By Tracy Warner, The Journal Gazette
With financial problems mounting - health care costs keep going up, education is expensive, the property tax bill is unbearable - hardworking Hoosiers feel desperate. Seemingly, there is one way out of the mess, one way to get the money needed to pay their bills.
Gambling.
If relatives or friends took this route, many of us would feel compelled to take them aside, ask them to look at the risks, to consider more practical and long-range alternatives to high-stakes action.
But when it comes to their government, Hoosiers simply accept the fact that Indiana has become addicted to gambling and dependent on it to pay essential state expenses. Gambling has become one of the state's biggest entertainment industries, with 11 casinos, five off-track betting parlors, two horse tracks poised to become de facto casinos, 4,000 retailers dispensing lottery tickets, plus charity bingo at American Legions and hundreds of other non-profit agencies and service organizations.
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