This note arrived early this morning from Spin Williams – a big idea man and the marketing genius in charge of The Meeting That Never Ends.
I see the city of Minneapolis is making a bid to get the Minnesota Vikings to fully participate in a plan for a new stadium on the site of the Metrodome! And at the same time there’s a push to expand gambling by building a casino on the other side of downtown Minneapolis.
Sports and gambling!
At The Meeting That Never Ends, we agree that S & G are the promised land because that’s where the money is! And everybody needs money, so it makes sense that these two ideas are crashing the party at the very moment the legislature is trying to solve a huge budget problem. Far from being distractions, S & G are the answers, and they’ve come knocking!
Some loud people don’t like having their money taken away by government to pay for “the common good”, especially if the good in question is perceived as being for people more common than they are. And let’s face it, who doesn’t think everybody else is a lot more common than they are?
But many of the same complainers will hand over huge sums of money gambling, following sports teams, and gambling on the sports teams they follow. In just about every case, they are guaranteed to part with phenomenal amounts of cash. But they can’t help themselves. They love sports and gambling too much. And why not? The entertainment these activities provide has real value
Government, on the other hand, is seen as dull, uninspiring, greedy and wasteful. However, to the people involved in the decision-making, it is exciting and unpredictable. Anything could happen!
That’s why we think every state in the union, and particularly a sharply divided state like Minnesota, could close its financial gap by permitting, and taking a cut from, gambling on state government decision making!
Think about it! Right now you have an exciting two horse race for the new Vikings stadium – Arden Hills or Minneapolis. It’s a three horse race if you count Los Angeles. Sports fans are intensely interested, so why not let them wager on the outcome? The state would take a portion of all bets, so in spite of the fortunes being made and lost by players, the government wins every time!
Lots of issues would draw massive wagers; putting gay marriage on the ballot, building the Stillwater bridge, or redistricting! Let people put their money behind their passion in a constructive, public way. They could get rich if they prevail, and if not … at least they could say they were in the contest to the end.
It’s a typical complaint that people with money will flood the political system with cash contributions to politicians and PACS, much of it in a thinly disguised attempt to influence public policy in a way that pays off for them financially! But public policy is too weird and nutty to control – it’s all a crap shoot! And when it’s not a crap shoot, it’s poker, which is the game the governor and the legislature are playing over the budget. In the end everything will be determined by who has the best cards and the most nerve. And poker is hugely popular entertainment!
So let’s totally buy into that idea, and turn state government itself into a public policy casino!
Just an idea. I don’t really have time to follow up, though, so you can take it from here.
Spin
Like most of Spin’s ideas, this one is half finished and full of unforeseen problems. But he’s not an implementer, he’s a creator, and I think he has already moved on to the next challenge.
Like to gamble?
Trail Baboon 
Rise and Roll the Dice Baboons!
I tried gambling in a casino for the first time about 6 mos ago in Iowa. I lost $6.72. All I can say is this: I don’t get the thrill. Of course I didn’t win a lot of money. Maybe that is the secret. But otherwise you are standing around pushing a button over and over. I do, however, enjoy playing poker for Hershey kisses as chips, although the last time I did this was about 20 years ago. Now that is immediately rewarding if you snitch your chips.
I hear that in the casinos they pump in extra oxygen so you feel really good in the building. Is this a rumor or is it true?
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Casinos are interesting places as far as how they attempt to manipulate people. I hadn’t heard about the additional oxygen but it wouldn’t surprise me. I’d heard about things like the elimination of clocks and outside light, so you can’t easily determine how much time you’ve spent (let alone money!). Lots of little subliminals like that.
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I never ever gamble except in the sense I have taken chances going fishing in tossy seas or driving to hunting fields on iced-over highways. And I don’t even do that any more. Actual gambling in glittery buildings seems offensively stupid to me.
When we had the big debate in Minnesota about altering the constitution to allow a state lottery, I was opposed. The only way I wanted to allow a lottery is if it were named, “The Voluntary Tax Program for Math Idiots.” But even with that name, it would be popular with people whose economic hopes blind them to the only important thing to know about official gambling: the House always wins.
