Comment 81150

By Le Chiffre (anonymous) | Posted September 22, 2012 at 06:51:08

Indiana legalized g_mbling in 1993, and several years later, c_sinos opened in the impoverished city of Gary. The city’s mayor testified before members of the National G_mbling Impact Study Commission that revenues from g_mbling were helping revive the city. Over the long term, though, c_sinos brought no appreciable benefit to Gary’s economy. In 1990, the census shows, family income in Gary was $38,158 in today’s dollars; it now averages $33,158—about 13 percent lower than before the c_sinos arrived. The city’s poverty rate remains unchanged. Atlantic City and Gary don’t seem unusual in this respect. As part of the congressional commission’s 1999 study, the National Opinion Research Center surveyed communities with legal g_mbling. It concluded that g_mbling produced no boost “in overall per capita income,” as increases in certain industries were offset by declines in others....

Another social cost is crime, which appears to rise after c_sinos open. The most comprehensive study of crime and legal g_mbling, conducted by economists Earl Grinols and David Mustard and published in The Review of Economic Statistics in 2006, examined 167 counties where c_sinos had opened over the 20-year period ending in 1996. In those counties, the authors estimated, 5.5 percent to 30 percent of serious crimes in six categories were attributable to g_mbling. The c_sino counties suffered 157 more aggravated assaults per 100,000 residents than non-c_sino counties did, for example. Of the seven kinds of crime studied, only one, murder, didn’t spike....

Perhaps the most unsettling statistic associated with legal g_mbling—obscured by media clichés about how “nearly everyone” g_mbles occasionally in America—is the inordinately large share of g_mbling revenue that comes from problem g_mblers. A 1998 study commissioned by Montana’s state g_mbling commission estimated that problem g_mblers accounted for 36 percent of revenue from electronic g_mbling devices and 18 percent of l_ttery scratch-ticket sales. A 1999 study by the Louisiana G_ming Control Board determined that problem g_mblers accounted for 30 percent of spending on riverboat c_sinos, 42 percent of spending at Indian c_sinos, and 27 percent of betting on video l_ttery terminals and other electronic games. A 2004 report in Ontario, Canada, found that problem g_mblers, though constituting about 4.8 percent of the province’s population, produced 35 percent of its g_mbling revenue from l_tteries, sports bettng, bingo, g_mbling machines, and c_sinos. The report’s authors pointed out that their findings contributed to “converging lines of evidence indicating that a substantial portion of g_ming revenue derives from people who are negatively impacted by their involvement in this activity.”

These troubled people can devastate their lives and those of their families through the intensity of their g_mbling. A National Opinion Research Center survey noted that nearly 20 percent of self-reported pathological g_mblers and 11 percent of problem g_mblers had filed for bankruptcy at some point in their lives, compared with less than 5 percent of non-g_mblers. Pathological g_mblers were also three times more likely than non-g_mblers to have collected unemployment compensation during the previous year. Some 21 percent of pathological g_mblers and 10 percent of problem g_mblers had been behind bars, the study found, compared with less than one-half of 1 percent of non-g_mblers. Divorce and homelessness rates were also far higher for g_mblers.

Despite such evidence, politicians desperate for revenue and l_ttery officials under pressure to deliver it have promoted new games that increase addiction levels. As participation in the traditional weekly drawing has declined, many state l_tteries have added “instant” games in which players discover immediately whether they have won or lost. G_mbling-addiction circles call these games “gateway dr_gs” because they’re often the first exposure to g_mbling for young people, who play them disproportionately. A National Opinion Research Center study reported that 75 percent of adolescents who g_mbled favored instant games. In Texas—where one state senator, Eliot Shapleigh, calls them the “cr_ck coca_ne” of l_tteries—an alarming 75 cents of every dollar spent on the l_ttery goes to instant g_mes. Including Texas, 42 states now offer them.

Even instant g_mes aren’t as addictive as the favorite g_mbling instruments of legal-bett_ng proponents: video sl_t and pok_r machines. Around the country, states have introduced these devices at “sl_t-only” or “convenience” c_sinos, sometimes at failing racetr_cks. The machines’ sophisticated technology makes losing feel like winning by feeding players near-winning combinations. This triggers the release of dopamine, the body’s feel-good chemical, in the players’ brains, encouraging them to keep playing—and losing. So addictive are these machines, according to Kevin Horrigan, a video-game designer and computer-science expert at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, that two-thirds of those seeking help for g_mbling addictions in the province report that their principal g_mbling activity is using video sl_ts.

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds