Here in Oregon we have this lottery.  Now, I'm used to the concept of a lottery - you go buy a ticket, you watch the TV, Vanna White pulls ping pong balls out of a large glass bowl or something, and you never ever win anything.  I always thought the lottery was weird and I still do.  And when I was working back in Texas, I became familiar with this idea of the "lottery" - a way of extending the lottery to basically include all gambling.  One of my friends worked for a slot machine software company and they got a contract to do some slot machines for Oklahoma.  In Oklahoma, gambling was illegal - but with a "but".  The but was, bingo was legal - ostensibly because efforts to make bingo illegal had faced such opposition from churches and charities that it was a political non-starter.  Because bingo was legal, some clever soul had figured out a way to make a slot machine out of bingo.  The way it worked - what I was led to believe - was that a game of bingo would play on the side of the machine, and the reels would just "fake spin" and show you the results, which were the same as the results of the bingo game.  It sounds shaky, but it totally worked, and people really didn't care about the difference - at least, the kind of people that play slot machines at diners in Oklahoma.

Anyway, we have the same thing here in Oregon, except it's way, way worse.  Last night I went and ate at my favorite Indian buffet, and the place was busy so they sat me over in the bar area, where they have some slot machines.  I defy you to look at any of these slot machines and tell the difference between them and just a regular slot machine in Vegas; except, they have the official "Oregon lottery" stamp on the side.  Now, I am not necessarily 100% against slot machines and gambling.  I believe adults should be able to do what they like if it doesn't hurt others.  (At the same time, I think gambling addiction is a huge mental health problem in this country).  But I am against hypocrisy.  And claiming that these machines have anything to do with the lottery is a farce.  This is why things like the lottery are a problem; when we're not honest about our intentions, someone will force us to be.  Prohibiting gambling while allowing the lottery is just a sham that gives the state control.  And these slot machines make that painfully obvious.  For a state as liberal and as generally right-headed as Oregon, the lottery feels, to me, like an embarrassing moral weakness.  And it's just weird.