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Could be the senate will win sometimes too
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In junior high, a bunch of my friends and I had a floating penny poker game. When you’re up $1.00 in penny poker, you’re up a lot. We learned, though, that if we played at ___’s house that his dad was not allowed to crash the game – he regularly wiped us out.
The only recent gamble I took was having a kid – so far I like the odds. 🙂
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Given the parents, not such a gamble!
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I didn’t think your kid was so odd
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A new way of looking at children: the odds and the evens.
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As the saying goes, “the odds are good, but the goods are odd.” 🙂
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There has always been a strong anti-gambling sentiment in my mother’s family. Her grandfather had a rather prosperous business in Hamburg, Germany until he lost it all playing cards in 1914. His bankruptcy, while shameful, also got the family out of Germany prior to the Great War breaking out, since he fled his creditors by becoming a farmer near St. Cloud. I agree with Steve’s sentiments about current gambling, and have seen lots of family problems in my professional work due to gambling. I just can’t bring myself to participate.
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Good morning to all:
I hardly ever do any gambling.. My mother’s family considered gambling immoral and I think my Dad didn’t gamble because he was thrifty and also didn’t want to offend my mother. I am mostly motivated to avoid gambling due to being more or less a penny pincher. I have been involved purchasing a few scratch cards and lottery tickets.
I don’t mind if other people gamble for intertainment. I guess there are some people who are good at gambling and make money doing it. I’m not opposed to the Indian gambling casinos or any other gambling facilities, but I think we would be better off if they didn’t exist. A former commissioner from the county I live in claims she is addicted to gambling and was caught stealing almost a million dollars to cover her gambling debts.
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My negative interest in gambling increased when I traveled around the state doing training. The conference rooms in rural casinos are free/cheap so that’s where we worked. Talk about depressing-sad-looking elderly folks gambling at 7AM. Many of the casino staff wore buttons indicating they were CPR certified. A necessity given the clientele.
Let’s all bet on warm weather today!
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Morning all. Ah, sports and gambling – some of my least favorite topics. I have never been a gambler. When my dad taught me to play poker for match sticks, I didn’t like it very much and even today, when my mom buys a lottery ticket every week, I imagine how much milk or butter you could buy w/ that money.
I think I’ve told the story of my great grandmother taking my dad for all he was worth in a summer poker game. Maybe I heard that story enough as a small child that it tainted gambling for me forever.
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Morning!
I have purchased a few scratch off tickets… a while ago there was a ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle’ game and since I am their biggest fan, I figured they owed me. Yep; won $3 and bought three more tickets. Won another $5 and stopped there.
Have never been in a casino and don’t have any interest either.
Life is chancy enough without paying money for the opportunity.
(My goal for today: I received a gadget that plays Darth Vader’s theme and I’m hoping for some desperate student to show up looking for shop hours yet. Classes are over Thursday here at the college and shop hours should have been done two weeks ago! [evil laugh…] )
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Haven’t you spotted the young ben in the shadows lurking and hovering wanting to be the next lighting and sound wizard? You’re not loooking close enough suck him in and make him come to the dark side( evil laugh )
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I have one star pupil that I lured over… he just graduated from McNally School of Music and while his heart is in sound, it’s lighting that seems to be paying the bills for him. And he blames me for it. A charge I’m more than happy to accept.
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And there have been several that are pursuing professional acting jobs. And another going to school for Stage Management.
Just talked to a former student; his National Guard Unit is headed to Kuwait on Thursday for a year but he really wants to be an actor… he’s hoping to come back to school after his service. I’ve got my fingers crossed for him. He says it’s going to be boring in Kuwait. I can only hope so.
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What are shop hours?
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Students in the ‘Intro To Theater’ class have to complete 5 hours of ‘Shop Time’ doing something related to producing a play. Could be ushering, working on the show, or coming back to the shop and building, painting, sewing, cleaning, organizing; whatever they’re comfortable doing.
They have the entire semester to do FIVE MEASLY HOURS and we warn them repeatedly through-out the semester, ‘Don’t wait until the last minute on this!’ but there’s always some that do…
As with everyone; there are all sorts of stories and reasons.
