Over at the Chicago Tribune, blogger Eric Zorn ponders a proposed gambling expansion in Chicago, articulating along the way the textured ambivalence a lot of sensitive but sensible people must think about the enterprise:

My gut tells me gambling is a sad and mostly destructive enterprise that exploits the unreasonable and the desperate. It preys man's least wholesome desire, the root of nearly all evil  -- something for nothing, the unearned reward -- and the tawdry trappings of most casinos reflect their inherent shabbiness. Government should discourage its spread.

My head tells me that interest in gambling is so pervasive that we're better off regulating and taxing its spread rather than pushing it underground or shunting it to Indiana and the suburbs.

Any form of escapism can be harmful when indulged in to extremes, and the "some people can't handle it" argument for prohibition of any activity should have a high threshold in a free society.

True, dollars spent at casinos will be dollars not spent at the opera, as gambling foe Doug Dobmeyer said in a TV interview that ran last night.  But a dollar spent at the opera is a dollar not spent on a home remodeling project or on a pair of American-made running shoes, and that's no reason to discourage the construction of opera houses.