The Oregon Video Lottery - How a State Runs a Gambling Racket.
I have to start this story at the very beginning. I had a great step-dad. He was an old seaman. He had a penchant for relating to and raising kids. He raised five of his own, seven step-kids through the women he married, and pretty much raised all the kids in the neighborhood too. The last 20 years of his working life he was the Bosun on the Malaspina, one of the largest ferries that plied the waters between Southeast Alaska and Washington. He worked a week on and a week off. On his weeks off you would usually find him sucking down Rainier beer with his buddies at one of the bars in Juneau.
Jim's lifelong dream was to own a bar or tavern.."one of these days, kid, when I retire, we're gonna get us a joint" he would say. When he retired in 1987 he bought a tavern in Canby, Oregon. I went down to visit. There was a stand alone video poker machine in the tavern. I knew absolutely nothing about video poker in those days and hardly payed attention to it. But then one day someone cashed out some credits. Jim payed him for the credits. The machine clearly had a sign on it saying for amusement only.
I asked Jim what was going on. He said the guy that owned the machine filled him in on what was going on. Though the machines said "for amusement only" pretty much all the bar and tavern ownersin Oregon payed off winners to induce action. That is, as long as they knew the person, because it was illegal. They wouldn't pay off strangers. You had to go through some sort of vettting process in order to be trusted. Jim got 25% of whatever the machine won.
You know the saying "be careful of what you wish for, you might just get it." Jim's dream of owning a bar didn't work out to well. Oregon had very strict liquor laws. Bar or tavern owners couldn't really drink in their own establishments. Owning a bar boils down to babysitting drunks. Jim couldn't sit in his own joint knocking down beers with his buddies. That was a killer for him. Instead of being the babysitted drunk he was now the babysitter. He didn't like that at all.
The Alcohol Control Board ran undercover operations in Oregon. They came in his joint and caught him knocking down beers with his buddies. They revoked his privelege of serving drinks in his own bar. Though he owned the place he couldn't even go behind the bar anymore. This wrecked the whole thing for him. He sold the tavern a year later and moved back to Juneau so he could knock down beers like he wanted to with his old buddies.
This is just the beginning of the story of how a state runs a gambling racket. I'll fill in the rest later. I have a very busy day ahead and have to get out and do it.
To be continued....
Posted by: mickeycrimm@yahoo.com
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (1) |
