DailySusan Humor Blog

MEGAN PLAYS BLACKJACK
(Sixth in a special series on gambling this week. Please forward this story and direct people to www.DailySusan.blogspot.com for more. Thanks!)

We west Omaha moms got to talking. And here’s what we decided:

We’ve got trouble in River City . . . trouble with a capital ‘’T’’ and that rhymes with ‘’G’’ and that stands for ‘’Gambling.’’

Smarts moms say thumbs down on allowing more gambling in this state. We’ve already got more than enough. It’s already stealing enough time from our kids. Who needs more?

One mom was distressed to report that her daughter, a sweet, shy freshman, age 14, is playing blackjack during homeroom, which is now called “Quality Time’’ in her west Omaha school. Some ‘’quality.’’

“I just can’t believe how widespread gambling is today,’’ the mother said. ‘’It wasn’t that long ago that everybody knew gambling was taboo. Now look at us. I mean, my little Megan? Playing blackjack . . . in school?’’

She kind of gulps when there’s a raffle at school – sure, somebody wins, but lots of other somebodies lose. She hates the casinos they run for Post-Prom parties. Gambling is just made to seem like such an integral part of a lot of kids’ lives. She has a friend whose 8-year-old is supposedly playing poker on the Internet with someone from Singapore.

Another mom reported that her son’s midterm grades from a selective college are bound to be “D’s” and “F’s,” because he’s spending all his time in the dorm doing Internet poker instead of his homework.

Another looks at all the Nebraska families who go across the river and enjoy the nice sports complex the casinos built. She worries that, in their minds, expanded gambling will equate to “nice things for kids.’’ Mass guilt may translate into throwing money at our problems – we seem to be doing that more and more -- and thinking our community is getting ahead, while really we’re losing so much more.

This mom is afraid people will vote for the gambling proposals because they think it will cut their taxes. But in other states, it’s been proven that doesn’t happen. Or, they’ll think that the civic and charitable bones that the gambling forces throw to the public as ‘’vigorish’’ will be worth it. They won’t, she said.

‘’I hope to God people think this through,’’ she said. ‘’I hope people stop and think how addictive the slots are, and how it can just eat away at your life ‘til you have nothing left.’’

If you don’t have a teenager, you may have no idea how much time our young people are already whiling away, gambling or watching it on cable TV or dabbling with it on the Internet. They’re often losing more than petty cash.

What are they giving up for gambling? Time for sports, clubs, hobbies, dating . . . and sometimes, their parents’ trust, as cash disappears around the house and grades begin to drop.

Who knows how much stealing is already going on, to support teenage gambling? They say the addiction is out of control, and mostly hidden from sight.

Especially in western Douglas County, where the household incomes are higher, an awful lot of teenage boys are getting together to play poker or throw quarters. This is going on several nights a week. There’s usually a baseball or football game on TV, and so they have bets going on that, too.

And the hours pass, and lo and behold! The week’s over, $50 has been frittered away, no homework has been done, no chores are completed, no girls have been wooed, the world’s not a better place, and very little progress has been made for each young person in the real game of life.

Just gambling their time away.

We moms believe that, if casinos are OK’ed for Nebraska on the Nov. 2 ballot, there’s no question that teenagers are going to acquire fake ID’s so that they can get into the casinos. It’s quite likely that the Iowa casinos will lower their minimum age of admission to 18, so they can ‘’compete.’’ It’s the same peer pressure and cheating that goes on with fake ID’s for alcohol and cigarettes.

And so, we predict, if these proposals pass, we will have the same desecration of homes, families and young lives from gambling that we already have from alcohol, drugs and other vices that attack our youth.

Who needs it?

We don’t . . . and we plan to say so at the polls Nov. 2.

Let’s give ‘em snake eyes . . . ‘’for the kids.’’

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Susan Darst Williams, www.DailySusan.blogspot.com, is a writer, wife and mother of four who lives at the base of Mount Laundry, Nebraska. She is writing this series for www.gamblingwiththegoodlife.com as a public service.

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Prayer request: Let the vote be overwhelmingly against gambling, and let the schools and other adults who influence our young people get the message loud and clear, so that they quit any activities which imply to kids that gambling is A-OK. (Proverbs 15:31)