Stop Predatory Gambling
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Newspaper blisters the sham of casino “responsible gambling” programs
After many years of watching government’s failed predatory gambling policy unfold in their state, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial unloads on the recent efforts by casinos to eliminate the last of Missouri’s precautionary operating restrictions: offering loans to gamblers. Here… Read more
The question that every Gambling Board official needs to answer…but hasn’t yet
As the Massachusetts Gambling Commission prepares to meet for the first time on Tuesday, the fundamental question they need to answer before going forward with any major decision is this: “How do you effectively regulate a money-making operation that in… Read more
“Gambling Addiction and Me” – The Documentary
Here is a new must-watch BBC documentary about the human impact of government’s gambling policy. Government’s partnership with gambling interests has created millions of new gambling addicts like those who appear in this film yet gambling addiction continues to receive… Read more
“We need to pretend we care…just long enough to get the casino bill passed”
Boston’s Fox 25 has an excellent report this morning about how states ultimately strip funding for problem gambling treatment even though grand promises were made to help the tens of thousands of new addicts created by government’s predatory gambling policy…. Read more
Former Addict: Online Casinos Run by New York, Other States Will Target Gambling Addicts
Former professional blackjack player Josh Axelrad writes an excellent piece in The Daily Beast about how the recent DOJ ruling allowing states to operate Internet gambling sites for profit will result in a system whose speed is stacked against compulsive… Read more
Casinos are fighting against efforts to reduce gambling addiction in Pennsylvania
Casinos like to declare they are “just like any other business” but they continually to defy efforts that treat them like any other business. In Pennsylvania, a grassroots push is underway that would require casinos to mail monthly statements to… Read more
How casino ATM vendors share “intelligence” with casinos
Because most legislators are not frequent gamblers like those citizens losing their money at casinos almost five times a week, they possess little understanding about the highly predatory practices involved with this failed public policy. Casinos like Caesars make 90%… Read more
Government creates addiction in order to feed off of it then breaks promise to fund help for the victims
From The Miami Herald’s Fred Grimm: It was the sop lawmakers tossed to Floridians apprehensive about the social effects of legalized gaming: Don’t worry. Some portion of these suckers’ losses will fund a prevention program for problem and pathological gambling…. Read more
Problem Gambling Awareness Day 2011
Julie Hynes, one of the organizers of Oregon’s Problem Gambling Awareness Day, posted this video of our speech at the State House in Salem, Oregon on September 29th. Hynes joined with Ronda Hatefi to honor Ronda’s brother Bobby (who killed… Read more
Government-created gambling addicts are not equal citizens
In the news video below, WPRI recently spotlighted how more than HALF the revenues from government’s casino program comes from citizens who have been turned into gambling addicts- citizens just like Sandy Hall who appears in this story. She lost… Read more
Solved that gambling problem? Well, come on back!
A must-read editorial from a major predatory gambling state about the sham which is “self-exclusion.” Thank you, St. Louis Post Dispatch, for shining a bright light on it. Here it is: In its wisdom, the Missouri Gaming Commission last week… Read more
Staring you right in the face
In yet another example of how predatory gambling operators and their government partners try to create the public impression they care about the citizens and their families they exploit, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation announced they will be installing… Read more
Why is predatory gambling considered a public health issue in other countries but not in the U.S.?
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation recently broadcast a segment titled “Gambling: a public health issue” featuring prominent public health experts speaking out about how problem gambling can cause mental illness and family breakdowns and is one of the most serious public… Read more
Why It’s Time to Disrupt the “Business as Usual” Approach to the Government Policy of Predatory Gambling
This MUST-READ report by Charles Livingstone and Richard Woolley provides what may be the best analysis about how almost 100% of the responsibility for problem gambling is placed on the backs of the afflicted citizens. Predatory gambling operators and the… Read more
“I would go to bed at night hoping the next day would be different … but it was never different.”
Sharon Oczkowski, a former bookkeeper at Eastern Star Home & Campus in Oriskany, New York, said in court Tuesday that the lure of gambling at the Turning Stone Resort Casino was too much for her, and she spent more than… Read more
A must-read new book about the policy of predatory gambling in America
Sam Skolnik, a former reporter with The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Las Vegas Sun, has written a must-read new book titled “High Stakes: The Rising Cost of America’s Gambling Addiction,” from Beacon Press. The article below is an excerpt from the… Read more
New film reveals how the failed policy of predatory gambling has impacted the black community
The Penn Program on Documentaries & the Law has produced a film examining gambling addiction and its effects on the African-American community in Philadelphia, weaving together interviews from community leaders, casino patrons and academics. Watch it below.
