Arkansas Lottery Again Talks About Keno, Letting People Gamble Online

Arkansas Lottery

In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration Secretary Larry Walther indicated that the state-run lottery might like to offer Keno and Internet gambling in Arkansas.

Lottery officials have floated the idea of offering Keno and electronic gambling in the past in order to bolster lottery sales and entice more people to play the lottery.

But lottery ticket sales surged in Arkansas during the COVID-19 pandemic last spring, and the Lottery just finished its best best fiscal year ever, in terms of revenue.

Clearly the Arkansas Lottery is doing just fine without Keno or online gambling.

Lottery officials lobbied unsuccessfully for Keno in 2013 and 2014, but lawmakers soundly rejected that proposal.

Keno is different from games like Powerball or MegaMillions. Drawings usually take place every few minutes rather than once a day, and the odds of winning a jackpot prize tend to be worse than other lottery games.

Its fast pace makes Keno a popular casino game, because players can pick numbers and place bets over and over again in a short amount of time.

As a result, Keno often is played in a live room full of gamblers.

One of the reasons lawmakers rejected Keno a few years ago is that they did not want the State Lottery creating miniature casinos in bars, convenience stores, and gas stations all over Arkansas.

If the Arkansas Lottery authorizes Keno — and especially if lottery officials make it possible for people to gamble online — that’s going to increase problem gambling and gambling addiction in Arkansas.

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Trans-Targeting Catholic Hospitals

LGBT, Religious Freedom, , ,
John Stonestreet, Radio Host and President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

A Catholic hospital in Baltimore is being sued by a woman for refusing to remove her perfectly healthy uterus. She claims the hospital discriminated against her because she identifies as a man.

No hospital should remove healthy organs, of course, and this Catholic hospital refused because of their faith commitments. Even if a non-transitioning woman wanted her healthy uterus removed, the Catholic hospital would refuse.

Catholic and other religiously based hospitals have been fighting this kind of absurd targeting for years, first over abortion and now over various levels of so-called sex-reassignment treatments.

This is no isolated case. A California court will hear a similar lawsuit soon, as well. As Wesley J. Smith warns at National Review, “Many Catholic hospitals will close before being forced to practice medicine in ways that violate Catholic doctrine.”

Our country’s health system is already strained, so this would be a disaster. Let’s pray religious freedom, public health, and common sense wins out over trans ideology.

Copyright 2020 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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