2020 S.D. Legislature: SD should stray from voting in new form of suffering

The sports betting advocates are going to be in full swing very soon. We will be hearing all sorts of stories claiming that sports betting is already going on, so, let’s just legalize it in Deadwood. And, as we know, once it’s legal in one venue there will ultimately be a push to spread it across the state. The Attorney General’s statement on the proposed Constitutional Amendment clarifies that if legalized in Deadwood, then it would also authorize the same activity at on-reservation tribal casinos upon passage of amendments to current tribal gaming compacts.

 

A vote “No” will leave our South Dakota Constitution as it is, and Deadwood will do just fine without sports betting. In fact, the estimates for the increased revenue to the State is somewhere between $2 million and $7 million per year. That means it would account for only about half of 1 percent of the annual Deadwood revenues, but there would be that desired foothold.

 

This idea of sports betting is before us only because the U.S. Supreme Court heard a New Jersey case which addressed the federal act entitled the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). That Act made it unlawful for a State or its subdivision “to sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact … a lottery, sweepstakes, or other betting, gambling, or wagering scheme based … on competitive sporting events.” The case boiled down to how that Federal Act affected the right of states to police themselves.  

 

The Supreme Court narrowed their focus to the Federal Act, which was intended to protect sports by keeping it free from gambling AND the Court focused on State’s rights, not because they were approving the implementation of a vice, but because the case was framed as one which should be left to each state to apply their community standards.

 

This would be an Amendment to our State Constitution, Article 3, Section 25, which was a ban on games of chance. Our founders knew that vices lead to suffering.  

 

Remember when all gambling was a vice? What you might not remember is when two of our state leaders were caught illegally gambling in a Winner bar while on a pheasant hunting trip. Our standards were high and they were convicted of that crime. It is also interesting to recall that our South Dakota Constitution begins with these words: “We, the people of South Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberties, in order to form a more perfect and independent government, establish justice, insure tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and preserve to ourselves and to our posterity the blessings of liberty, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the state of South Dakota.”  

 

Interestingly enough, at the time of our state’s founding in 1889, there were state laws in regard to blasphemy and Sabbath breaking that shed light on our cultural values.  

 

Blasphemy was speaking words of contempt against God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Christian scriptures.

 

Sabbath breaking was engaging in any type of commerce, no undue travel, AND there were to be NO public sports allowed, much less gambling on sports. Those laws stayed on the books until about 1974. What happened to us?

 

Lots of people gamble and you see it every day at the gas station and corner casinos. Conservative estimates indicate nearly 15,000 South Dakotans are PROBLEM GAMBLERS. Many of those are ADDICTED to gambling. That’s equal to the population of several different towns, such as Mitchell, Huron or Pierre. Many are suffering and some take their own life.  

 

Addiction brings deep regret and shame. Many of our friends, family and neighbors are overwhelmed by their gambling addiction. You know them personally. If their pain is too great they might take their own life. It happens every week. That addiction is partly due to the fact that we, the State of South Dakota, cared more about revenue than human lives.

 

Do you know someone with a gambling addiction? Probably, OR you know someone who is hiding it well.  Sports betting would be a stumbling block for many people. The pandemic has taught us that we need to respect and care for our fellow man.

 

Some say that you cannot legislate morality. If that was true, then we wouldn’t have any laws. Every law we pass is based on someone’s morality. That includes business laws, criminal laws, bankruptcy laws, every law.  We do have a moral compass to guide us and we do make laws for the public good. South Dakotans care for one another.

 

This isn’t a liberty issue or a revenue issue, this is a life issue. Sports can already be an obsession. It shouldn’t be a training ground for anyone to develop a gambling addiction. The few dollars that would come from sports betting pales in comparison to the damage it can cause. We are the second most gambling dependent state in the nation. We don’t need to make that worse.  

 

When you recount large numbers of people being addicted to gambling, as I mentioned earlier, that is a statistic. When I tell you that my actual friends, Mike and Marilyn, both have considered suicide as their only way out of the gambling addiction, no other addictions, just gambling. That is no longer a statistic, that is a tragedy. THAT is what we are talking about – MANY individual tragedies.  

 

EACH YEAR, dozens of people in Minnehaha County take their own life. Some are the direct result of a gambling addiction.  

 

No one should take advantage of vulnerable people. Don’t vote for a new form of suffering. Join me in voting for families free from addiction.  

 

Protect our children and our community by voting “NO” on sports betting.