Posted on: Tuesday, June 12, 2001

Editorial
Gambling is an illusion, even with a big hit

It's a good bet that most of us allowed ourselves to fantasize after we read about the good fortune of Alex Aris, who won $1 million in Las Vegas while playing keno:

What we would do with a million? What bills would we pay? What vacations would we take. What fancy car or home would we buy? Whose education would we finance?

These are all alluring dreams, and they are precisely the kind of dreams the operators of casinos want us to have. There is always the possibility, however slight, of making a big pile of cash.

But as staff writer Jessica Webster reported in her article Saturday, the experience of being a big winner isn't quite what we dream it is. Webster spoke with a number of Islanders who hit the jackpot and came back with a fairly uniform story.

Yes, the money was nice. Yes, it enabled the winner to do some things, accomplish goals that might otherwise have gone untouched. But essentially, life went on.

After taxes, the money was never enough to make a huge change in their lives.

And that's a lesson Hawai'i should heed as it studies whether it wants to become yet another state with legalized gambling. Sure, there is the chance for big money, big changes. But the reality is likely to be far less dramatic.

Life will go on. We will have given up what we have for what will surely turn out to be not all that great of a bargain.

Las Vegas is out there. Those who want the excitement and the absurdly slim chance of hitting it big can always travel there when they want to.

At home, let's do without. The odds are it won't do that much good for us anyway.