The gambling issue is back on the agenda in the Texas State Legislature.
Several gambling related bills have been filed, including one that proposes a constitutional amendment requiring the establishment of a gaming commission and the creation of casinos. An intense lobbying effort is being mounted by lettexansdecide.org, which claims Texas is losing $2.5 billion dollars annually to neighboring states offering casino style gambling.
However, lobbyists are not pouring as much money into the effort as they did in the last legislative session. Texas has traditionally been against the idea.
Potter County Attorney Scott Brumley said, "Gambling historically tends to bring in organized crime. It invariably presents the problem of addiction that you have to deal with, if you’re going to deal with it responsibly." Illegal gambling continues to be widespread across the state.
In Potter County alone, Brumley said, "Some locations have been known to knock down three to five thousand a day. We have seen locations we’ve hit that have made as much as a hundred-thousand a month. We’ve seen locations that have made more than that."
