According to a Feb. 8 wire published by AP, a record 31.5 million Americans will be placing bets on this Sunday’s Super Bowl game, according to a report by the American Gaming Association, “the gambling industry’s national trade group.” That is a 35% increase over last year. The total amount they will wager will be $7.6 billion – a 78% increase over last year. This entire process has been fed by the legalization of gambling that now exists in 30 states – much like the legalization of marijuana and other drugs.
AP quotes Harry Levant, a public health advocate from Philadelphia and a recovering gambling addict: “One out of two people struggling with a gambling problem contemplates suicide, and one out of five will attempt suicide,” he said. “I am one of those one out of five.… No longer is gambling limited to who’s going to win the game,” he said. “Now gambling is on every play. Keep them gambling, keep chasing action.”
The national gambling addiction is largely explained by the fact that “the biggest form of gambling is occurring on Wall Street,” as Lyndon LaRouche put it in his historic Jan. 19, 2004 keynote address to the Martin Luther King Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by the Talladega County (Alabama) Democratic Conference https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2004/eirv31n04-20040130/eirv31n04-20040130_026-the_immortal_talent_of_martin_lu.pdf
LaRouche explained: “What is increasing, is the amount of money associated with gambling. And the biggest form of gambling is occurring on Wall Street. The money is going to drive up—in a purely speculative way, on side bets on the economy—to drive up the value of stock prices for some companies. And, as soon as some company gets rich, the leaders of the company go to prison, like Enron.…
