Stop Predatory Gambling

Good intentions and predatory gambling money are mutually exclusive

by spgadmin

Yesterday, the Pittsburgh media ran a story how four charities accepted $34,000 each from the recently opened casino in that city. The charities were the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, Allegheny General Hospital and the Allegheny County World War II Veterans Memorial Fund.

There are hundreds of well-intentioned people who use the profits from predatory gambling to address other important public priorities but possess little understanding about the predatory gambling trade’s business model, how it violates America’s core democratic principle of equal citizenship and the major role the trade plays in trapping millions of Americans in debt.  If they did, they would be standing right alongside us.  

Because the way we raise money to pay for public needs says as much about our principles and values as the way we spend it.  It’s a conviction that Lighthouse Mission of New York, a nonprofit that helps feed the needy on Long Island, admirably displayed when it declined a six-figure donation because it originated from a lottery jackpot.

The mission, which feeds about 3,000 people a week, also counsels against gambling, and Pastor James Ryan, mission executive director, said it couldn’t in good faith accept a donation coming indirectly from lottery winnings despite a great need for funds.

“For me to be on one side of the table and say, ‘Nothing good comes from gambling; it destroys your family,’ and I convince them, and with God’s help they listen, and they are right on the cusp of putting it all together,” Ryan said. “And then I am holding up a state lottery check and saying, ‘We were blessed.’ It would cause people to stumble.”