Indiana's gambling gall

Ah, the Indiana welcome mat is out, and so many people undoubedly have so many wonderful memories of Hoosier hospitality. First, let's consider the case of Bryan Northern, who . . .

. . . had the world at his ?ngertips three years ago as a walk-on guard who won a full scholarship at basketball powerhouse University of Louisville.

He dreamed of deadeye jump shots, March Madness, even a pro career.

But the 6-foot-tall Northern also had a hidden problem: an addiction to gambling. Caesars Indiana, the riverboat casino across the Ohio from Louisville, had been his happy hangout since high school —and his scourge. A run of lousy luck found him short of money and in trouble with the police.

Now 23 and a college dropout, Northern was sentenced on March 6 to ?ve years probation for trying to cash stolen checks in Kentucky to pay for his gambling habit. He still faces burglary charges in Indiana, and a possible prison term.

Then, there is the experience of Jim Chesser, 55, a former Louisville bus driver, who . . .

. . . jokes that he was “born on a card table, raised on a racetrack” because of his parents' love of bingo halls and horses. So when Casino Aztar opened in Evansville, Ind., in 1995, it was only natural he'd be a frequent patron.

“That's when my recreational gambling crossed that invisible line to irresponsible, uncontrolled, compulsive gambling,” Chesser said.

The dependency got so bad, he recalled, that he once stole $50 from his 16-year-old stepdaughter and blamed it on his 14-year-old stepson.

I've had a vice or two in my life, and whatever misery any of them might have caused me was of my own making. So I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who throw themselves on the mercy of public opinion and expect some state program to bail them out. And I don't even mind if the state makes money on vice -- it's a lot better for the larger society than taxing our virtues. But for the state to not only expolit such vices but actually encourage them, preying on human weakness, is just despicable. The state lottery is the absoulte worst, since that is a state operation top to bottom and puts the government in the position of trying to make bigger gamblers of its citizens. The state-sanctioned casinos are a little better, since the government is only making possible the mechanism of misery that others will run -- but only a little better.

I heard an ad on the radio this morning trying to lure Fort Wayne residents to one of the northwest-area casinos. It featured a woman complaining about new braces for the kids and other money problems, then a male voice talking about a great giveaway drawing the casino had coming up that could really smooth the road for someone. Then, the tag line: If you have a gambling problem, call . . .

And then the state has the gall to go after the illegal Cherry Masters, removing the temptation for a bunch of grizzled military veterans to go down the path of ruin and destruction. The state has squandered its moral authority over gambling, and has no credibility in lecturing us about any issue of law and punishment.