Listening to Georgia’s sky-rocketing opponents of sports betting and advanced gambling brings to mind Harold Hill in the 1957 Broadway musical The Music Man.
In the song “Ya’ Got Trouble,” Hill, a con artist, warns of the dangers to residents of a fictional Midwestern town posed by a pool and other lurking vices:
“I say first medicinal wine in a teaspoon/Then beer in a bottle/And the next thing you know/Your son is playing for money in a pinch-back suit/And hear a big Jasper from town/Hear He talk of horse racing that plays / Not a healthy trotting race, no / But a race where they sit right on the horse.
After years of intense lobbying by the gaming industry, Georgia lawmakers are close to passing a resolution sponsored by Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, asking voters whether Georgia will allow “sports wagering and other forms of wagering and gambling.” target. The problem, if accepted, would expand gambling beyond the state lottery, which is another example of division within Georgia’s Republican Party – and one that has made the warning from Meredith Wilson’s 65-year-old musical a rallying cry for made other candidates.
“Gambling will destroy our state and everything that goes with it. It will only bring more division, more destruction and more poverty,” said Jeanne Seaver, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and a resident of Savannah. “You’ve seen what it’s done to New Jersey, I don’t want Georgia to be the new Chicago.”
Jeanne Seever
Jeanne SeeverSeaver is among those opposed to the resolution, many who identify as evangelical Christians and who see the possibility of expanded gaming in Georgia as another example of the deep and fundamental social changes in the Peach State. As they enumerate the harm they believe a thriving Georgia gaming industry would do to children, families and businesses, their warnings carry the unmistakable whiff of attempting to preserve a gossamer-thin, nostalgic portrait of the state that, in 2022, seems naively quaint, if it does exist at all – a portrait akin to Wilson’s mock River City.
When asked to describe her vision of the state that expanded gambling would endanger, Seaver said, “Anybody in Georgia can be whatever they want. They know they have to go out and work hard, but they know they are the only ones stopping them from living their dream.”
She’s also quick to point out that her competitor in the Republican primary, Bert Jones, has a family chain of convenience stores that make money from legal forms of gambling.
GA. Rep. Ron Stephens
GA. Rep. Ron StephensStephens did not respond to requests for comment. But in a recent interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he described his sports betting legislation as a routine government job.
“All you do today is you tax and you regulate – and that’s all,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper last week. “And that’s because they already do sports betting.”
Mike Griffin, public affairs representative for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, notes that as many as 48 states in the US have some form of legalized gambling and that 85% of Americans have gambled at least once in their lives. It doesn’t matter, he says. He made a list of 10 reasons Christians shouldn’t gamble. “Gambling is immoral and not consistent with biblical Christianity,” he says. “The very nature of the predatory gambling industry (the lottery, video slots, sports betting, casinos, and parimutuel betting) contrasts with the life of a Christian.”
“Georgia just has to stay Georgia and not turn Atlanta into Las Vegas,” Griffin said in an interview.
Of course, the problem for Griffin, Seaver and other opponents of Georgia gambling is that what happens in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas.
The lure of gambling winnings, which accelerated when the US Supreme Court struck down legislation in 1992 that effectively banned commercial sports betting in most states, has spread beyond Georgia’s borders, thanks in part to the internet. Terry Bradshaw offers his betting app on Fox Sports every Sunday afternoon during the fall.
Professional sports teams that once railed against betting as a corrupting influence are now rushing to embrace it. Sports betting legalization in Georgia is supported by the Georgia Professional Sports Integrity Alliance, a coalition of four professional franchises – the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta United.
In short, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Reno are no longer the dens of injustice that many have condemned (and occasionally visited). When it comes to gambling, America has bought into it on an unprecedented scale.
Supporters of Rep. Stephens’ resolution say that since sports betting cannot be stopped, Georgia should regulate it and receive at least some of the estimated $1.5 billion that Georgians illegally spend on sports betting annually. It is a lucrative source of income that produces taxes and fees that are used to fund scholarships and K-12 education.
John Kindt, an opponent of the gambling industry, said Stephens and other betting lawmakers in the Georgia legislature have pursued a wedge strategy supported by up to 80 lobbyists.
“Once they get their foot in the door, it’s wide open,” said Kindt, a retired professor of economic and legal policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “They call sports betting ‘entertainment’ now, but it’s really just a blank check for all kinds of gambling.”
What advocates of sports betting and other forms of gambling fail to publicly acknowledge is the effectiveness of the gambling industry in using modern advertising techniques and knowledge of addictive behavior to trick consumers, particularly youth, out of their money.
Gambling creates no product “other than new addicted gamblers, new bankruptcies and new crimes”. For every dollar of new revenue for the government that comes from taxing gambling, at least $3 to $5 — perhaps as much as $12 — is spent to meet its social and economic costs, he said.
Kindt, Seaver and other gambling opponents scoff at the claim that sports betting is just entertainment, much like watching television or going to a concert. Kindt said, “They claim it’s ‘entertainment.’ I am sorry. Getting my grandchildren addicted is not a “product”. It’s a social problem.”
