No sooner had the B.C. Lottery Corp.'s new online casino been launched into cyberspace than, whoops, it crashed yesterday, brought to earth by the sheer weight of passengers climbing on board. Never fear, gamblers. Won't be grounded long, not with all that money in your wallets waiting to be swallowed by a cash-starved provincial government. Just like the Liberals swallowed their principles when they turned to online gambling in the first place.Remember, the Liberals were elected in 2001 on a platform that included a promise to "halt the expansion of gambling that has increased gambling addiction and put new strains on families." 
Apparently those families were doing just fine by the time the Liberals actually took office though, because the provincial government immediately dropped its objections faster than Harry Homeowner dropping the mortgage money on a poker table. What a relief. Glad those families are OK. Indeed, gambling revenue has pretty much doubled under the Liberals. The government now pulls in more than $1 billion a year (which didn't prevent it from cutting its gaming grants to non-profits to $120 million, down $36 million).
And why stop there? If we're going to adopt the government-is-the-lesser-of-two-evils argument when it comes to gambling, might as well extend the logic to other areas of questionable morality, too. Googling the word "porn" on my computer (actually, I used Dave Obee's computer, just in case the Times Colonist IT Police were watching) brought up 327 million sites. Must be a lot of money in porn. Better that it go to the government, where it can pay for granny's hip replacement, than to some less-virtuous destination. Prostitution might prove to be a nice little earner for the province, too. Ditto for the sale of endangered-animals parts. Hey, someone is going to do it, might as well be us, right?
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