Sit down for
a second and consider these numbers and their impact on Fairfield and Wayne
County.
I looked once
again at the money spent on slot machines in Fairfield. In November, the total was
$1.9 million dollars. You heard right. That’s $63,000 a day at six different
businesses inside the city limits.
Now, for the
year, eleven months mind you….slightly over $15-million dollars has been spent on the
slots. Do the math, that’s three grand for every man, woman and child in
Fairfield and we still have December to add. And the kids aren’t spending it. That
doesn’t include the lottery or sports betting. To me, it is an astounding number.
Where is
this money coming from? I contend the crime wave we’ve seen in 2019 is not to
pay for drugs. It’s to belly up to a slot machine.
I even
looked at Illinois gaming board numbers to see that slots in Cisne have taken
in two-and-a-half million dollars this year.
In total,
the slot machines in Wayne County will take $30-million dollars out of our
economy. That would buy a lot of stuff from local merchants.
Clearly
these numbers, which anyone can access if you think I’m pulling your leg,
indicate there are some among us who have a gambling problem. You probably even
know someone who fits that description.
I’m not done
on this topic. I’ll have more on Monday. But in the meantime ask yourself two
questions---Could you have guessed $30 million dollars could be wagered in
Wayne County in 2019? And…
Are we doing
enough to help the people who have obviously been caught in the vortex of a
gambling addiction?....More Monday.
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