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| Several years ago my wife and I took a short day trip to celebrate our wedding anniversary (Nov 10th). We like to look through some antique malls/stores and towards the end of our day we decided to stop at a Indian owned casino near Red Wing MN. It was a weekday afternoon. After walking through and playing slots/gambling for a couple of hours, we lost our usual $20-30 and left. We both commented that we didn't see anyone smiling or having fun. The place was packed with a bunch of older people who were bored, just looking for something to do. Very few of them looked like they could afford to lose very much.
My wife was born and raised on a farm near Albert Lea, MN. From east to west, it's near the middle of the state, but only about 10 miles north of the MN Iowa border. About 15-20 years ago, a large casino built about 15 miles south of Albert Lea, just into Iowa. We live about 35 miles from the casino and go by it quite often as it sits near a convienent back road short cut to our home if we come home from the south. We have been inside the place twice. Shortly after it opened, my SIL went in and lost $20 playing the slot machines. She wanted to play the machine as a 5 cent/pull machine and instead lost the $20 on 1 pull. Remembering the old 1 armed bandits in Las Vegas, I wondered how dumb could she be. After the high tech machines for myself, it looked to me like you needed a 3" thick owner's manual to run the things.
In the years since the casino was built, it has had a MAJOR impact of the area. The casino does contribute quite a bit of money to local projects in the Iowa county that it is in. However, it has been devastating to the communities surrounding it, especially Albert Lea. The local summer youth sports leagues that the local Legions etc supported lost most of their funding because people quit supporting the locals and went to the casino.
Almost any time of day or any day of the week, we usually comment how full the casino parking lot is. But they have a problem gambler's help hotline now, so everything is OK. | |
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Gambling
