Drinking, gambling, and whoring: for centuries, governments have had shifting, ambivalent policies toward this trio of merriment. British Columbia is no exception. In the first category, we've long had provincially run liquor stores. In the second category, the B.C. government successfully launched playnow.com, making us the first North American jurisdiction to offer legal, casino-style games online. In the third category, we have the public perception of the B.C. legislature as a NeoGothic massage parlour for corporate lobbyists.

As most of us know, the initial launch of playnow.com was beset with a security breach that allowed some players to see the account balance and personal information of other players. In one day, Gordo's gubmint managed to spot-weld privacy issues to public concerns over gambling--a real first. But we'd be kidding ourselves if we were to view the public sectors' venture into online gambling as a stumble unique to the B.C. Liberal government. A billion dollars leaves Canada every year, via unregulated, offshore gambling sites--and the provinces want to staunch the flow with their own competitive offerings.

The Ontario government plans to introduce Internet gambling in 2012. Alberta and the Atlantic provinces are also considering it. According to statistics from 2008, provincial governments brought in nearly $14 billion from gaming. The temptation is understandable. Like a drunk slumped on a bar stool who puts his drinks on a tab, Canadian politicians want to keep the spigot flowing, with the long-term costs of addictive behaviour mortgaged into the future.

"Look at the history of civilization, the history of economics, even biblical history, and you will see what it means when a state begins to finance itself by encouraging people to gamble," observes Canadian writer and philosopher John Ralston Saul. When governments "set out to use the tools of the public good to corrupt citizens," our so-called public servants might as well be graduates of the Tony Soprano School of Governance.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that's fragmenting us as a culture, and threatening us as a species: the lure of quantifiable, short-term gain over the threat of unquantifiable, long-term loss. Policy makers know of the solid links between gambling and depression and suicide. But these social costs are "externalities," unaccounted for in the ledgers of government bean counters, and unmentioned in the press releases of politicians jonesing for easy revenue. Some might say the provincial government is just following the people on this one. If there weren't so many of us gambling online, there would be no incentive to compete with illegal, offshore sites. Funny, I always thought that elected leaders are supposed to follow the majority's desires on social issues, not defer to the worst impulses of the minority. But that would mean to lead rather than follow, and Campbell's merry circle of masseuses abdicated that approach long ago to offer Ayurvedic warm oil massages to business clients.

Our leaders in Victoria, and further beyond in Ottawa, abide in the quaint belief that the market is always right--and if the market compels people to narcotize themselves to it with drink, drugs and electronic distraction, then there's a buck to be made there, too. It's the circle of life.

"Neurosis is a private religion," wrote the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, and for many of a true believer, heavenly bliss is only one lucky Lotto ticket away. And this is where the mindset of public servants and poker players converge. Depending on your point of view, the B.C. Liberals are demonstrating either neurosis or nihilism, by going for the promise of easy money--the same spectre of magical thinking that lures gambling addicts into personal bankruptcy.

I recall standing on a casino floor in Las Vegas a few years back, marvelling at the rows of slot machines receding to a vanishing point, with the polyester crowd working the levers like lab rats. Any civic, state, or federal body that draws revenue from people's conditioned responses is playing a high-stakes game, not just involving addictive behaviour, but also criminality and corruption. That's why the U.S. quarantined its national gambling Mecca in the middle of the Nevada desert, unlike the B.C. Liberal government, which is pipelining opportunities for addictive behaviour right into the rubes' homes.

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