Gambling: Deck Stacked Against Cities : * Card Parlor Revenue Promised Stanton, Cypress Would Be Eaten Up by Enforcement

It seems that whenever times get tough and cities are struggling to find money to maintain vital services, the gamblers come out of their back rooms to entice municipal leaders to try legalized gambling and card parlors to raise the money to balance city budgets.

Well, times are tough for the cities, and casino operators are back rattling their chips in Stanton and Cypress.

The card room operators, as usual, are dangling millions of dollars in anticipated revenue before the cities in hope of coaxing them to buy into the gambler’s game by legalizing card casinos.

In Stanton, the proposal came in the form of a letter from gambling proponents seeking a study session with the City Council. Their goal is to open a card parlor on Beach Boulevard on property now being used for an indoor swap meet. This latest effort is the third attempt in the last 10 years to introduce card parlors in Stanton.

In Cypress, proponents want to place a card casino next to Los Alamitos Race Course.

In the past, when casino operators have tried to get their games going in Orange County, communities have wisely told them to shuffle off elsewhere. They should do the same now.

Nothing has changed to make card parlors more attractive today, and that remains true even with tighter municipal treasuries than in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

In the past when county cities desperate for new sources of income studied the possibility of legalized gambling, they always came to the same conclusion: It was a sucker’s game.

For one thing, gambling--legal or otherwise--only breeds more gambling. New York learned that when it introduced legal off-track betting and police reported that illegal betting and bookmaking increased 62%.

Local police also fear increased crime, corruption, prostitution and other problems that gambling usually causes, especially for the people who can least afford it.

And a city would be inviting all this for naught, because the studies also showed that it would cost as much to police and monitor the card clubs as a city might gain in extra revenue from the gaming tables.

In 1987 Stanton and Westminster decided not to buy into card parlors. In 1981 Stanton also rejected gambling overtures, and Anaheim closed the only card parlor that was operating in Orange County. Before that, Huntington Beach and Buena Park also said no to legalized card casinos. That’s what Cypress and Stanton should do now.