You Bet Your Life

SUSAN BOYCE, a 40-year-old single mother, was shot and killed in an illegal gambling joint in Brooklyn shortly before 7 a.m. on Sunday. A friend of Boyce's had apparently spilled a drink on another gambler, a stupid argument ensued and the man who'd been spilled upon pulled a gun. As Boyce intervened in an attempt to calm things down, the man shot her in the back of the head.

It was a pointless and tragic murder, and it got us thinking. Isn't it about time the state stopped being all pansy-assed about it and legalized gambling in New York already? Every session they talk about it, they flirt with it, then they do nothing about it (much like those reforms to the Rockefeller laws they keep promising). In the meantime, after-hours gambling clubs are flourishing, and people like Susan Boyce are being hurt and killed just because they want to step out and have a little fun.

It's an old but valid argument that when you drive something underground (drugs, booze, cigarettes, porn, gambling), these things don't go away-they just get uglier.

Would a Times Square casino have saved Ms. Boyce? Maybe and maybe not. But it is certain that things like this would happen far less frequently than they do now.