Gambling is a growing pestilence and a black eye on the state. But, once again, the people of Maine are being asked to approve more gambling concerns in Biddeford, Calais and Lewiston. Everyone wants a piece of this quick-money pie — a pie that will have diminishing returns as gambling tightens its grip on our state.

Jobs and profits that are built on greed from another’s misfortune are simply legalized theft. I am so amazed that so few people do not care about that truth. Apparently, theft is only theft down the back alleys of Canal Street, not where sleight of hand and glitz and glamour consort across the canal in the Bates Mill.

Slot machines are nicknamed “one-armed bandits” for a reason, and there is nothing humorous about it because gambling manipulates, controls, separates and then disposes without the slightest pang of conscience.

Either I am going to love my neighbor as myself or I’m not. If I am, then I should care whether I am greasing the skids to separate him from his money so a few can benefit, or I’m helping him remain solvent and whole so the entire community benefits.

It is a lie that gambling has any potential for making us whole.

Although I am tempted to vote “yes” on these casinos just to get this despicable goal so broadly applied that it collapses on itself, I will vote “no” because no virtue can come from it.

Mark Wood, Poland

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