Every year representatives of Canterbury Park engage the wider community in an attempt to gain casino machines, claiming that it would benefit the state of Minnesota. The state of Minnesota has a long history of avoiding open support of all types of gambling. The federal government granted Indian tribes the right to build casinos; unable to fight it, a state lottery and charitable gaming in bars soon followed. The last time Canterbury Park pushed hard for a racino was while the brothers Ghermezian were trying to get the state Legislature to grant them the right to put a casino in the Mall of America. However, the issue is more complicated than Jennifer Selvig implies in her guest column, which is why the push to gain a casino at the MOA was abandoned. Gambling addiction is a serious problem that the state of Minnesota has been hesitant to promote. The treatment of racehorses is not humane in all cases. Canterbury Park is not about to disappear, they merely see the potential profit to be had by installing video poker and slot machines. I lived in Portland, Oregon and I know what it is like to have video poker in every bar and Keno in every gas station. Is this where we want Minnesota to go? I donâÄôt. Would granting Canterbury Park the right to have slots and video poker necessarily result in a landslide of gambling machines across the state? Not if we granted Canterbury Park a monopoly, I suppose, but that would be more hypocritical than the state lotto. Daniel Timp University Student