After years of limiting gambling to the elusive dream of instant wealth by finding that lucky lottery ticket, the South Carolina Legislature is considering three bills that would transform our state into a gambler’s paradise. The Equine Advancement Act (S344) would open the state to pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing. Let’s say you have four horses running in a race where the combined amount wagered is $1,000. If the total amount wagered on horse number two is $300 and horse number two wins, the winners get a portion of the $1,000 total bet on all four horses minus a percentage that goes to the house. If the house takes 10 percent, that leaves $900 to be dispersed, giving the winners $3 for every $1 they bet on horse two. Like all gambling, pari-mutuel wagering favors the house.
The I-95 Economic and Education Stimulus Act (H4176) would establish a South Carolina Gaming Commission, empowering it to award casino licenses in certain counties. According to reports in multiple South Carolina news outlets (The Post and Courier, WIS, and others), a group of investors are raising up to $1 billion to build a casino in one of several locations along the I-95 corridor. Casino backers claim the investment would raise the economic profile, provide more money for education, and bring jobs and tourism to the area.
The third bill under consideration is the South Carolina Sports Wagering Act (S444). If passed and signed into law, it would create the South Carolina Sports Wagering Commission that would award up to eight licenses for mobile sports wagering platforms. Eighty-two percent of the privilege tax on sports wagering would go into the state’s general fund, 10 percent would go to counties and municipalities, and 3 percent would provide for administrative and operating expenses of the commission.
The common denominator for all these bills is the opening of South Carolina to the slow poison of gambling. Research into gambling has revealed that the devastating effects of all its various forms eclipse any financial benefit gained from its proceeds. By nature, gambling is built on a foundation of losses, pain, and suffering of those who get pulled into the false promise of instant riches. In an article published by Focus on the Family, the author writes, “Families touched by a gambling addiction are at increased risk for such negative outcomes as divorce, bankruptcy, child abuse, domestic violence, crime, and suicide.” The predatory nature of gambling lures those who can least afford to lose into an addiction that leads to devastation in their own lives and in the lives of those closest to them.
According to a 2014 state-commissioned study of the state lottery, South Carolina “players with a household income of less than $35,000 a year spent more than twice as much as players with household incomes between $100,000 and $150,000.” The study also found “among households that placed online sports bets (roughly 8 percent of all households), the average annual spending on sports gambling was $1,100. The share of their income that low-savings households spent on sports betting, however, was 32 percent higher than the share spent by higher-income homes.”
Casinos over-promise and under-deliver concerning their impact on areas surrounding their locations. Economists at the National Association of Realtors discovered “casinos don’t encourage non-gaming businesses to open nearby, because the people who most often visit casinos do not wander out to visit other shops and businesses. It is designed to be an all-absorbing environment that does not release its customers until they have exhausted their money.”
In a recent interview with WIS-TV, Gov. Henry McMaster said, “Gambling is bad for our culture. It’s not a part of our heritage, and there are better ways to make money, to give jobs, to generate tax money, to generate a thriving economy, than gambling.”
Gambling doesn’t profit off winners. It profits off those who lose. Some lose a little, many lose much, and some lose all. It pulls people away from investing their God-given talents in producing something that provides a living and improves the community, trapping them in an endless cycle of reaching for the brass ring that is always just out of reach. Solomon writes in Proverbs 12:11: “Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”
South Carolina should provide real economic opportunity for those in need rather than exposing everyone to the consequences that accompany gambling.
— Tony Beam is senior director of Church and Community Engagement at North Greenville University and policy consultant for SCBaptists.