Gambling in Hawai‘i-A Solution to Our Budget Problems?
Hawaii is one of just two states in the nation that has no form of legalized gambling — no state lotteries, no casinos, no horse races, and no sports betting. The other state without any form of legal gaming is Utah.
The Governor of Hawai‘i is considering bringing gambling to the state, one of only two in the US that doesn’t allow legalized gambling–no state lotteries, no casinos, no horse races, and no sports betting. The other state without any form of legal gaming is Utah. Linda Lingle was quoted by the Associated Press as saying nothing should be excluded from discussion of how to address the state’s budget problems. State politicians have said legalized gambling might be explored before considering tax raises.
What do you think of this solution to the state’s money problems?
April 28th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I think that making gambling legal in Hawaii can be good and bad. Good because if you allow something like a lottery in Hawaii then you can help raise money for the government, especially since the economy is bad right now. And if we had cards or other gambling houses like that, then we could make money off of all of the tourists who might want to come and play.
If we make gambling legal, it could be bad because most of the time the rich people don’t buy lottery tickets so lottery is like a poor man’s lottery, but the rich people are the ones that we should try and get money from. When you have gambling houses, cards and things like that, people try to take over the houses because they have a lot of money with them. And sometimes when you have gambling, people get hurt because they spend money that they don’t have.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
First of all, I am glad that the state government is thinking about different solutions to the money problem. I say that they should discuss with each other different solutions and agree on the best way to make money without hurting the people, like raising their taxes again. I don’t want to see gambling that is like in Las Vegas. I suggest that if we have a lottery, it should have multiple winners instead of one person winning $250,000,000. We could have 250 people win $1,000,000 each and that could boost our economy. But if we didn’t have a lottery, I think that the state government should keep better track of the money being spent because some of the money the state spends are from bad decisions, like the Superferry.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I think this is the worst idea. When we establish gambling, we would need more water to give the customers water. We would also need more electricity which speeds up global warming. The ceded lands would be sold off to the gambling place owners because they want to make more money. Just putting gambling in Hawaii triggers one thing after another, involving the Hawaiian islands or the whole world. More foreigners would make Hawaii even more overpopulated. I mean, seriously, does the government think this will help our economy?
I do not think this will help our economy. It will give us money, but we will have to spend more money to use less water and oil to help the global warming and water crisis. It will just make us spend more money on other things. It might not seem like it, but we are just destroying ourselves. If we are going to be able to sustain all these gambling places and tourists, we’re going to have to cut back on some of our other things such as hotels, McDonald’s and other things.
If we do have gambling, we also should put a limit on how much water per person you can use at the gambling place. The gamblers might use all the water they don’t need. So, I don’t think that gambling will help the economic crisis.
P.S. The word c a s i n o is banned.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Wow, I kind of agree with Keoni. But like Pomai said, gambling can be good and bad. The bad part is that gambling might cause more crimes and murders in our state, and another bad thing is what Keoni said about the ceded lands. But the good thing is that we might make more money and be okay.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Then some people would lose money. Afterwards, people will come back because they will want to get back their money. When they spend all their money on gambling, it will increase homeless people. Also, it’ll attract tourists who want to gamble, not look at the paradise on Hawaii. It will take away the meaning of Hawaii.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I don’t think that the gambling in Hawaii is a good idea even if people think that gambling in Hawaii will help Hawaii’s economy. I don’t think that it will help the economy because if people start gambling, then they will just gamble away most of their money and the money that goes into the economy from the machines will end up going out to other people, so it’s like a bad cycle. Money doesn’t get added or taken away from the economy, it just recycles over and over again.
Gambling won’t just hurt the economy it might hurt families because of people who have gambling problems. For some people, gambling can be very addicting and once you get addicted to something, it can be really hard for you to stop. When you watch movies sometimes you see people run away from their family because the money they had for their family was gambled away because the person couldn’t control their gambling issue.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I don’t think gambling is the best way to solve our problems because most people who gamble are bad. This might raise our crime numbers in Hawaii.
I think people in Hawaii should invest in their money and save up so that they have extra money. My uncle got his job cut but he saved his money wisely so he could still survive without a job. Then he got a new job.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I think gambling in Hawaii is bad because first, the gambling can raise taxes, make it harder on some people, and create more development. It also is bad because we all know how everybody in Hawaii likes to go to Las Vegas and have fun at the hotels gambling and getting crazy, so then if we allowed gambling just think how crazy it would be. Also, the crime rate will go up because like in sports, people will start betting, making gangs, and start beating each other up if their team loses. Also it won’t help the money crisis because people who have problems with gambling will waste all their money and become hobos.
It won’t be to fun in Hawaii if we allow gambling because we usually think of Hawaii as a tropical paradise…aah so sweet, but if we allow gambling, then you will think of Hawaii as a beachside gambling hall. I also don’t like it because to me, it takes away the sense of Aloha.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I think that legalizing gambling can hurt and or help Hawaii. It could help Hawaii because if there are casinos that could attract tourists, tourists will come and spend money here in Hawaii. So, we can make even more money off of something Hawaii makes most of its money on, tourism. On the other hand, this could also hurt tourism because a big reason tourists come to Hawaii is because they see propaganda about Hawaii being is a tropical paradise full of beaches and palm trees. But if we show them casinos, it might push them away from Hawaii.
It can also hurt Hawaii because gambling can and definitely will mess up families. This is because if we legalize gambling a lot more parents of families will go out and spend money that they do not have.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
I think that we should have gambling in Oahu because all the tourist will spend all their money on drinks, slot machine, and all that stuff, but when things start getting out of hand, you kick them out of the place. I also thing we should have the lottery so people will buy lots of ticket for maybe only 10,000 dollars. But the thing that is not okay with gambling is it could break families up, hurt people, and they could be homeless because they bet all their money and now they can’t pay rent.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I think that we should not make casinos or have horse races because it will cost a lot of money and it will take up land. Casinos need lots of water for all of the people, air conditioning and electricity. But if we have lottery tickets, you won’t need to develop land, you can just sell it at a store.
In casinos you bet money and if you lose the bet, then you lose the money, and if you can’t pay it, then you could get into fights with other people. Also, the casinos could make people go homeless because they are spending a lot of money that they might not have.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
I think that gambling could be a solution to our economic situation. However, gambling sometimes brings out the worst in people. For example, people could blow all their money and we would have even more economic problems. If there are multi-player games, there could be madness or shooting.
I don’t know if all that really could happen because I am basing this information on Las Vegas and Las Vegas is the main city of gambling and there are casinos on almost every block. I don’t think the effect would be exactly the same.
If the state tries to keep the gambling safe by putting restrictions on how much money is spent or more security where the gambling is, then I think it might be okay. Personally, I don’t like gambling, but who am I to tell people to gamble or not?