Stop Predatory Gambling

Nothing sensible about the government program of predatory gambling

by spgadmin

A hospital nurse, curious about what tipped patients into suicidal crisis, prompted a screening program in an Australian hospital’s emergency department. The program’s findings are depressingly stark: problem gamblers made up almost one in five of the 898 suicidal patients seen by the hospital over six months last year. The figures show problem gamblers are over-represented in the crisis group – appearing at about 20 times the rate of problem gambling in the community. In addition, a growing proportion of this state’s electronic gambling machine revenue – a large body of research puts the figure at roughly half – comes from the serious gambling addiction of between 1 and 3 per cent of the population

Yet in a reflection of how little most opinion leaders around the world understand the issue, one newspaper’s editorial board recently described a plan to expand the government program of predatory gambling as “sensible.”

Unjust. Deceptive. Predatory. Addictive. These are the words that accurately describe casinos and lotteries. Sensible is not among them.