Should gambling be legalized in all states? As an economics major I tend to believe that individuals should be allowed to make free choices about how they spend their money. Why should the government legislate morality? If citizens wish to spend their money on tobacco, alcohol, and gambling; why should they not be given the freedom of choice to do so? I suspect that those against legalized gambling would argue that it is an addiction, and many individuals are not capable of making sound decisions. If gambling debts pile up, victims can affect other innocent citizens through criminal actions.

Jane and I were in the only state with legalized gambling, Nevada, and I pondered this topic as we drove across the state on the loneliest highway in the United States. Perhaps the vast stretches of barren land in this western state dictated that legal gambling needed to exist to entertain the sparse population of the state. We traveled through miles and miles of desert landscape that was occasionally interrupted by mountain ranges that ran from north to south. Our trip across Nevada certainly reinforced the description of the Great Basin.

Our goal for Sunday was to travel to Reno, NV where we booked a room at the Grand Sierra Resort. Our next national park destination was Lassen Volcanic National Park, but we felt the drive from Great Basin to Lassen was too much for one day. The rates at the Grand Sierra were quite attractive at $50 per night plus a $16 resort fee. For $66 a night we could enjoy a nice relatively modern room, and we could take advantage of a shower after one day and night of camping. Of course this presupposed that we could keep our cash in our pockets and not feed the greedy slot machines or other games of chance.

We arrived at the Grand Sierra by late afternoon and checked into our room with no glitches. After some quick showers we took the elevator down from the fifteenth floor to the casino and explored the scene. The Grand Sierra was similar to moderate sized casinos in Las Vegas that I have been in, and of course the gaming area and slot machines were teaming with eager spenders. Sitting at a slot machine and feeding money repetitively into a one armed bandit seems quite pathetic, but we saw many people doing it. We wandered through all the gaming areas…craps, roulette, bacarat, poker and sports book; but we managed to keep all our cash in our pockets.

After we circled the premises including the “beach”, a large swimming pool on the north side of the casino, we strolled along restaurant row with the goal of selecting an eating spot for Sunday night. The casino offered all the cuisines one would expect; Asian, Mexican, Italian, a steakhouse, a burger cafe and a buffet. We chose the Asian restaurant and were seated quickly. For some reason the smell of smoke seemed to permeate the air in the Asian restaurant even though we did not see any smokers nearby. We patiently waited as others were seated and their orders were taken, so after ten minutes without any sort of greeting from the wait staff, we departed and moved to the Mexican restaurant.

Here we were seated quickly and instantly served corn chips and directed to the salsa bar. This restaurant did not smell like cigarette smoke, and we finally had food to munch on. After dinner we returned to our rooms and took advantage of the WiFi that came with our resort fee. If the rest of the world mirrored Jane and me, casinos would not be very profitable operations. Adults should be free to choose whether to gamble or not. There is probably a role for the government to assure that gambling establishments are fair and ethical, but I do not agree that the government should prevent gambling in any state.