It’s just so tempting, isn’t it?

Important, successful people and companies want to build another casino in Greater Des Moines, so it must be a good idea, right?

Additional gambling seems guaranteed to pour profits into a city that has cut back on police, firefighters and streetlights and already is frustrating its residents with hefty property taxes.

But we teach our children that the easy way out isn’t always the best way. We tell them to resist short-term solutions to long-term problems, to resist peer pressure when they know it will lead to trouble. Do we really believe that?

We’re hooked on Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino, and we’re going to get more solidly hooked when that casino adds table games.

We’ve been pulled into a fantasy world where the accepted question is: How much gambling is appropriate? The real question should be: Why are we supporting and encouraging this industry in the first place?

Government generally opposes activities that are exciting for the individual but harmful to society. You don’t get a lot of elected officials taking a stand in favor of drunken driving, prostitution or the manufacture of methamphetamine.

But gambling? It seems like a simple extension of playing poker for pennies, or betting that you can beat your friend in a footrace. And it can be fun and harmless for lots of people. So the only valid argument against big-time gambling would be that it harms society in general.

According to the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling:

A recent Canadian study found that 30 percent of the gambling revenues came from people categorized as problem or pathological gamblers. You might be able to handle the urge just fine; should you be concerned about your neighbors?

Canadian researchers also claim that 56 percent of problem gamblers had tried to quit in the previous year, but couldn’t kick the habit. Sounds more like a state-sponsored addiction than an enjoyable night out.

A Nevada study of problem gamblers found “between 20 percent and 30 percent of the respondents made actual suicide attempts.”

Three years after casinos were introduced to Atlantic City, its per capita crime rate jumped from 50th in the nation to first.

A study of 400 Gamblers Anonymous members showed that 57 percent admitted stealing to finance their gambling. They weren’t picking up $10 here and there; on average, each stole $135,000.

Creighton University researchers discovered that bankruptcy rates are 100 percent higher in counties with casinos than in counties without them.

Is this the way we want to live?