The Allure of Gambling

Today being the last day of National Problem Gambling Awareness Week I will close with a commentary posted by the San Jose Mercury News. I will resume my regular commentary tomorrow but for now please take a moment to digest this well written editorial about the allure of gambling and how it really is all about the money.

Herhold: Poker's allure gives false aura to card clubs

The other night, my wife and I got a distressing phone call from our 21-year-old son, a college student in San Luis Obispo. ``Great news!'' he said. ``I just won $900 playing poker online!''

It made me yearn for the days when bad news consisted of cracking up the family car or getting arrested for public drunkenness.

That phone call, and the recent celebrity poker tournament at Bay 101, made me ponder an old topic of contention, the presence of card clubs in San Jose.

I hope someone proves me wrong. But I'm convinced that the surge in popularity of poker -- online, on TV, on Indian land -- has eroded political backing for the city's attempt to restrict or oust card clubs.

That's a shame, because card clubs do the same damage they always did. Compulsive gambling destroys families and encourages crime. Just because it's faddish doesn't mean there's a bigger chance of winning.

While I have no local polls to back me up, all my political antennae tell me that Garden City and Bay 101 have created what Mideast analysts call ``facts on the ground'' -- beachheads that cannot easily be erased.

Litigation

Yes, yes, I know that a lawsuit is still alive, much like the endless ``Jarndyce and Jarndyce'' lawsuit in Charles Dickens' ``Bleak House.''

For the last seven years, virtually all of Mayor Ron Gonzales' term, the city has been attempting to enforce an ordinance that would restrict certain wagers and make the clubs close between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. The clubs say that would destroy them economically. A trial is scheduled before Superior Court Judge Greg Ward on Aug. 30.

But in subtle ways, the excitement about gambling has undermined the city's stance. In a valley partly created on the gamble of stock options, obsessing about card clubs feels hypocritical.

Sadly, the dispute now isn't so much a moral choice between having card clubs in San Jose or not. It's an economic battle between the card clubs and their competitors elsewhere -- the Indian casinos and online shops.

In this fight, the city is a deeply compromised player. Not only does the pro-labor majority of the council want to preserve union jobs at Bay 101, but the city itself also is expected to get $8.5 million this fiscal year from the card clubs, money it uses to backfill its budget deficit.

Money talks

In 2000, when San Jose's coffers were plentiful, that money might not have meant so much. Now, when the city finds it hard to repair swimming pools or operate community centers, it speaks like an iPod cranked to maximum in a council member's ear.

At mayoral forums, where there is much talk of ethics, you hear almost nothing about card clubs. Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez, the early leader, voted against the ordinance restricting the clubs in 1999.

None of this makes me happy. I've been around long enough to have covered the Garden City directors and officers who were accused of skimming in the mid-'80s. And I followed the light penalties that came after a grand jury indicted 55 people on a variety of offenses in connection with Bay 101's Asian gamblers.

Bill Lee, an executive recruiter who wrote the book ``Born to Lose'' (Hazelden, $12.95), about his own addiction to gambling, warns that loan sharks and compulsive gamblers will always be found together.

``Casinos can count on the fact that when compulsive gamblers win, we don't quit,'' Lee said. ``And when we lose, we want to get back in.''

The city would be better off without card clubs. But I fear society has moved past those of us who deplore gambling's worst effects. Speaking of which, I need to talk to my son.