Monday, October 26, 2015

Online Gambling Poll Call

Today I took a call about online gambling in Pennsylvania.  It sounded to me like a push poll.  The bulk of it was listening to a series of statements about online gambling and then saying whether or not it affected my views.  At least I think that's what it was -- the woman on the phone was not a native speaker of English and had trouble with some of the words.  She kept calling racinos ratios.  At least I think that's what she meant.

Interestingly one of the first questions was the biggest issue facing the state.  I said the state budget.  The woman on the phone said a lot of people were saying that.  Later in the call there was a question on where I would want gambling money to go, with a list of options, one being schools and education.  I picked that one and, again, she said that's what most people were saying.

The gist of the questions was that people are gambling online and wouldn't it better if they were playing games based and regulated in PA instead of games owned by foreign countries and unregulated.  Wouldn't it be better to have that money stay in the state and benefit the residents?  I remember hearing that sort of argument regarding casinos and table games, etc.  It didn't make sense to me then.  It doesn't make sense to me now.

No comments: