It’s a safe bet that some South Carolina lawmakers will keep suggesting casino gambling as a way to pay for our state’s long-overdue road needs. But the General Assembly has repeatedly and wisely resisted past pitches for that supposedly easy money — and it should do so again.

As reported in Monday’s Post and Courier, House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, wants to let voters decide, via statewide referendum, whether to legalize casino gambling.

Rep. Rutherford made his case this way last month: “If you have casinos on the coast and dedicate them as a funding source on our roads, you have something that goes into fixing a problem.”

But if you have casinos on the coast you also have other problems, including a notoriously unreliable source of funding from a cruel tax of sorts imposed to a significant degree on the poor, the gullible, and compulsive gamblers.

Yes, the costly tab for fixing our highways is unlikely to be fully met by Gov. Haley’s call for a gas-tax hike in combination with an income-tax cut.

Yes, the S.C. Education Lottery has produced more than $3.4 billion in state revenue since its launch in early 2002.

Yet such casino attractions as slot machines, video poker, roulette and card games exert a much stronger grip on habitual gamblers than lottery tickets.

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http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150215/PC1002/150219543