Toughen penalties to make gambling a bigger gamble

LESS THAN A decade ago, video poker was a political problem that threatened to swallow up South Carolina: The industry had grown to a behemoth by ignoring our laws and manipulating our judges and was using its ill-gotten wealth to buy out our government.

Today it’s a crime problem. And as with many crime problems — drunken driving comes to mind — we need to pass smarter and tougher laws to give our police the tools they need to combat it.

The General Assembly took a bold step forward in 1999 when it summoned the courage to outlaw video gambling. But just making that happen took so much political and legal energy and courage that the question of enforcement got short shrift. To make matters worse, the marketplace is eroding the toughest deterrent — seizure and destruction of illegal machines: That’s still an essential punishment, but The Post and Courier of Charleston reports that technological advancements have cut the cost of a gambling machine from $6,000 to $800.

Add that to a maximum fine of $500 for possession of a gambling machine, a statute that makes it difficult if not impossible to charge the owners or distributors, and an understandable reluctance of judges to waste precious jail space on the low-paid clerks who probably weren’t benefiting from the crime, and the result is predictable — a growing number of people who figure the potential payoff is worth the cost.

As The State’s John O’Connor recently reported, the number of gambling machines seized by police is essentially doubling every year, to more than 1,700 last year. We’d love to think that’s because police are doing a better job of finding the machines, but they’ll be the first to tell you it reflects a growth in illegal activity.

That growth rate is significant enough that a reassessment of the penalties is in order, as Attorney General Henry McMaster is urging legislators to undertake. First and foremost, it should be illegal to “own” a gambling machine, or to allow one on your property, and not just to “possess” one as it is now. That’s how you catch the people who are benefiting from the crime and not just the help. Then you jack up the criminal fines: Someone who’s willing to risk losing an $800 machine might think twice about subjecting himself to a $5,000 fine. It might even be worth thinking about making second-offense ownership a felony, although we’re not convinced that this sort of crime is the type that merits prison space. That’s an expensive punishment (for taxpayers) that we need to reserve to people who pose a more direct physical threat.

There’s no reason to think there’s any imminent danger of the video poker barons regaining their stranglehold on our lawmakers, although you always need to be on the lookout when people can virtually print money through an illegal activity. But whenever the state outlaws an activity, it must make the punishment severe enough to outweigh the benefit of violating the law, or else the law and the state become a joke.