Your bracket in the office NCAA tournament pool may be a mess after last weekend’s games.
But at least it’s legal, according to Monroe County Prosecutor Chris Gaal, who operates in Bloomington, the capital of Hoosier hoops mania.
A news report says Gaal considers your office pool a “game of skill,” which puts it outside of the definition of illegal gambling. That’s true regardless of how much skill you might have displayed in picking the tourney’s upsets.
Up the road at Indianapolis, the governor and legislators are wrangling over legalized gambling with much higher stakes than your bracket game.
After some 20 years of using gambling to prop up the state budget, Hoosier leaders are finding that our neighbors finally are giving us some serious competition.
It’s looking like time for Indiana to double down on its stake in casinos or fold the cards and go home.
New Gov. Mike Pence opposes expansion of gambling in the state. Agreeing with the governor, a House committee last week voted against allowing riverboat casinos to move inland and live-dealer gambling at the state’s two racetrack casinos. The state Senate has approved those ideas.
Supporters of the racetrack casinos say live dealers would replace video games at the tracks, so it’s not an expansion. The number of gaming tables would stay the same, but 800 jobs would be added, they contend.
A report says that since Indiana legalized casinos in the mid-1990s, the state has collected more than $10 billion in gaming taxes. But as newer, shinier casinos sprout up in neighboring states, the money stream is starting to run shallow. In January, Indiana’s five casinos on Lake Michigan saw their lowest revenues since December 2001. The six southern Indiana casinos had their worst month since January 2003.
Hoosiers once again face a moral dilemma. Which do we hate most — the potential evils of gambling or the higher taxes we’d have to pay if we didn’t depend on it?
It’s too late for Indiana to suddenly take the moral high ground on gambling. Besides, it’s hard to see the moral distinction between a casino that floats and one that sits on land, or between racetrack casinos with video games or live dealers.
We don’t need to boost Indiana’s gambling revenue — in fact, it may be difficult to accomplish that. But Hoosier legislators should support changes that will defend against competitors and protect what we have. That is, after all, one definition of being conservative.