Jihad Moukalled, an immigrant from Lebanon, had a wife, three little children and a wonderful new life in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Then the MGM Casino came along. “There is nothing more destructive to life than gambling,” he mused in a note written one November night. “I wonder why there are government agencies to fight drugs and not gambling,” he added. Then he put his pen down, smothered his children, shot his wife, and blew his brains out.
He had lost $100,000 on one November night a few years ago.
An isolated case? Hardly. Within eighteen months of the Windsor casino opening in 1994, there were 40 times as many gambling-related bankruptcies in Metropolitan Detroit.
By now you may have figured out that I do not like casino gambling. On this issue, I am in total agreement with classical Marxists and fundamentalist Christians. Casinos add absolutely nothing of lasting value to the economy. They strip weak people of money with the tempting offer of something for nothing.
That’s not what America is supposed to be about. Yes, we want to get our piece of the pie, but much of the reward is in working hard, defining ourselves, and building something along the way.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with buying the weekly lottery ticket, or betting $5 in the office pool on how long it’ll be before the next Detroit Lions coach is fired. And yes, I know there are compulsive gamblers who would find a way to bet on anything.
But I suspect I’d have better luck staying on my diet if I didn’t sleep in a delicatessen. I have less of a problem with the Michigan casinos upstate run by Native Americans.
After five hundred years of playing against white men who used loaded dice and stacked decks, they are entitled to jiggle the balance sheet a bit. But the Detroit casinos appeal mostly to a clientele that can least afford it. I’ve been in them, and the scene looked grimmer than a coal mine. Those who can afford to gamble, still go to Vegas.
Ironically, Motown’s casinos are mostly Canada’s fault. Detroit only agreed to have casinos after Casino Windsor started siphoning away nearly a million a day. Now, they are probably here to stay. Kwame Kilpatrick was right when he said Detroit was in transition to becoming a casino economy -- even if he didn’t understand what that meant. I think I do understand. We rolled the dice on casinos.
And we threw snake eyes. And we keep on losing, every day.
Thank you for your program on casinos and thanks to Dennis Archer for his analyis and comments. I understnd bankruptcies in the metropolitan Detroit area increased substanially after Detroit casinos were opened. Can you comment on this? Casinos are a net loss to society.
Posted by: M. Schaeffer | November 29, 2005 at 02:33 PM
Thanks for the gambling essay. There are a lot of underlying implications in the gambling issue (which in case people dont remember was against the law in almost all states until fairly recently).
The government may not realize it, but by legalizing gambling they cheapen all work. When people could actually work hard for what they wanted, there wasnt a need for gambling. Now if people get ahead, the implied reason is luck or connections. When credible employment is removed from society, how can one achieve what our fathers and grandfathers took for granted. Mainly that hard work not luck is the key to a prosperous life. If there is nothing left but luck, why be understanding and considerate of our fellow man? Why study? Why learn? Why be human? It is sad that the more fortunate in our society who have been able to take advantege of generations of their forefathers hard work have so callous and cynical a view towards their electorate/employees/fellow man. The best these leaders have to offer the people who elect them for their leadership is to gamble whatever meager wages they are allowed to keep because of the mismanagement and laziness of those in control.
Posted by: Tom Grove | November 30, 2005 at 05:34 PM