child support. So it seems that providing for children is important, but not important enough for the government to give up its share of the money.

Tags: child support, deadbeat parents gambling bill, gambling taxes, Indiana gambling laws, Trent Van Haaften

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