Stop Predatory Gambling

An early review at ‘harm minimization’

Australia has been into government-sponsored machine gambling for decades, but unlike most US jurisdictions, the government units have made some efforts to study and look for ways to minimize harm to customers. (Government acknowledges it is harming it citizens, but… Read more

False thinking can ‘recruit’ addictive emotions

Luke Clark (2011) explains how faulty thinking helps trigger the brain’s pleasure centers, creating a cycle of harmful and sometimes addictive behavior in gamblers. Occasional wins, near misses, and machine environmental features all impact cognitive and emotional factors, Clark reports… Read more

Addiction: Morals or neurology?

Recent views of psychology have suggested conscious thought serves, at best, as an advisor to behavior (See Lehrer, 2010, How We Decide). Salesmen well know the impact of emotion over reason, and gambling enterprises an illicit drug dealers rely entirely… Read more

Duty of care from the casino side

Though written from a gambling industry bias, Kelly and Igelman (2009) examine some of the intriguing cases involving “duty of care.” Perhaps with the exception of undisclosed out-of-court settlements, casinos and other gambling businesses have largely avoided the setting of… Read more

Dissenting judge asserts casino “duty of care”

“It seems clear that both the casinos and the State of Indiana share a common interest in gamblers – pathological or otherwise—losing as much money as quickly as possible. One wonders if Indiana’s legislators—and more importantly, their constituents—have any qualms… Read more

Machine gambling faster track to addiction

In this hallmark study, Robert Breen and Mark Zimmerman (2002) demonstrate how much faster gamblers become addicted to machine gambling than more “traditional” modes of play. Their study, conducted from the Brown University School of Medicine, demonstrated development of pathological… Read more

New Shamelessly Exploitative California Lottery Ads

The California Lottery should pull down its new lottery advertising campaign “Believe” that includes imagery of the women’s suffrage movement and the fall of Communism. There is not a single act of California state government that creates more financial inequality… Read more

First-rate journalism exposing how the NY Lottery is a policy failure

Gannett’s Albany News Bureau published an outstanding analysis of the sham that is supposed to be the New York Lottery’s whole rationale for existing: to provide revenue of public education. Read the whole story here. Here’s just one of the… Read more

Even Casino Operators Admit There’s No Such Thing As a “Destination Casino Resort”

At a Philadelphia City Council hearing on February 7, 2013, Penn National Gaming’s Steven Snyder, Sr. Vice President for Corporate Development, admitted that no one from outside of Philadelphia would be coming to a city casino. Many journalists and elected… Read more

Why “The Good” hang in there in the fight against government-sponsored casinos

Below is one of the best pieces you’ll read about why good citizens fight against casinos. It was written by Ivor Tossell for Macleans Canada. Why the city shouldn’t dump its hopes down a black hole Try as it might… Read more

Like other states, how Florida’s experiment with gambling has failed

Randy Schultz,  Editor of the Editorial Page for The Palm Beach Post, writes a terrific piece about how Florida’s experiment with gambling has failed. Read it below: One of the worst things to happen in Florida happened 25 years ago… Read more

I’m Losing Money. So Why Do I Feel So Good?

The Sunday New York Times published an excellent piece by Randall Doss about slot machines and MIT’s Natasha Schull new book “Addiction By Design”: I’m Losing Money. So Why Do I Feel So Good? By RANDALL STROSS Published: January 12,… Read more

Internet casinos defeated in Congress

Last Tuesday, Stop Predatory Gambling released its Fact Sheet about the serious and powerful push underway by some in Congress to introduce “Facebook casinos” across the U.S. during its current lame duck session. Thank you to all of you of… Read more

America Doesn’t “Like” Facebook Casinos

Today, Stop Predatory Gambling released a Fact Sheet about the Reid-Kyl bill titled “America Doesn’t “Like” Facebook Casinos: Why the Federal Government Should Not Get into the Internet Casino Gambling Business.” You can download it here. There are at least… Read more

Government lottery tickets are now being sold at ATMs

Among the massive mountain of ever-growing evidence about how government’s experiment with gambling has failed, comes this latest avalanche from the Minnesota Lottery: citizens in that state can now buy lottery tickets at ATMs. As they take cash out of… Read more

Gambling away our cities

In an op-ed in Sunday’s New York Daily News, Richard Florida has a must-read story about the “casinoization” of American cities. Florida is director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, Global Research Professor at NYU and… Read more

The City of Toronto’s Board of Health votes 9-1 against proposed city casino

The City of Toronto’s Board of Health showed uncommon courage and integrity by voting 9-1 against its mayor’s push for a casino. Read the Toronto Sun story below. (you’ll find the full report here.) Toronto’s Board of Health is putting… Read more

Improving Chicago public schools includes ending the failed funding stream from the lottery

The Chicago Reporter has a a must-read piece by Alden Loury about how funding the public schools with lottery money undermines efforts to improve education, especially in the poorer neighborhoods who make up the bulk of lottery spending. Read it… Read more

Results of gambling-related state referendums from across U.S.

