New casino plans leave Iowans with mixed reactions

New casino plans leave Iowans with mixed reactions

The front page Register photo depicts the mayor of Riverside in front of the Enterprise, which suggests the whole Trek theme for the casino:

Vulcan greeters advising gamblers to "live long and prosper"

"I'm a doctor, not a black jack dealer!"

Klingon security guards: "A Klingon warrior would never deal from the bottom of the deck!"

The bar would of course be called Ten Forward, although the synthehol would probably have to go. Undecided yet whether cocktail waitresses would go Uhura miniskirt or Deanna Troi formfitting (Dr. Crusher is more my taste anyway).

Of course, with the Ferengi running the whole thing, the casino should be highly profitable.

Beaming back down to Earth, I'm not excited about the whole thing. My libertarian streak makes me feel like people should be able to gamble if they wish, but the dominant progressive gene knows that gambling functions as a regressive tax.

Here's the other problem: there are a finite number of gambling dollars. Some folks are just never going to gamble. You could float a boat in front of Hancher, two blocks from my apartment, and I still wouldn't go there. At some point the market will be saturated, and I think we've reached that point already in Iowa. Building more casinos does not really create new jobs and new wealth. Every dollar gambled in Riverside, every job created, will be a zero-sum loss for Tama or Dubuque or the Quad Cities or Marquette.

Politics, Iowa