Dear Editor:
Use of the word “gaming” is another distortion of the English language that government agencies use to avoid using the real truth that gambling is the activity involved. The level of this willing distortion of the truth goes as high in Louisiana as the Louisiana Supreme Court. I am pretty sure that the Louisiana constitution calls gambling a vice that should be suppressed by the legislature. But when the issue of legalizing gambling came to the Court, they decided that “gambling” was really “gaming,” so that made gambling legal in Louisiana. The Court’s ignoring of two letters in one word made gambling legal in Louisiana. It’s disappointing that the press would cooperate with this, and other, distortions of the English language.
The unwillingness to use the true description of the activity involved illustrates that the government, in general, will do anything to the people to raise more revenue. States, cities and the civic culture were better off when public officials told gambling promoters that they could not open casinos in their jurisdictions because of the damage it would do to their citizens, as the city council of Springhill, LA did many years ago.
Gerald Holland
Springhill., La