Video lootery still plaguing South Dakota: WalletHub

So, what’s not to like about six (seven? eight?) month winters, rampant racism, chilling effects on civil rights, an extremist legislature, living in a chemical toilet, sacrifice zone, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area?

Despite lies from the South Dakota Republican Party video lootery, suicide, domestic violence and homelessness are inextricably linked putting children at risk to more catastrophic consequences far more often than has happened in states that have legalized or lessened penalties for casual use of cannabis. 

Matt Walz works for Keystone Treatment Center, the only inpatient gambling addiction treatment center in South Dakota and has been told the best place addicts can buy meth is at the bars with video lootery terminals. “'As for suicide,' Walz continued, 'compulsive gamblers have the highest rate of suicide than any other addiction.'” In 2020 the Rapid City Police Department took their complaints to the public because it was overwhelmed with crimes of opportunity driven by meth and gambling. Even the extreme white wing of the South Dakota Republican Party has called video lootery a "scourge."

Now, according to WalletHub, gambling has become a leading source of anguish and despair in my home state with few avenues for treatment. The state is tied for first in the number of casinos and machines and second in overall addiction to the poison.

Here are some facts few know. We have 1,324 video lottery “casinos” in South Dakota. In every town and almost every C-store, they are unavoidable and far too convenient. On average, each one took $87,000 out of the local economy last year and sent it to Pierre. That’s money that if left in our towns would have bought groceries and paid rent, or purchased clothing, appliances, pizza or anything else. South Dakotans lose $630,000 per day playing video lottery! We have an estimated 19,000 problem gamblers in South Dakota, and economists say each one costs the state over $15,000/year. Combined, that’s $285 million in cost and almost three times the revenue the state gets from it. Financially, video lottery is a business we can’t afford to keep. [SD Representative John Mills (R-D4)]

The reasoning is hardly mysterious. It’s all about the money a too big to jail banking racket, a medical industry triopoly, prostitution, the Sturgis Rally, policing for profit, sex trafficking, hunting and subsidized grazing bring to the SDGOP destroying lives, depleting watersheds and smothering habitat under single-party rule.

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