I remember being a kid and thinking you had to go to Las Vegas to visit a casino. Little did I know that by the time I was of legal gambling age, the huge Mystic Lake Casino would be open just a few miles from my hometown.

I remember a family down the street from our house who used to drive to Wisconsin every week to buy lottery tickets. Of course, not long after, Minnesota started its own lottery &045; no driving necessary.

Gambling used to seem like much more of a mysterious and hard-to-find activity. But these days, gambling fever has spread so completely that even places like Worth County, Iowa are discussing &uot;riverboat&uot; casinos.

It makes me wonder why we bother to keep gambling illegal. It has grown so accepted that you can’t hardly turn around without seeing a chance to blow a few bucks on the chance to strike it rich.

They’re saying the Worth County casino referendum, despite dutiful opposition led by a local pastor, is probably going to pass by about an 80-20 margin. Other gaming proposals have met a rockier road, with attempts to add slot machines to Canterbury Park failing so far. But this has been more because of lobbying by anti-gambling groups who have self-interest in mind, like the American Indian tribes who want to have a corner on the gambling market. Most Minnesotans, polls show, don’t oppose the &uot;racino&uot; idea at the horse track. Many have even called for a state-run casino.

Even in Albert Lea, there’s been plenty of talk about somehow getting a casino set up on the old Farmland site.

It’s obvious that most people no longer see gambling as a shady, backroom activity that has no place in decent society. Among the state lottery, Indian casinos, the horse track (where there’s also a card club), bingo and the availability of pull-tabs and other games, gambling is easy to find and barely even questioned in Minnesota and many other states.

And the laws that keep gambling illegal (for the most part) are often a joke. Take the riverboat rules. In Iowa, they have to put any casino on a boat, which for some reason is more acceptable than a casino on dry land. Why? Worth County doesn’t have much for rivers, but even if they have to dig a big hole, fill it with water, and plop a boat in it, they’ll have their riverboat casino. Why not just let them put it on land and save the trouble?

I’m told it’s similar in Illinois. Masaaki Harada, a former reporter at the Tribune, used to live in Chicago and told me about the &uot;riverboat&uot; casinos there. They didn’t actually go anywhere. They just sat off the shore and opened their doors every once in a while when a new &uot;cruise&uot; started.

Does this make sense? In what other area of the law are there such arbitrary rules about where you can and can’t do something? It

wouldn’t make sense to say you can manufacture meth, as long as it’s on your roof, but if you do it inside the house, you’re breaking the law. Should we have the right to murder people if we’re wearing earmuffs, but not stocking caps? I wonder who makes this stuff up.

I really am not much of a fan of gambling. I went to Mystic Lake when I turned 18, just to see what it was about. I played a little blackjack and wasted a few bucks on slots. I’ve probably bought 10 lottery tickets in my life. I don’t really care much if gambling is available or not.

But it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to allow so much gambling under certain conditions, but still pretend it’s &uot;illegal.&uot; Pick one. It’s either against the law or it’s not.

Dylan Belden is the Tribune’s managing editor. His column appears Sundays.