I've got to admit that I find the whole casino-gambling/slots business to be very messy. It challenges my libertarian instincts. I've managed largely to reconcile my libertarian positions on speech (I'm a near-absolutist) and in the realm of personal conduct (what J. S. Mill dubbed "self-regarding conduct") with my left-leaning positions on government's establishing a bottom floor beneath which no decent society allows any of its citizens to fall.

This week in the Phoenix, media columnist Sean Kerrigan asks whether sportswriters ought to be allowed to bet on the sports they cover. No other journalistic specialty would allow anything close to this: financial reporters, for instance, can't write about stocks they own. And the media has been getting very sensitive to even small-bore conflicts of interest: Keith Olbermann was fined by MSNBC for making small donations to democratic candidates.