On 01.20.15 at 3:08 pm you wrote: I am opposed to governmental paternalism, including making arcades with redemption centers illegal.

Yet on 01.18.15 at 12:05 pm, you wrote, But, if there is one law I would be for, it would be to make these type of redemption centers illegal.

So your initial position was that you want to ban them. The original article, which you supported, was that people wanted to call these types of places “gambling centers.”

While you are free to back away from prior statements and flip flop more than a mackerel in a boat, your position lacks consistency. Furthermore, just because you label something as one thing doesn’t make it so. These places provide entertainment and games of skill. By definition, that is not gambling and your repeating they are gambling establishments doesn’t make it so.

1. Arcades with redemption centers are gambling establishments.
2. Arcades with redemption centers target children.
3. I am opposed to governmental paternalism, including making arcades with redemption centers illegal.
4. If there is no choice but that the government be paternalistic, a good place to start would be redemption centers.

And, yes, “house advantage” is the cost of doing business. I do not begrudge the redemption centers (or gambling establishments) making a profit. However, if they deign to reveal what the house advantage is, they should tell the truth.

But you want arcades and other places to fall under the legislation banning gambling. How is that not “trying to legislate?”

I do begrudge those places claiming there is no house advantage or not being honest about the advantage they have (they do not need to tell me what the advantage is, but they should not be able to lie about it either).

What you call “house advantage” is the cost of business.

Nah. I just don’t like my kids gambling with my money. If they had their own way to make money and wanted to spend it on gambling, I would probably not forbid them from doing so.

My point is not that the government should stop this form of gambling. Rather, that this is gambling and, if the government is going to be paternalistic, this is one area where I would have less heartburn than others.

You mean the arcades in which you play skee ball and the machine spits out tickets proportional to your score, which are then redeemed for small trinkets? You might call that gambling. You might also call it harmless fun for kids.

Sometimes I think progressives might as well adopt “no more fun of any kind” as motto or campaign slogan. Because that’s exactly where their meddling efforts to “protect” us always seem to end up.

i am not trying to legislate anything. Let’s just call these redemption centers gambling halls and get on with it. Were these places made illegal, it would not give me heartburn, other than the fact that the government should probably not be legislating morality. Said another way, if government is going to legislate morality, the redemption centers should be the first to go.

Gitargiver,

I do not begrudge the house having an advantage, in gambling halls or “redemption centers”. I do begrudge those places claiming there is no house advantage or not being honest about the advantage they have (they do not need to tell me what the advantage is, but they should not be able to lie about it either).

I do not know, however, whether any reputable scholarship shows a correlation between childhood claw-machine gambling and dysfunctional adult gambling addiction.

Just out of curiosity, are you saying that the games should be a “break even” for the venues? That they should supply the floor space, the electricity, the games, the prizes, the employees, etc, only to break even and have a profit of zero dollars and zero cents?

Isn’t there some value in the entertainment that the games provide people?

It is almost as if you believe the venues should do things not to make a profit. If that is the case, does the company you work for try to make a profit by maximizing income and minimizing costs, or do you just look to break even – never growing, expanding, hiring new people, increasing payroll, etc?

Stop trying to legislate your morals on my family. We are perfectly capable of deciding where we spend our entertainment dollars.