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They gambled away our feeling of community

My Ope-pinion Gambling Video Poker Community Small Business

One thing that really grinds my gears is how “trashy” communities look these days. More and more local restaurants are shrinking their dining rooms. They are pulling out tables and chairs to make room for video poker machines. Some strip mall and gas station locations are just rooms dedicated to video poker. It is a trend that has been building for years, and it feels like we are losing a piece of our community character to greed for the money from gambling addicts.

From a business perspective, I can understand the pressure. If a place is struggling to keep the lights on, a cut of the revenue from those machines looks like a lifeline, especially following COVID-19, but it is a hollow way to stay afloat. When a restaurant stops being a place where people gather to eat and start being a place where people go to lose money, it loses its original purpose. You cannot fix a failing restaurant business with fewer seats and alienating customers that don’t want to be crowded in with the lights and dings of the gambling machines.

This is a perfect example of prioritizing a quick fix over long term health. We are trading away our seating capacity and our local culture for a gambling machine. It is a waste of space. If you want to gamble, there are places for that. But why should our community be riddled with this invasive species? It turns a community hub into a gambling corporation, taking a cut of the money while providing nothing of substance.

We also have to look at the human side of this. These machines are not making anyone rich. They are designed to keep people engaged long enough to drain their wallets. It is not a path to success. It is a path to debt. When we see these machines popping up in every corner, we are watching people trade their hard earned money for a digital chime that never actually pays out what they think it will. It is the opposite of the practical way of living that we value.

I believe we can do better as a community. We should be looking for ways to support our local businesses that actually help them grow. We want our town to be a place where a neighbor can grab a sandwich and a seat at a table without being surrounded by the lure of a slot machine. We want our businesses to be rooted in something real, like good food and a place to sit down.

Let us keep our towns practical and our spaces intentional. A restaurant should be a restaurant. A community should be a place where we can sit down and share a meal without the distraction of a gambling machine. We do not need to let our local landmarks be chipped away by a desperate shortcut. We can find a way forward that preserves our character and our common sense.

Corey Fields
Author
Corey Fields
Lifelong Midwesterner (40+ years), rooftop solar owner since 2022, EV driver since 2023, gardener, and road-tripper. Writing about practical living, technology, and the places that make the Midwest home.

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