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hey, somebody has to do that end-of-the-year hardware bucket sorting 😉
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Or wash my car and vacuum my office…………….
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If I was feeling particularly cranky about a student not getting in shop hours, back when I was working as a TD at a community college, I’d have them clean the paint area – including checking the paint to make sure it was still “good.” Guaranteed they’d find a coupla *really* stinky cans, especially if there was old casein paint in the mix somewhere.
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and thank you for the scent memory of casein paint.
In the costume shop there is always a box somewhere of straight pins that has gotten thrown in with some safety pins, and believe me, it matters.
The thread rack is looking like a mess too.
oh yeah, and while you are at it, you may as well go through and purge the t-shirt box
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Ben, Don’t you need students to look for the board straightener????
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As a Theatre Arts major from the U of MN-Mpls, that is a measly requirement. I remember for theater classes having to do 40 hours in order to get an ‘A’. I did 40 hours in the scene shop, the costume shop and working backstage for a show to garner those A’s. The Intro to Theatre Class with the famous Arthur Ballet required you to see a couple plays and write a review. He was awesome.
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Thanks for all the great ‘busy work’ suggestions. I’ll make a new list.
You’re right Joanne; we tell them 5 hours is nothing; and I guess part of my response is that as a two year community college the majority of these students are simply fulfilling a speech requirement and not going into theater as a career. There’s always some great students that go above and beyond, but– then there are the handful of others.
They have to see a play and write some papers too… and today the teacher was dealing with two or three students that haven’t done their hours, haven’t seen a play, haven’t written a paper and now are whining they have to pass this class to be eligible to play football! And you just want to stare at them and say ‘And this is my problem why??’
It’s frustrating.
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One of the few lessons from parochial school that stuck was the rule against gambling. I can’t even remember which teacher or pastor said it, but s/he explained that gambling was bad because it was making money without working (also the basis of the biblical prohibition of interest-charging). I imagine they’d be horrified to know that their attempt to discourage Papist bingo gaming in church basements turned one of their students into a socialist…
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One of my favorite memories about moving from catholic school to public jr high was all the gambling. Cards in the student union 21 mostly but Indian poker and guts were big too, matching coins two way or three way lagging quarters in the halls and bathrooms. I have gotten to teach my kids and their friend about these great time wasters where a quarter or a nickel are as adrenaline producing as prime time. I just got a note from the kid who is the west Virginia quarterback telling me he taught the team how to lag quarters up against the wall. The true meaning of life is the simple gifts you can pass on. One of my favorite teachers mr wolf would catch us flipping quarters and would have us put our money on the counter and then he’d say I’ll give you a chance to win it back… Call it heads or tails… Oh too bad you lose. Don’t gamble what you can’t afford to lose . Good lesson
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Maybe tim can give us his point of view from Los Vegas some time today. He said he was leaving to go there yesterday to pile up some big winnings and might check in with us.
A former nieghbor told me an interesting story about gambling. He said he had been paid by the owner of back room gambling places to work as a shill. He was given money to enter card games and play in a way that would speed up the action.
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I think spin is onto something. I’d be willing to bet we’d raise over 100 million a year betting on whether we’d raise over 100 million a year between the Vikings the twins the timberwolves the wild the lynx the saints the gophers the tommies we could bet on all of them and put up boards on the date Joe Mauer will return the day the Vikings will win a super bowl the day the timberwolves will have a winning record. We could bet on politicians too when will dayton say something the GOP doesn’t turn into a back biting issue. Newt is in along with the Donald Bachman and pawlenty of you can’t find something to raise a couple wagers on there you have not been watching reality tv. Put them on on island or in a sports arena and let them fight it out. Go spin go
Im in Vegas this week oxygen a plenty. Party all night long. It’s funny the big news here is that they want to make the lottery legal in Nevada. They currently have to go to California and Arizona to get the lottery tix
You know prostitution and opium dens could be serious revenue producers too. Hookers and hookas for Minnesota.
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Okay, tim. I guess by now you have started piling up big winnings and will be back home before long to host the book club on Sunday. More gambling in Minnesota? Not good, but I can live with that. Hookers and hookas? I don’t think so. Remember this is Minnesota and we are too nice to even think about bringing in the hookers and hookas.
