Editor,
Gambling destroys lives and families. Gambling is a filthy addiction to greed.
A Chicago mother was charged with suffocating her 3-week-old daughter to collect a $200,000 insurance payment to pay for her gambling addiction. Six elderly people were robbed and murdered in Louisiana because the killer was addicted to video poker. A 10-day-old baby in South Carolina died in suffocating heat, locked inside a car, while her mother gambled for seven hours straight. A Louisiana woman killed her parents to collect insurance to pay off her gambling debts. A 19-year-old Iowa college student committed suicide because of a gambling addiction. A Kansas City woman killed her husband to collect insurance to pay off her gambling debts. A retired couple in Illinois committed suicide because of gambling addiction.
Hundreds of others have killed themselves because of gambling addictions. If someone had told these people five years before that they would commit these horrors because of their gambling addictions, would any of them have believed it?
How can politicians claim to support family values while they accept campaign contributions from casinos? How can politicians claim to work for justice for the poor while they accept contributions from casinos?
I damn all gambling — church bingo, Las Vegas, the New Mexico State Lottery, all casinos run by Anglos, Native Americans, Chicanos or whomever, and the worst of all — Wall Street. I refuse to spend one penny on gambling.
Don Schrader
Daily Lobo reader
