The state Supreme Judicial Court will rule on whether a petition to ban casino gambling statewide will appear as a ballot question this November. The appeal to the SJC, arguments for and against which were heard Monday, comes after Attorney General Martha Coakley would not certify the petition, for which the group Repeal the Casino Deal collected more than the required 68,911 signatures. The SJC will likely issue its decision by next month.

Coakley has said she did not certify the petition because developers who have submitted proposals, as well as a host of fees, have a right to see their submissions reviewed and acted on – positively or negatively – by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

There is certainly a case to be made that taking money from developers only to then ban the very thing they want to develop does have a scam quality, intentional or not.

Still, it’s a little hard to muster sympathy for deep-pocketed people like Steve Wynn, whose company is behind the Everett casino proposal, when cities and towns near the proposed casino sites, such as Somerville, have already had to spend tens of thousands of dollars – not to mention hundreds of hours of human capital – in protecting their interests and mitigating the impact should a given proposal be approved.

That spending may prove to be all for nothing depending on who is awarded the licenses, but it is necessary given the uncertainty of which proposals will ultimately be approved.

Regardless of whether the SJC allows the question to go on the ballot, and regardless of the outcome of the question if it does go before voters, Somerville will have spent money without hope of recouping it. Casino developers, by contrast, do have the hope that the money spent now will be repaid – many, many, many times over – through future profits.