Why is the U.S. so far behind on “harm minimization” policies?
In his excellent series this week on the technology behind slot machines, John Mangels of the Cleveland Plain Dealer points out that many countries are enacting policies that minimize the harm that casinos and slots inevitably cause to individuals and… Read more
Another major U.S. media outlet exposes the failed government policy of predatory gambling
Following on the heels of the 60 Minutes investigation into slot machines that aired in January, The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Science Writer John Mangels publishes his investigative series into predatory gambling this week appropriately titled “Game of Trance.” The quality… Read more
Area of brain that predatory gambling operators exploit found by Caltech researchers
Caltech researchers say they have discovered the exact location in a human brain that influences a gambler’s belief that a payoff is “due,” it was reported Saturday. The study, done by a Caltech professor in Ireland, shows that wagers made… Read more
Prove that slot machines and casinos are safe to be promoted to the public
Below is testimony I submitted at yesterday’s casino hearing in Massachusetts: Good morning, my name is Les Bernal and I’m the Executive Director of Stop Predatory Gambling, a national organization based in Washington DC, and our mission is to end… Read more
“Keep It Fun”….because our profits depend on these problem gamblers
Steve Friess has a first-rate, must-read opinion piece in The Las Vegas Sun about how the big predatory gambling interests give lip service to the issue of problem gambling. Research shows more than 60% of casino profits comes from problem… Read more
Gambling Problems More Common Now than Drinking Problems
In a study published in this month’s Journal of Gambling Studies, gambling problems were discovered to be more common than alcohol problems among adults in the U.S. Dr. John Welte, a national expert on alcohol and gambling pathology at the… Read more
Government’s biggest dirty secret
The Philadelphia City Paper’s Isaiah Thompson writes another excellent column this week about casinos, this time about the recent hearing on a bill that would allow the revoked Foxwoods Casino license to be re-bid statewide. Thompson writes: “Less cunning was… Read more
Make the casinos return the stolen money
The government program of predatory gambling can now add several more names to its continually expanding list of victims. A longtime bookkeeper for a small Chicago machinery company has been charged with embezzling more than $1.5 million from the business… Read more
No One Should Stand Alone
Oregon, a state with a very aggressive predatory gambling program, recently recognized Problem Gambling Awareness Day. It was the result of effective advocacy by Oregon citizens standing up for those who have been victimized by this government program. The activities of… Read more
Predatory Gambling Victim Needs Our Help Today
SPG Foundation Executive Director Les Bernal just returned from visiting Arelia Taveras in a New York jail. Arelia was once a highly-successful attorney who became a gambling addict – in the language of the casinos she was “played to extinction” –… Read more
The government program that considers Asian-Americans expendable
Philadelphia community leader Helen Gym writes a must-read column on her Young Philly politics blog. Read it below and consider how the government program of predatory gambling squares with America’s core democratic principles: Remember how Chinatown made that big ole fuss… Read more
“Gambling-addicted governments enslaving others”
A must-read column today by Susan Martinuk of The Calgary Herald. Read it below: Most of us don’t wake up each morning wondering what we can do to lose a lot of money today. But, apparently, a growing proportion of Canadians do and,… Read more
Indiana Supreme Court Exempts Casinos from State Common Law
Yesterday the Indiana Supreme Court ruled against a woman who said a riverboat preyed on her gambling addiction. Jenny Kephart of Nashville, Tenn., filed a lawsuit against Caesars Indiana in 2007 after the Ohio River casino near Louisville, Ky., sued… Read more
Sooners are getting swindled
In a news story that reads like a press release written by casino interests, The Oklahoman reports that state revenues from Indian gambling have soared in recent years, largely due to the success of casinos operated by the Chickasaw, Choctaw… Read more
Tax collector becomes another victim of “voluntary taxation”
The Philadelphia Inquirer has a somber story about Michael O’Neill, a local tax collector who embezzled $225,000 to feed a gambling addiction at the Parx Casino just outside of Philadelphia. Many public officials defend the government program of predatory gambling… Read more
The next story that needs to be written
The Erie Times (PA) has a report about a local man who was denied a $2001 jackpot at Presque Isle Downs & Casino because he put himself on the state’s self-exclusion list. He now faces a summary criminal trespass charge…. Read more
Why does our government consider this man less equal?
