Jacob tackles rumor on gambling
Also, he says he erred on illegals prison figure
Jacob, who is challenging five-term incumbent Chris Cannon in Tuesday's Republican primary, also said he erred on the campaign trail when he repeated incorrect information that inflated the number of illegal immigrants at the state prison in Gunnison.
The multimillionaire said he played Texas Hold 'Em and 21 card games during a few trips to Las Vegas to attend shows and the National Finals Rodeo. He said he believed the trips took place between 2000 and 2002. He also said he played for entertainment because a traveling companion enjoyed gambling.
Jacob said he won as much as $1,000 and lost up to "a couple hundred bucks" at different times but quit gambling after President Gordon B. Hinckley of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints forcefully repeated the church's long-standing opposition to all forms of gambling at General Conference in April 2005.
President Hinckley gave a similar speech in 1985, when he said, "President Brigham Young spoke out against gambling. President Lorenzo Snow spoke against it. President Joseph F. Smith spoke very strongly against it; and, in 1925, President Heber J. Grant and his counselors said, 'The Church has been and now is unalterably opposed to gambling in any form.' "
The rumor circulated via e-mail for more than a week before it surfaced when a caller raised the issue Thursday during Jacob's appearance on the "Doug Wright Show" on KSL News Radio.
"Gambling hurts everybody involved," Jacob told the Deseret Morning News. "When you gamble, you're not producing anything. So, if you're winning, someone else is losing. I believe the gambling craze that's going on right now is hurting a lot of people."
He agreed with Cannon that Internet gambling should not be legalized in the United States.
Jacob acknowledged Thursday he was wrong about one of the statistics he has used repeatedly on the campaign trail to describe the depth of the problem caused by rising illegal immigration. He toured the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison and said 40 percent of the inmates there are illegal aliens.
That's five times the actual number, according to the deputy director of the Utah Department of Corrections.
Christine Mitchell said immigrants make up 8.4 percent of the Gunnison prison population. She also said if the state's entire immigrant inmate population were at Gunnison, they would account for 30 percent of Gunnison's prisoners.
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