2017

What do children observe and learn from televised sports betting advertisements? A qualitative study among Australian children

This study in The Australian Journal of Public Health explored children’s awareness of sports betting advertising and how this advertising may influence children’s attitudes, product knowledge and desire to try sports betting.

Results: Children recalled in detail sports betting advertisements that they had seen, with humor the most engaging appeal strategy. They were also able to describe other specific appeal strategies and link these strategies to betting brands. Many children described how advertisements demonstrated how someone would place a bet, with some children recalling the detailed technical language associated with betting.

Conclusions: Children had detailed recall of sports betting advertisements and an extensive knowledge of sports betting products and terminology.

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Les BernalWhat do children observe and learn from televised sports betting advertisements? A qualitative study among Australian children
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Gamblers in Ohio have lost $9.7 billion over four years

Ohio citizens betting at the state’s four casinos, seven racinos at horse-race tracks, and the Ohio Lottery have lost $9.7 billion in the past four years, according to a Columbus Dispatch analysis. Including all major forms of legal gambling, nearly $62.9 billion was bet and $53.3 billion was won from 2012 to 2015.

While the winning percentage at casinos is very high — up to 90 percent of the money bet on slots — losses add up when so much money exchanges hands.

In calendar year 2015 alone, $535 million was lost on slot machines and $273 million on table games at Ohio casinos.

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Les BernalGamblers in Ohio have lost $9.7 billion over four years
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The ‘feminization of gambling’

Although men are by no means immune, most of the big stories about problem gambling in New Mexico have involved women since the legalization of slot machines and other casino gambling in the mid-1990s.

The issue can also affect the mom next door, and researchers in recent years have been looking deeper at female problem gambling as a result of what some call the “feminization of gambling.”

Female gamblers prefer nonstrategic forms of wagering, like slot machines, which have a fast pace of winning and losing that is associated with increased risk of problem gambling, researchers have found. And women can access the devices much easier today because of the explosion in legalized slot machine gambling in the United States and around the world.

Women develop gambling problems almost exclusively with slot machines, researchers say. Some men also develop an addiction to the devices, but research shows male problem gamblers typically branch out to wager on table games, races, sports and lotteries.

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Les BernalThe ‘feminization of gambling’
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Statewide Casino Expansion Could Be A Risky Bet

When it comes to its casino expansion initiative as a vehicle for economic prosperity, New York seems very eager to keep hitting. But it’s a gamble that, at the moment, doesn’t appear to be paying off.

Three new upstate commercial casinos opened this year: del Lago Resort and Casino in Waterloo; Rivers Casino and Resort in Schenectady; and Tioga Downs in the Southern Tier. All have failed to produce the amount of revenue that was initially predicted.

The three casinos are estimated to produce a combined $220 million less in revenue this year than they promised to state regulators when they won their bids to build the casinos three years ago. Del Lago has generated $113 million in gambling revenue in its first nine months, far short of its $263 million projection.

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Les BernalStatewide Casino Expansion Could Be A Risky Bet
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Why gambling is so prevalent in Minnesota’s Lao community

Throughout the decades Sunny Chanthanouvong has served his Lao community in Minnesota, he wanted to solve one widespread problem that has had crippling financial and social effects on many Lao-Americans: obsessive gambling.

As the executive director of the north Minneapolis-based Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota, Chanthanouvong has worked with people who lost their savings, jobs and children as a result of their addiction to gambling.

Those who succumbed to the addiction, said Chanthanouvong, included his relatives and close friends, who have lost young children to the child protection services after leaving them home alone for gambling.

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Les BernalWhy gambling is so prevalent in Minnesota’s Lao community
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Asian-American seniors riding casino buses not to gamble, but to make ends meet

WABC Eyewitness News in New York City found that many Asian-American on casino buses aren’t going to gamble, they’re there out of necessity. It’s about making a few bucks just to get by, and it’s happening seven days a week, as long as the buses are running.

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Les BernalAsian-American seniors riding casino buses not to gamble, but to make ends meet
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Offshore gambling firms take billions and Australian authorities cannot act

According to this excellent investigative reporting by Australia’s Herald Sun:

Billions of dollars are being bet on rugby league and other major sports using unregulated offshore gambling companies — and football bosses are ­helpless to stop it.

