As the Great Recession continues and states look for ways to close budget shortfalls, many are turning toward their inner Libertarian. A more free market means a greater flow of money through the state. Taxing it provides more revenue for the states. Therefore, many states have learned (finally) that more freedom is good for the economy. For that reason, a handful of states are considering gambling expansion.

Other states aren’t interested and are instead trying to clamp down on the gambling that already exists. One such example is the state of North Carolina, the most liberal state in the south. Back in 2006, the state legislature banned video poker gambling machines. They exempted two models of sweepstakes machines, though, and those have been in operation ever since.

Now the state’s General Assembly wants to ban those sweepstakes machines as well. Democrats Melanie Goodwin and Martha Alexander have proposed House Bill 80, which would entirely ban video gambling in the Tar Heel State.

Why would they want to ban the sweepstakes machines? For your own good, of course! Like most liberal politicians, they feel they need to protect people from themselves. Some of the reasons they give for the proposed ban are that the games have low odds of winning (yet they still allow a state lottery), they prey upon the poor (yet they still allow a lottery), and that they lead to an increase in armed robbery, with people trying to steal from the machines. At the risk of being repetitive, let me just say “yet, they still allow a state lottery!”

Lotteries have incredibly low odds of winning, are played more by the poor than by the middle and upper classes, and are often the targets of robbery. However, the great state of North Carolina is more than happy to run the lottery and make money off of it. Maybe instead of banning the sweepstakes machines, they should just call them the North Carolina Sweepstakes and take most of the money while promising it will be used for education.

Tags: gambling law, gambling legislation, Martha Alexander, Melanie Goodwin, North Carolina gambling, sweepstakes machines, video gambling machines, video poker machines

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.