Community power: We beat the house!

At 2am on July 4, 2004, the Pennsylvania legislature made a declaration of dependence. Rather than look to sustainable ways to raise public revenue, they chose to legalize predatory casinos, using slot machines to extract money from local communities for the benefit of billionaire casino owners whose consciences are as remote as their geography.

Fast forward five years later. On Saturday at 2pm, more than 100 pro-community activists from Philadelphia and around the country converged on Harrah's Chester casino for a Declaration of Independence from predatory gambling.

Our community is stronger than their money. We're stronger than their lawyers, their public relations flaks, their corrupt politicians, their casino-funded neighborhood front groups, their compromised gambling "regulators."

Five years ago politicians attempted to bring casinos to our communities. Saturday, we brought our community to their casino — with one simple message:

We're stronger than you.

Every time elected officials have told us casinos are a "done deal," we've fought back. And every time, we've won.

On Saturday, pro-community activists sat down at a slot machine and inserted the minimum amount, $5. And waited.

And waited.

We didn't press any buttons. We couldn't, after all, knowing that casinos rely on addiction, with slots parlors open 24-hours, serving free alcohol and providing slot machines displaying "near misses" perfectly tuned to stoke addiction.

We didn't gamble any of our money, since we knew it would be sucked out of the local economy and local businesses. Within just four years of casinos' arrival in Atlantic City, one-third of local retail shops had closed. A University of Illinois study documents that for every one job a casino creates, three are lost.

We didn't play the slots, because we know predatory gambling fundamentally undermines democracy. After you and 27,000 other Philadelphians signed petitions to vote on a referendum barring casinos from residential neighborhoods in 2007, the state supreme court struck the question from the ballot, thwarting the will of the voters.

The casinos didn't like our refusal to gamble, and they didn't appreciate when we removed our outerwear revealing our t-shirts that shouted in big red letters, "YOU WON'T PREY ON US."

On Saturday, we beat the house.

And we'll be back.

P.S. As you can imagine, putting on an event of this scale took considerable resources. Consider making a donation, and help us continue our success in keeping Philadelphia casino-free!