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Oklahoma Latest State to Use Law to Throttle Gambling Competition
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA --
Oklahoma law enforcement officials had a busy day Tuesday, raiding six bars and rstaurants in the Oklahoma City area for suspected illegal gambling activity. The raid was led by officials from the Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission, the arm of the state that controls taxed gambling.
Constantine Rieger, the commission's executive director, made no attempt to disguise the state's motivation in the case. Referring to the bars found to have illegal gambling machines, he said, "They pay no state tax; no funds are going into an education fund; and we believe they take away from the horse racing tracks. We’re just looking out for the state’s interest.”
As seen in Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the need to protect the consumer or the children from gambling exposure suddenly becomes a state's paramount mission when tax revenues may be affected, however minutely. It's as if illegal gambling were a severe form of radiation from which the public needs shielding, while legal gambling is a benign and wonderful thing.
Armed SWAT teams poured into sleepy neighborhood sports bars like Zeke's Sports Grill, where one of the players was a 68-year-old woman with a walker. The lady told NewsOK that she had decided to visit Zeke's before a trip to Dillard's department store.
Despite the prodigious investment of taxpayer dollars and police manhours, one of the six locations raided, the Thunder Roadhouse Cafe, did not even contain gambling machines. Zeke's yielded agents all of $800. Obviosly, organized crime was stuck a major blow.
One establishment, Rockafella's Pool and Games, had advertised in a bingo circulatory. Their ad gives a clue why patrons love illegal gambling: it boasted of a 72 % payout. The state lottery only pays out 50%. But try to offer a fairer deal than the state, and risk hearing the marching boots of the brownshirts as they break down the door.
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