CO Amendment 50 - Limited Gaming in Central City, Black Hawk, and Cripple Creek

This initiative proposes to allow communities with low-stakes gambling to vote to raise those stakes from the current $5 bet up to $100 per bet. If it just stopped there, I'd be fine with it. How do you take advantage of being on a roll if your bets are limited to $5 apiece?

But of course it doesn't stop there. Rather than a single issue up/down vote, we get enticed with the prospect of new tax revenues going primarily to Colorado Community Colleges, after costs associated with enforcement are taken into account. And, oh yes, lest you think that there is a shred of fiscal restraint left in Colorado, this initiative would exempt the revenue raised from state and local revenue and spending limits.

What relationship does gambling have to a college education? If anything, it would be an inverse relationship. Regardless, let's have the state legislature do its job of spending increased revenues to where they are needed (or returning excess revenues to the taxpayers) rather than putting in place a system where community college funding depends on the expansion of gambling in the state.

NO on 50