States are aggressively expanding legalized gambling, eager to shore up battered revenue sources during the economic crisis and concerned that residents will cross state lines to gamble elsewhere if they don't.

Gambling will expand in about a dozen states this year in an effort to generate an extra $2 billion in gambling taxes by 2010, a record-breaking increase if state projections are accurate.

"Politicians are pushed toward gambling when times get tough," says William Thompson, a public administration professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "If it's gambling or a tax increase, the political choice is clear, and the public acquiesces."

Very sad--since the poorest are most often the most hurt. Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Gambling • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • State Government

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