Government regulations aimed at illegal gambling and the threat it poses to the integrity of sport are “laughable”, according to insiders.

Racing Australia chief executive Peter McGauran said rugby league and other football codes were like “babes in the woods” as they battled overseas gambling interests.

The Philippines, Malta, ­Antigua and remote Alderney in the Channel Islands have become betting havens for punters wishing to outlay hundreds of thousands of dollars to escape detection by Australian regulators.

A leading racing figure, who asked not to be named, estimated $1 billion a year is bet overseas on Australian sports.

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Les BernalOffshore gambling firms take billions and Australian authorities cannot act
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Become a National Victims Advocate

National Victim Advocates are ordinary citizens who have been harmed by commercialized gambling, whether it be regional casinos, online gambling, commercialized sports betting, or state lotteries. Their life stories and lived experience provide them a powerful moral authority to speak out.

Predatory gambling is America’s most-neglected major problem. There is an urgent need for Victim Advocates to come forward to publicly demand no more taxation by exploitation and call for immediate and sweeping gambling reform.

The powerful stories of our Victim Advocates continue to persuade many people who heard their stories to take meaningful action for change.

Victim Advocates also give a powerful and compelling voice to all of those who have been severely harmed by the greed of gambling operators and considered expendable by their own state government officials.

Where we see the pain and agony of citizens who have been turned into addicted gamblers, and the immense suffering it causes loved ones and friends, many state officials merely see these individuals as nothing more than a “profit center” for “tax revenues.”

 

The Message of Victim Advocates

In delivering their message, our National Victim Advocates aim to focus on at least three specific points:

  • How the business practices of commercialized gambling cheats and exploits citizens;
  • How commercialized gambling extracts enormous personal wealth from ordinary Americans, leaving many in life-changing levels of personal debt, and how this financial devastation affects their future.
  • Issue a public call for commercialized gambling to be dramatically reformed in America, especially because we believe the life of every person has intrinsic value and no one is expendable.

Spreading the Message

Victim Advocates deliver this message to the public by:

  • Speaking at local civic and faith group meetings
  • Interviewing with media
  • Testifying before legislative and other governmental bodies
  • Appearing before college and high school audiences
  • Communicating through social media
  • Helping to recruit and mentor other citizens who have been harmed by this policy to go out and speak on behalf of this cause.

If you want to reveal the truth behind gambling operators to prevent more victims, become a Victim Advocate in your local region. Please contact us by email at mail[at]stoppredatorygambling.org or phone (202) 567-6996.

CkirbyBecome a National Victims Advocate
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Predatory Gambling Liability Project

Major lasting reform to improve the lives of the American people will require successful litigation against the major harms caused by commercialized gambling operators.

While changing the legal environment for most businesses can be accomplished through legislative and regulatory approaches, our government fails to protect citizens from the excesses of commercialized gambling. Why? Because both government and their corporate gambling partners profit so greatly at the expense of those being harmed. Much of the harm is inflicted by industry design. Government, with its primary focus on maximizing profits, is complicit.

Litigation offers the most promising means to change the legal environment. For this reason, we’ve been building a national network of talented attorneys from across the nation as part of our Predatory Gambling Liability Project. 

Litigation helps to denormalize harmful conduct and change the social and legal environment. Over time, denormalization of gambling industry practices will facilitate success in court. Even where cases are not immediately successful, social progress emerges through litigation, literally, by trial and error. Media attention about the issue and its predatory practices serves an important purpose in its own right.  Litigation also will help to encourage current or former industry insiders to come forward to share what they know in subsequent cases.

A variety of approaches are considered in developing successful lawsuits to change industry and government practices, to compensate victims for health and financial losses incurred due to the commercial gambling industry’s purposefully harmful and negligent conduct, and, where appropriate, to punish particularly egregious behaviors. Facts and theories supporting products liability, consumer protection, unjust enrichment, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, quo warranto, defective design, failure to warn, negligence, class actions, and other legal approaches to litigation must be researched, developed, and considered in a variety of jurisdictions.

For a national legal movement to stop predatory gambling to continue to grow, we need to add more financial resources and enlist additional attorneys.

Please make a generous gift today to sustain this legal work.

To participate in our legal network, please email us at mail[at]stoppredatorygambling.org

CkirbyPredatory Gambling Liability Project
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