Those of us who like to bet are frequently amused or exasperated by the rhetoric of anti-gambling moralists. But rarely has there been such an outpouring of hyperbole and hypocrisy on the subject since the creation of a federal commission that will study the gambling industry.
The New York Times' William Safire wants the National Gambling Impact Study Commission to reveal the sordid truths about this "evil industry"--to "illuminate the truth about gambling's false promises and regressive taxation" and to "protect compulsive gamblers from a life of crime." Safire frets that the commission is being stacked with members who are sympathetic to gambling.
The Washington Post, in two separate editorials, has decried the appointment of members with ties to the gambling industry: "Unless there's a sudden cleaning-up of the Clinton administration's reported list (of appointees), the . . . commission will be as loaded as the dice in a corrupt casino."
These comments imply that the commission was established by Congress to produce a fair, objective study of gambling in America. In fact, the impetus came from conservative opponents of gambling, such as Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who has said it is inconsistent to be both pro-gambling and pro-family.
The law setting up the commission charges it to focus principally on the supposed evils of wagering--the "relationship between gambling and levels of crime," "an assessment of pathological or problem gambling," etc. One of the first two appointees was a leader of the conservative Focus on the Family. The casino industry, realizing it could not block the commission, decided to fight fire with fire, and worked to get pro-gambling representatives on the nine-person panel.
Three members are yet to be named by President Clinton, but the group will be no blue-ribbon committee of economists and sociologists capable of taking an objective look at the subject.
Because some members are known to be strongly anti-gambling and others have ties with the gambling industry, it is hard to imagine their final report will be anything but a mishmash of competing viewpoints. And there's another problem with this whole undertaking. It virtually equates gambling with the casino-gambling industry.
