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Legalizing Gambling: Is It Worth the Risk?

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Submitted By athughes8
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Legalizing Gambling: Is It Worth The Risk? Money. It is what drives most of us, and it’s no secret that the state of Hawaii is desperate for it. I saw on the news a few weeks ago the mayor’s big plan to fix Honolulu’s roads and heard that a hefty $150 million price tag that will come along with it. The piece on the news said that the state was unsure of where that money would come from and this got me wondering why hasn’t Hawaii legalized gambling? I used four sources to delve into both sides of this controversial topic. The first source is a report from CQ Researcher titled “Gambling in America” by Kenneth Jost. The second is an article from The Honolulu Star-Advertiser “On Politics” column, by Richard Borreca. The third resource I used to gather my information from is Gambling, from the Opposing Viewpoints series and lastly, I conducted an interview with a long time, self-proclaimed professional gambler, who wanted to keep their identity anonymous and asked only to be referred to as “Rush”. After exploring both sides of the topic I’ve come to the conclusion that the pro-gambling side wins. The evidence given by the supporters seems much more concrete and numbers based while the opponents seem to appeal to the public’s pathos using fallacies such as hasty generalizations and post hoc ergo propter hoc. There are many different forms of legalized gambling today, ranging from state lotteries, to commercial casinos, and Internet gambling. I’m going to focus on the two that seem to be most applicable to the state of Hawaii, which are commercial casinos and a state run lottery.
CASINOS
PROS: Let’s start by looking at casinos. Proponents say that casinos benefit local economies by creating jobs and paying taxes to local Governments, and multiple states have shown large economic success with the introduction of casinos. According to Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr.,

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