Only one thing can save Maryland’s education system and the futures of innocent children. Remarkably, the very same thing will save the state’s strategic Equine Industry — you know, racing, the track, the ponies, Sport of Kings And Guys Named Lefty.
The solution: License corporations to take money from Maryland’s poor, one quarter at a time, rake off half and give the rest to the state government. Slot machines are the only salvation for education and the impoverished owners of Thoroughbred horses.
We at NotionsCapital are truly moved by the generosity of Marylanders who want to use slots to compensate Canada for the unfair trade barriers the U.S. has imposed on the softwood industry of our Northern Neighbors. Our eyes tear up as we visualize the nightly collection of coins that will take place in places of worship racetrack casinos for the sake of Canada’s Magna Entertainment Corporation (“MEC”), “North America’s number one owner and operator of horse racetracks.” Save the horsies!
Of course, you can do anything you want in the US-of-A if you say it is for the sake of the children. That’s what state governments did when they started lotteries. Somehow the money keeps getting diverted into the general revenue funds and the kids are no better off, especially the ones whose parents buy lottery tickets with the milk money. That won’t happen with the slots money! No sir!
Maryland has to defend itself with this the new “Immoral Rearmament Crusade.” The neighboring states of Delaware and West Virginia have slot machines at places that are said to have real live horses on display nearby. Maryland has to have slots, too!
As we have said before, it’s a good thing that Maryland doesn’t abut Nevada, where prostitution is legal.
Image of new Maryland voting machine by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.
Bonus download: The Future of Maryland Racing! Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.
NotionsCapital 
November 3, 2008 at 8:14 pm
So you’re anti Gambling too?
November 3, 2008 at 11:04 pm
I am against using lies to promote gambling. The pretense of helping children through gambling and saving the horse industry by burying the track in slot machines is bunk.
Gaming (what gambling is called if you are for it) can form part of a comprehensive economic development plan in certain circumstances if it is carefully controlled and monitored. A few tribal casinos have used gaming profits to raise capital for diversified ventures. But then conditions on the Rez are pretty bad to begin with, so it is hard to make things worse, and Native American communities are good at excluding the small-time criminal outsiders (they prefer their own small-time criminals).
That’s not the case in Atlantic City and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, though, and law enforcement and social service providers in both places show overall negatives. The Maryland State comptroller did a good survey of the social costs of gambling six to ten years after jurisdictions introduce it, and the costs are high.