Experts: Casinos Lead to Gambling Addiction; Cue the Hysterics

• Dangerous addict.

Now that we're only about a month away from pulling back the curtain on the Cleveland casino, you can already see what's going to be on the menu for the next couple of weeks: sugary moral hysterics whipped into a fine foam by speculation and served with a heaping helping of the obvious.

We had a feeling this was coming. Considering the casino represents such a game change for the region – the legalization of a previous illegal activity, the defibrillation of Tower City, demographic groups who usually only read about each other in the paper now sharing the same blackjack table – it's a stock newsroom move to ask WHAT IT ALL MEANS?; considering we're less inclined to tune in, read, or click unless the tea leaves spell out possible bad shit, these pre-op assessments usually truck out worse case scenarios or potential disaster.

So we get this: the Associated Press (through the News-Herald) tells us “Experts: Casino will add to risks in Cleveland.”

What “risks” are we talking here? Crime? An overtaxed downtown? No, gambling addiction (not to gripe, but that's a bit of newsmaker slight of hand: whereas the headline presents the risks in the general (“risks in Cleveland”), the actual article limits its discussion to people suffering from a clinical jones for games).