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Belonged to a Ladies Poker Night when living in Brooklyn, was a lot of fun – we played for quarters so on a good night someone would take home about 10 bucks. Other than that, just the ordinary life gambles everyone takes now and then. I’m like Jacque and would wager if chocolate was involved.
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p.s. I think Dale’s idea is brilliant, and I want to know who do we send it to?? This could actually solve some of the budget issues.
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each morning i gamble that a doe won’t put her hoof in the milk bucket. this morning i won. some days i don’t. it’s that intermittent reinforcement that is the most powerful.
we’re watching (on Netflix) “Men of a Certain Age” – Ray Romano’s concept about men nearing 50. the main character is a nice man with a family that he lost because of his gambling addiction. just plain scary to see someone plunk down 20 thousand dollars on a basketball game. thinking his team was going to lose, he went to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting but left to hear the end of the game. his team won. he didn’t go back to the meeting. (sorry if i gave that away for someone)
i don’t disapprove of recreational gambling, but i don’t think as a state we should promote gambling as a revenue stream.. seems like we’re taking it from the wrong people.
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Do you think the stock market is a form of gambling for sober, serious people and corporations (also a kind of people, I hear)?
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I think that when you look at what happen on Wall Street, not too long ago, and the failure of our government to take all of the actions needed to deal with what happened, we now know that we can’t put much trust in the stock market.
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Ha! My bitter experience is that the whole issue of whether it is gambling or not depends on who you are. If you are a small investor, you are supplying the money needed for the big guys to play their games. You are gambling in the sense that a strong bull market will bring you rewards, whereas most other kinds of market just wring the money out of you and pitch you to the side when you are dry. And if you are a fat cat, you aren’t really gambling because the game has been set up for you to win.
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Too thrifty to do any sort of casino stuff-also I don’t think it is gambling when there is a House whose business it is to make money.
That said, I spent many the lovely evening playing Michigan Rummy with my maternal grandmother and her siblings in that tiny little house with the sloping kitchen floor for pennies (Aunt Hannah and Aunt Cora always sat on the low end of the table, as they claimed the pennies rolled in that direction-my cousin always claimed Aunt Hannah cheated, but we could never figure out how that could be possible in Michigan Rummy).
I’m also not above betting on the ponies in a good, decent harnass race (not one of those races where the jockey sits right down on the horse), but haven’t been to a track in decades.
I’ll also make friendly little wagers if I am pretty sure of winning.
But corporate gambling? I’m with Steve on that one, Voluntary Tax on the Math Impaired indeed.
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OK, since we are talking about odds, what are the odds on this happening? I am home at lunch today and my largest cat is sitting in our bedroom, staring at the bed and loudly crying. The bed isn’t made. He sits on the night stand and stares at me while I make the bed, and when I leave the room he crawls under the quilt to take a nap. He will only go under the quilt if the bed is made. Is it possible he was telling me to make the bed?
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I think he is absolutely telling you to fix his world the way he likes it. Every morning, as soon as I make my bed, Zorro jumps up and proceeds to chase his tail. He never does this on the rare days that I don’t make the bed and I’ve never seen him chase his tail in any other part of the house. He also doesn’t do this later in the day or in the evening – just first thing in the morning. Clearly cats at least understand the difference between an unmade and a made bed!
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Why does a cat care if the bed is made or not?
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One of my cats will sit by a closed door and meow insistently. Then I come over and open the door for him, and he purrs madly. The only thing I can figure is that he’s thinking, “I opened that door using just the power of my magnificent voice.” He doesn’t necessarily want to go through the door. He just wants to open it.
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Dale, I think it’s just cozier under a tightly made bed – I had a cat that would do that once in a while, too.
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A friend gave me a “MegaMillions” ticket for my birthday. It was a $3 winner. I guess the question is, when I cash it in, should I follow Ben’s strategy and buy three more tickets? Or do I quit while I’m ahead? And if so, what should I spend the $3 on?
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Put it toward a cat door?
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😆
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