Gambling Facts and Statistics
The Case Against Legalized Gambling
Gambling costs far more than it benefits. Studies show that for every dollar gambling produces for a regional economy, $3 are cost because of the economic and social costs of gambling.
Gambling cannibalizes local businesses. A hundred dollars spent in a slot machine is a hundred dollars that is not spent in a local restaurant, theater or retail store.
Gambling triggers addiction. The more legalized gambling is available, the more addictive behavior is triggered. In 1989, only 1.7% of Iowaís adults were gambling addicts, but after riverboat casinos were legalized, the rate of addiction more than tripled to 5.4%.
Gambling addiction has become an epidemic among youth. Researchers now call gambling the fastest- growing teenage addiction, with the rate of pathological gambling among high school and college-age youth about twice that of adults. According to Dr Howard Shatter, director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Addiction Studies, “Today, there are more children experiencing adverse symptoms from gambling than from drugs ... and the problem is growing.”
Gambling attracts crime. A comprehensive report by the attorney general of Maryland concludes, “Casinos would bring a substantial increase in crime to our state. There would be more violent crime, more crimes against property, more insurance fraud, more white-collar crime, more juvenile crime, more drug and alcohol-related crime, more domestic violence and child abuse, and more organized crime.”
Gambling victimizes the poor. The poorest citizens spend the largest percentage of their incomes on gambling.
Gambling corrupts government. So much money is at stake, and gambling companies are so dependent on governmental decisions for a piece of those profits, that corruption is inevitable. Wherever gambling has gone, bribery, extortion and payoffs have followed.
(National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling Web site)
Gambling - Good for Local Businesses?
Iowa State University researchers surveyed business owners in Clinton, Iowa, to determine how they had been affected by the presence of a riverboat casino. Twelve percent indicated business had increased, while 29 percent reported a decrease. Sixty percent said they had witnessed no change.
In a survey of 900 Minnesota restaurant owners, 38 percent said they had lost business due to gambling; only 10 percent reported an increase in business due to the existence of casinos.
The number of independent restaurants in Atlantic City dropped from 48 the year casinos opened to 48 in 1997. Within just four years of the casinos’ arrival, one-third of the city’s retail businesses had closed.
The number of retail businesses in Gilpin County, Cob., dropped from 31 before gambling to 11 within a couple of years after casinos arrived. Gilpin County is home to the majority of the state’s casinos.
More than 70 percent of businesses in Natchez, Miss., reported declining sates within a few month of the opening of that city’s first riverboat.
More than half of business owners in Illinois riverboat casino towns reported either a negative effect or no effect on their businesses from the presence of casinos. Only 3 percent of respondents said their businesses had been “helped a lot” by the casinos.
A University of South Dakota study showed that retail and service businesses in South Dakota suffered a net loss of approximately $60 million in anticipated sales in the year following the introduction of gambling.
(http://www.family.org’s CitizenLink)
Gambling’s Impact on Families
Divorce
In a survey of nearly 400 Gamblers Anonymous members, 28 percent reported being either separated or divorced as a direct result of their gambling problems.
The number of divorces in Harrison County, Miss., has nearly tripled since the introduction of casinos. The county, which is home to 10 casinos, has averaged an additional 850 divorces per year since casinos arrived.
Child Abuse and Neglect
The National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported: “Children of compulsive gamblers are often prone to suffer abuse, as well as neglect, as a result of parental problem or pathological gambling.”
In Indiana, a review of the state’s gaming commission records revealed that 72 children were found abandoned on casino premises during a 14-month period.
Cases of child abandonment at Foxwoods, the nation’s largest casino in Ledyard, Conn., became so commonplace that authorities were forced to post signs in the casino’s parking lots warning parents not to leave children in cars unattended.
Domestic Violence
According to the National Research Council, studies indicate that between one quarter and one half of spouses of compulsive gamblers have been abused.
Domestic violence shelters on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast reported increases in requests for assistance ranging from 100 to 300 percent after the introduction of casinos.
A University of Nebraska Medical Center study concluded that problem gambling is as much a risk for domestic violence as alcohol abuse.
Domestic violence murders in at least 11 states have been traced to gambling problems since 1996.
(http://www.family.org’s CitizenLink)
More Gambling Information
Between 5 and 11% of the teenagers will become compulsive gamblers.
25% surveyed attempted suicide.
60% planned how they would commit suicide.
99% of compulsive gamblers commit crimes.
25% end up in the legal system because of bad checks, forgery, fraud, embezzlement from job, theft, bank robbery, selling drugs, street crime, prostitution, etc.
80% drive over 80 miles an hour.
100% of compulsive gamblers become physically abusive, especially toward children.
The state of Missouri could possibly face 60,000 compulsive gamblers in the next two years at a cost to the justice and social services systems of over $1 billion paid for by taxpayers.
Electronic slot machines are the crack cocaine addiction of the 9Os.
(Valerie C. Lorenz, Ph.D., CCMHC, CPC Executive Director Compulsive Gambling Center, Inc.)
Gaming’s Access Impacting Youth
Whether with their friends at parties, at school or in solitude on the Internet, millions of American teens are taking up an ever-more-accessible national pastime – gambling.
Much of the action is small-time – underage purchases of lottery tickets, playing cards or dice games for spare change. But experts say the long-term stakes are high because gamblers who start younger are more likely to develop addiction problems.
“This is the first generation of kids growing up when gambling is legal and available virtually nationwide,” said George Meldrum of the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems. “Casinos, racetracks – they take it for granted.”
Nationwide statistics on youth gambling are scarce, but regional surveys suggest more than 30 percent of all high school students gamble periodically.
(Clarion Ledger, 7/14/03, 5a)
Lawmakers Take Another Look at Gambling
Lawmakers are crafting various measures that would make it illegal to use credit cards or electronic funds transfers to pay for gaming activities, and are hoping that banning revenue exchanges will cut the bloodlines to the Net gaming industry.
“The very nature of gambling, with its great potential for fraud and corruption, demands that it be regulated as it now is in all jurisdictions,” Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-AL, said in an E-mail to Foxnews.com. “Cyber gambling is the crack cocaine of gambling and will create a new generation of addicts unless we stop it.”
One bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Leach, B-Iowa, makes it illegal for Net gaming businesses to accept bank tools like credit cards and electronic funds transfers.
“Internet gambling serves no legitimate purpose in our society,” Leach said in a statement. “It is a danger to family and society at large.”
The Justice Department estimates that by the end of 2003, there will be 1,800 gambling sites generating about $4.2 billion.
(http://www.foxnews.com, 5/29/03)
We Tend to Trust What We See In Black and White
Americans now spend more on gambling than on movies, videos, and DVDs, music, and books combined, and with an annual growth rate of about 9 percent since 1991, gambling is growing substantially faster than the economy as a whole. But so far, that growth does not seem to have caused a serious blacklash.
(WORLD, 5/31/2003)