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Missouri state legislators will cast a vote this November that could endanger the future of gambling in that state. A proposed law would repeal the current $500 gambling loss limit in effect at Missouri casinos. Under current law, a gambler can only lose $500 every two hours. When that limit is reached, casinos may not allow him to gamble any more money until a full two hours pass.

Theoretically, this means someone gambling 24 hours a day could lose:

$500 every two hours
$6,000 a day
$42,000 a week
$168,000 a month

At first blush, the repeal of a state-enforced loss limit might seem like a step toward gambling freedom, but it appears that just the opposite is true. Instead, Missouri officials have calculated that giving gamblers this small bit of freedom will actually give them more control than ever before. The state expects to siphon an extra $105-130 million from tax paying gamblers each year, and that’s just for starters.

Aside from prohibiting any future loss limits, the law would also prevent any new casinos from being built. (Those already being built are exempt.) Additionally, the current casino gambling tax of 20% would increase to 21%. The point of all this, lawmakers say, is to plow the newfound tax revenue into elementary and secondary education, with $5-7 million/year going to colleges, early childhood education and veteran education.

The unspoken premise, of course, is that the government should be able to take your money and spend it on nobler causes than the casino gambling you were going to use it for. But that’s not the only objection being discussed.

Gambling advocates are up in arms, claiming that repealing the loss limit will encourage prostitution, money laundering, and pathological gambling addictions that have thus far been kept in check. Regardless, all it will take to become law is 140,000 signatures in November.