A Massachusetts firefighter/paramedic was arrested for embezzling $46,000 from his labor union’s bank account to feed a gambling addiction at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. As the 35-year old firefighter was arraigned in court, the defendant’s elderly father watched from the… Read more
Nothing sensible about the government program of predatory gambling
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… Read more
There are no snow days in this government program
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Monica Yant Kinney writes a first-class story exposing the most predatory business in America. Here are a couple of the most remarkable excerpts in which she quotes the President of the former Philadelphia Park racetrack now known… Read more
The Expendable Americans
The government program of predatory gambling is dependent on addicted or heavily-indebted citizens. Predatory gambling operators attempt to elude charges of exploitation by pleading it is a “voluntary” act, hiding under the cloak of “freedom.” But by definition, someone who… Read more
Another victim of predatory gambling speaks out
Kent Glowinski, an attorney and former gambling addict, speaks out against the government program of predatory gambling. Glowinski rightly argues that government is unwilling to aggressively stop the predatory business practices used by casinos because it depends on the revenue…. Read more
Casino lets man gamble and lose for 23 hours straight
Yesterday in Massachusetts a top executive of the Mohegan Sun Casino helped release recommendations for dealing with problem gamblers if casinos are legalized in the Bay State. For public relations purposes, casinos spend tens of millions of dollars trying to… Read more
The Swindle Flu
Workers are sanitizing Harrah’s Cherokee (NC) Casino after 200 people became ill at the facility. Officials at the casino said that those 200 people, which include both guests and employees, reported nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The Jackson County Health Department… Read more
Predatory gambling transforms 7th grade English teacher into Jesse James
A 49-year-old seventh grade English teacher in New Hampshire was arrested last week for robbing two banks in Massachusetts and one in Connecticut, walking away with as much as $3,000, police charge. After robbing the bank in Plainfield, Conn., she… Read more
NBA Commissioner misses big on predatory gambling comment
NBA Commissioner David Stern said in this Sports Illustrated interview that he is open to legalized betting on professional basketball games.It’s bad for the game of basketball and it’s bad for America. The casual bettor is not relevant to these… Read more
Lottery items belong next to other examples of injustice from American history
The Kentucky Historical Society is adding some early items of the 20-year-old Kentucky Lottery to its collection. Here is an excerpt from the Louisville Courier Journal story: “We are trying to be pro-active in collecting materials that people see today… Read more
The Oregon Lottery is addicted to addicted gamblers
According to a news report by The Oregonian, a major newspaper in the state, more than half the money the Oregon Lottery collects from video gambling — about $375 million last year — comes from a small number of Oregonians,… Read more
The new story line about the predatory gambling trade in America
The Massachusetts Legislature held a public hearing on casinos last week and not one of the gambling operators who testified denied that their business model, their product or their marketing was predatory. 1) They did not deny that casinos earn… Read more
The government program that profits from addicted and heavily indebted people
The Tennessee lottery is attempting to add the Mega Millions game to its lineup and will vote next Monday on the proposal. Rebecca Hargrove, CEO and president of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corp. said new innovations aren’t a reaction to… Read more
One of the most revealing reports about the predatory gambling trade you will ever read
Jim Rubens, leader of New Hampshire’s No Slots effort, distributed an excellent email summary of a must-read report released October 21. Here’s an excerpt from his email: Video slot machines became pervasive across almost the entire Australian nation by 1995…. Read more
Betraying the promise of America
A newly released report from the Nebraska Gamblers Assistance Program lists the average gambling debt of 250 people who sought gambling-treatment services in the last fiscal year at nearly $27,000. Most of the debt came as a result of citizens… Read more
Why not really measure public opinion on predatory gambling?
I wrote a brief post on a state blog yesterday which is relevant to every state debating predatory gambling. When the media polls the issue of predatory gambling, the polling question is nearly always oversimplified or mischaracterizes the position of… Read more