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Booze/Betting Lobbyists to Target Low-Wage Workers with Higher Bet Limits

By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2023-12-11

While South Dakota has chronically low wages, the bar and casino operators want workers to be able to gamble away more of their sparse earnings:

Matt Krogman, with the South Dakota Licensed Beverage Dealers and Gaming Association, told state lottery commissioners at their meeting Thursday in Pierre that the move would be “proactive” as video lottery revenues, inflated during the pandemic, start to slow down in growth.

…Krogman told commissioners the association is considering three bill ideas for the upcoming legislative session:

  • Expand the number of video lottery machines a licensed business can house from 10 to 15 machines.
  • Increase the video lottery bet limit from $2 to $5 and offer a public statewide progressive jackpot, which is a jackpot which increases each time the game is played but the jackpot is not won, up to $25,000.
  • Or, as an alternative, increase the bet limit from $2 to $4 for video lottery.

The bet limit increase to $5 and statewide progressive jackpot would be a “major change,” Krogman said. Video lottery bet limits have not changed since it was first introduced in South Dakota in 1989 [Makenzie Huber, “Lobbying Group Aims to Increase Video Lottery Bet Limits in 2024 Legislative Session,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2023.12.07].

Well, I suppose the chances of winning video lottery are better than the chances of South Dakota teachers getting raises to match their Minnesota counterparts.

Published in South Dakota

12 Comments

  2. Tim 2023-12-11 06:47

    Voluntary taxes, what’s not to like? I don’t play lottery machines, they are boring. I have never been forced to gamble anytime I go to Deadwood, can’t say the same thing about the county, city or state as they continue to try to tax me out of my house.

  3. larry kurtz 2023-12-11 07:08

    Video lootery is a net loss for every South Dakotan. From 2020:

    Here are some facts few know. We have 1,324 video lottery “casinos” in South Dakota. In every town and almost every C-store, they are unavoidable and far too convenient. On average, each one took $87,000 out of the local economy last year and sent it to Pierre. That’s money that if left in our towns would have bought groceries and paid rent, or purchased clothing, appliances, pizza or anything else. South Dakotans lose $630,000 per day playing video lottery! We have an estimated 19,000 problem gamblers in South Dakota, and economists say each one costs the state over $15,000/year. Combined, that’s $285 million in cost and almost three times the revenue the state gets from it. Financially, video lottery is a business we can’t afford to keep.

    https://brookingsregister.com/article/lets-end-video-lottery

  4. larry kurtz 2023-12-11 07:09

    But cannabis is illegal? You miserable bastards.

  5. larry kurtz 2023-12-11 07:10

    Despite lies from the South Dakota Republican Party video lootery, suicide, domestic violence and homelessness are inextricably linked putting children at risk to more catastrophic consequences far more often than has happened in states that have legalized or lessened penalties for casual use of cannabis.

  6. e platypus onion 2023-12-11 08:31

    Wasn’t the subject of this article a main reason people did not want expanded gambling in their states?

    We can’t, in good conscience, tax the rich, so let us make the poor saps pay more.

  7. Noem's nemesis 2023-12-11 11:49

    Essentially, this amounts to a lobbyist making a pitch for a government handout for casino owners. Apparently, this business sector actually reaped inflated revenues––which translates into profit––during the pandemic, so now the state is being encouraged to help the casino operators maintain that artificial high? Presumably, the inflated revenues were in large part due to covid-related subsidy programs. Considering the bar/casino industry’s contribution to the health and welfare of society as a whole, it is the last business deserving of a stimulus.

  8. Arlo Blundt 2023-12-11 13:50

    Nothing more similar to Robbery than Video Lottery.

  9. grudznick 2023-12-11 17:39

    If fellows around you are toking on the Demon Weed you have no choice but to smell it’s dank stench.
    But if fellows around you are throwing their own money away, by choice, to keep my property taxes lower it’s not forcing me to play the Games of Lottery.

    If people don’t like it, then don’t do it.

  10. larry kurtz 2023-12-11 17:45

    Unless your Social Security pays your property taxes like it does for Mike Sanborn you’re just another greasy, grimy grudznick groveling in the gore and grinding out every greenback you can grab. Yet, the Republican Party is gleefully and forcefully driving talent away to replace the workforce with a hateful dumbed down murder of Trumpian crows.

  11. e platypus onion 2023-12-11 20:13

    If people don’t like it, then don’t do it. Goes for religion and abortions, too.

  12. grudznick 2023-12-11 21:21

    For a fellow from Iowa, Mr. Mike has never been righter than his last statement. Young Ms. Reynolds, prettier than most, would even agree with him.

Comments are closed.