Casinos & Financial Literacy

Don’t ever let it be said that your RI state legislators don’t have a sense of humor. Yesterday, the bill paving the way for building a casino in Rhode Island was re-introduced to the Rhode Island House. And the day before that? A resolution was introduced to the Rhode Island Senate declaring April to be “Financial Literacy Month”.

Does this sound like a revenue raising program that the financially literate would favor?
1. Hire a company to take money from a group of people.
2. Allow the company to skim a certain percentage off of the top.
3. Have the company give what's left of their original take (the original take minus the skim) to another group of people.
4. Have the company return a quarter of the skim to the state, and keep the rest for itself.

This is how any casino works; the bells, whistles and flashing lights are there to distract you from this fact.