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By Cole Boehler
Editor and Publisher We saw a letter to the editor in the June 9 Great Falls Tribune from eight-year-old Rachel E. Hegg. We were impressed with the courage it must take for a child to state her views to perhaps 60,000 strangers. Her brief letter was quite tidily written, too, indicating an excellent grasp of the language, something we admire.
Young Ms. Hegg wrote: "I think there are too many casinos. People do not need this many casinos to gamble away their money. We should protect our people from spending all of their time gambling instead of spending their time with their family. I wish we could limit the number of casinos and have more family restaurants."
Brief and to the point.
We hope Rachel's observations have been personally addressed by family and friends. She deserves to know the facts surrounding her inquiries.
While the letter's points are certainly simplistic--as should be expected from an eight-year-old--they don't differ markedly from similar sentiments we've seen expressed previously by a few adults.
Let us compose a response to Rachel and others who might share these notions:
Dear Rachel,
In America our business system--or economy--is based on a principle known as "free enterprise." If people want to be able to buy something, and someone else has it, can produce it or otherwise can make it available, then the buyer and the seller are allowed to make a deal.
We encourage buyers and sellers to work out the terms of their transactions and trades as freely--with as few restrictions--as possible. That's why we call it "free enterprise" or "free trade."
Of course, sometimes our whole society has an interest in these trades, especially if those business transactions can hurt other people or society. So some kinds of transactions for some kinds of goods and services that are for sale are restricted by laws and regulations.
Liquor is a good example. It is a product that, used appropriately and responsibly, can be quite enjoyable. But alcohol beverages can also be used the wrong way, causing intoxication when consumed in excess. Even at eight years old, I'm sure you understand all the bad things that can happen when someone has had too much to drink.
But a very large majority of people use alcohol beverages responsibly, and enjoy them. They want these products and so others will produce them to satisfy this demand.
About 70 years ago some people thought we could simply outlaw alcohol and the
problems it caused would go away. This was called "Prohibition."
But what happened was so many people still wanted adult beverages that others were still willing to make them and supply them, even if they were illegal. So both the buyers and the sellers were acting in a criminal way and a whole new class of criminals grew quite large and powerful and began to corrupt the nation.
After more than a dozen years of unsuccessfully trying to eliminate alcohol, our people realized that making it illegal caused far more social and law enforcement problems than alcohol itself, so wisely decided instead to carefully control and regulate alcohol manufacture, distribution, sales and consumption.
We also decided to tax alcohol, too, so we could have an influence on its price--and use--and to make sure government got some money to provide benefits for the people.
One of the ways we limited the availability of alcohol was to limit the number of businesses that could sell it. In Montana we decided that we would only allow a certain number of businesses to have licenses to sell alcohol, based on the population of a town or county. A big town had more licenses than a small town, which makes sense and most agree was--and still is--a good idea.
Gambling is, in a lot of ways, like alcohol beverages. It provides many people with some fun and entertainment, but a small percentage--maybe three out of 100 adults--gamble too much and cause problems for their families and society in general.
And for a time, like with alcohol, gambling was illegal and, like with alcohol, people who wanted to gamble did it illegally anyway.
When our lawmakers decided how to deal with gambling, they realized we already had a system to regulate alcohol sales, so decided to use that same structure to control gambling.
They decided gambling should only be available in businesses that were already mostly restricted to adults and were already heavily regulated, policed and taxed. Gambling can only be found in businesses that sell alcohol, with just a handful of exceptions that were made before the system was fully established.
Because of all this, we have about 1,700 business across our big state that have gambling. We have about 2,300 business that sell alcohol but quite a few of these have freely chosen not to offer gambling. This idea seems to work pretty well because we now have no more businesses licensed for gambling than we did 10 years ago. That's right: there is not a growing number of gambling businesses and there hasn't been for a long time.
In your letter, Rachel, you suggested that we should limit the number of places with gambling and so you should be glad to know we have done just that.
Besides, many business owners, under our current laws and with the encouragement of government, have spent tens of thousands of dollars building up their businesses, and simply forcing them to close and lose all their money wouldn't be fair.
And under our laws, we also decided that business licensed for gambling could only have a maximum of 20 machines, and people could only bet a maximum of $2 and win a maximum of $800. We wanted to make sure gambling businesses didn't get too big and the games themselves didn't get too big, either.
Finally, we decided to tax gambling at a pretty high rate to make sure governments and the people got a share of the money for the benefit of all.
You also suggest that we should "protect our people from spending all of their time gambling." You seem to mean that we should not let adults make the choice whether to gamble or not.
In a free society, we are fortunate to be able to make free choices. Freedom is perhaps the most valuable possession we have. So we have to be very careful when we start to restrict those freedoms or we could wind up like some really bad countries where no one has any freedom. People in those countries become just like slaves, owned by their governments. We don't want that here.
But you are right that people should not "spend all their time gambling." Actually, very few people spend so much time gambling that it causes problems for them and their family, but we all know they exist. You see, gambling does produce some pleasure and some people simply can't stop, can't get enough of this kind of good feeling. These people are called "compulsive" gamblers and help for them should be available.
In Montana we do have help services for these people and gambling businesses have spent a lot of money to tell folks about this help and to provide it.
But people who can't control their gambling must first admit it is out of control before anyone can help them. That's called "personal responsibility," which means that people who have freedom must use it in productive--not destructive--ways and must admit it when their personal decisions have been bad ones.
Now, to address the last part of your letter where you said, "I wish we could limit the number of casinos and have more family restaurants," let's get back to the idea of free enterprise.
Under our system, when people want to buy something, other people will try to produce it and make it available, if they can make a profit doing it. As long as there are people who want to eat at family restaurants, other people will open them and sell meals.
If there are not enough restaurants and some customers can't get a table because it is too crowded, more restaurants will open. If too many restaurants open and there aren't enough customers to keep them all full and profitable, some restaurants will close.
At some point, free enterprise means there will be just enough restaurants to sell all the meals people want. There is an automatic balance that is achieved by free enterprise. That is what we have now.
It works the same way with gambling, to an extent. We know about 2,300 businesses could offer gambling, but only 1,700 do. And we know that 1,700 is about the number we've had for 10 years. Most people think this means that there are just enough gambling businesses to supply the people who want to gamble. If there were more gamblers, there would be more casinos; if fewer wanted to gamble, there would be fewer casinos.
You see how this works? It's really a pretty neat system that works pretty efficiently. This way, we let consumers determine how many businesses it takes to supply their needs.
Rachel, you are evidently a young lady who ponders some pretty deep questions. I would encourage you to always do so, and then seek the answers. Once you've asked the questions and have the answers, you will be prepared to make your own decisions. That is perhaps the best part of being an adult in a free society. That is the essence of freedom.
Remember though, others have consented to grant you these freedoms and you must, in turn, allow others the same freedoms, even if you don't agree with their choices. But you are always free to try to change their minds.
That's called "freedom of speech," but I see you already know all about that.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, July, 2006, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.