There were several gambling-related ballot questions decided on Election Day. Here is a summary of the results: Oregon Measure 82 The question to legalize new casinos was defeated 72% t0 28% Maryland Question 7 (which has been driven by over… Read more

Casinos aren’t much of a capitalist enterprise

There are some journalists in America who have consistently written powerfully and persuasively about how government’s experiment with gambling has failed. Paul McMorrow, an associate editor at CommonWealth magazine and frequent Boston Globe columnist, is one of them. McMorrow has… Read more

A New Generation of Leaders Takes On Government’s Predatory Gambling Program

New political leaders like Maryland Del. Heather Mizeur continue to emerge who are calling out government’s predatory gambling policy. It is one of the biggest policy failures of the last forty years and leaders like Mizeur will play a leading… Read more

SPG’s Les Bernal speaks about how government’s experiment with gambling has failed

I recently spoke about how government’s experiment with gambling has failed in a speech at Problem Gamblers Awareness Day held at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem, Oregon on September 28, 2012. Problem Gamblers Awareness Day (PGAD) was founded by… Read more

Lies and more lies about government and gambling

A great, must-read piece by Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University, making the case about how government’s experiment has failed in The Maryland Gazette: By Allan J. Lichtman Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson famously said in the campaign… Read more

The push for internet gambling is really about online casinos, not poker

A must-read editorial about the push for internet gambling by The Christian Science Monitor: Many lawmakers in Washington and a few states are eager to approve Internet gambling. But to make it politically palatable, they are first pushing only for… Read more

Does Maryland really want to be a pioneer on Internet gambling?

The Washington Post weighs in strongly against the Maryland casino push: BEFORE LAST TUESDAY no one in Maryland had seriously considered allowing online gambling in a state that is having a hard enough time establishing the five casinos that were… Read more

Government Casinos as the New Senior Citizen Center

The Atlantic has a must-read story by Amy Ziettlow, an affiliate scholar with the Institute for American Values. Read it below: Are we turning a blind eye to a government-sponsored movement that creates false community, drains money, and undermines dignity… Read more

Casino giant Genting is violating the spirit of Massachusetts lobbying laws

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and now The Miami Herald have all run high profile news reports exposing how Genting, the overseas multi-billion dollar casino operator behind the proposed casino agreement with the Mashpee Wampanoags, is literally… Read more

The government’s days of practicing gross exploitation through casinos and lotteries are numbered

Below is one of the very best columns ever written about how government’s partnership with gambling has failed. It was just published on July 15th and was written by Australian Senator Nick Xenophon. “Pokies” are the equivalent of slots in… Read more

“A Crackdown on Gambling, and a Push to Legalize It”

Clyde Haberman of The New York Times has a must-read column about the bizarre approach some public officials have on the issue of gambling. Read it below: Government at all levels has been known to say one thing and do… Read more

Financing government by exploiting “the weakness of the people”

Today, we share an excellent post by Ivan Zabilka of Kentucky. He writes: Yesterday a retired friend who is cleaning out his files gave me a little booklet called “The Moral Case Against Gambling,” written in 1965 by G. Bromley… Read more

Caesars casinos skips out on local property tax burden in Missouri

Children as young as 10 are battling serious gambling problems, a major study has revealed

While the United States continues to ignore its public health problem of gambling addiction, the first national study of the gambling habits of Australia’s youth has found a tenth of kids aged 10-14 fit definitions of ‘‘at-risk’’ or ‘‘problem’’ gamblers…. Read more

From Atlantic City to Cincinnati: government gambling is a revenue loser for states

From Citizens for Tax Justice:  New Jersey and Ohio don’t have much in common when it comes to their gambling indus­tries. New Jersey’s Atlantic City is home to a dozen different casinos, the oldest of which has been in oper­ation for over… Read more

Voices against predatory gambling echo around the world

HELENA Koch, the star of this new television commercial, has a message for the network executives who may try to ban it. ”Will you really stop me telling my story?” asked Ms Koch, whose partner was driven to suicide four… Read more

This American Life; 466: Blackjack

National Public Radio’s , This American Life , news segment aired on June 8, 2012 shares stories about the casino game everyone thinks they can beat. In one, a woman gambles away her inheritance and then sues the casino, saying they’re… Read more

Government allows slot machines to be “legally rigged” against its own citizens

Steve Siegel has a must-read piece analyzing the slot machine business model  in The Buffalo News. Read it below: All but the most brazenly optimistic gamblers entertain the possibility that they may lose money at a casino. Therefore, gamblers usually… Read more

UPDATED: Illinois Gambling Board Data Reveals State’s Casinos Have Created Far More Addicts Than Jobs

UPDATE:  We just received updated data from the Illinois Gaming Board: As of June 4, 2012, there are almost 20% more citizens on the self-exclusion list than jobs at the casinos. The total enrollment of citizens in the state’s voluntary… Read more

Gambling Addiction is Fastest Growing Addiction for Teens in 2012

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter exposes the state’s failed predatory gambling policy

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Monica Yant Kinney has consistently been a member of the small company of American journalists who have aggressively examined government’s policy of predatory gambling.  Below is another must-read Inquirer column she published recently: The Valley Forge Casino… Read more

It’s time states stopped the use of “free play” to entice citizens to gamble and allowing casinos to escape paying taxes

State governments continue to allow casino operators to offer free play to lure citizens into gambling. Today’s casinos use mail, phone and email solicitations to offer free slot machine play to citizens who have rarely been to a casino before,… Read more