For more than 25 years, the casino lobby has told the American people that casinos are the engine to help Native American tribes prosper. Now The Economist, the world’s leading international magazine, spotlights how casinos have actually made tribal members poorer.
2015 How cash from casinos makes Native Americans poorer
Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital found evidence that link pathological gambling to an increased likelihood of homelessness.
2014 Gambling addictions are nine times more likely among homeless
This study commissioned by the British Columbia Lottery Corporation shows a link between a parent’s gambling activity and their child’s attitude toward and participation in gambling.
“Youth who report that their parents have gambled in the past year have a significantly higher participation in various gambling activities than youth who report that their parents have not gambled in the past 12 months,” the paper stated.
An addictions psychiatrist Shao-Hua Lu says the expansion of casinos increases the risk of children becoming gamblers later on in life. According to Lu, the likelihood of a person developing a gambling problem as an adult is directly related to their parents’ gambling habits. “It’s no different from how increasing smoking exposure increases subsequent likelihood of smoking addiction.”
One of the many negative effects of the predatory marketing and addictive offerings used regional casinos is it leads ordinary citizens to commit gross acts of family neglect. Children left unattended in casino parking lots while an adult is inside gambling is a common example. This story from The Baltimore Sun reports on another form of family neglect: senior citizens being neglected by those charged with their care because of commercialized gambling.
A research team at the University of Waterloo has done extensive studies of the psychology of gambling including the manipulation of music and sound effects to create the sensation that a user won even though they actually lost their money on the spin.
2014 Quest to Legalize Sports Gambling Could Destroy Professional Athletics
This story by David Frum, former advisor to President George W. Bush and current Senior Editor with Atlantic Monthly, spotlights how casinos hurt local economies: “The towns and cities that turned to gambling to escape their problems may discover that they have accepted a sucker’s bet: local economies that look worse than ever, local residents tempted into new forms of self-destructive behavior, and a dwindling flow of cash to show for it all.”
The three casinos in the state of Delaware are about to put in motion the first phase of their online gambling operations, which will be run through Facebook. The first phase will include only free games but within months, these casinos hope to have up and running full-fledged casino games online, running through Facebook. Delaware is now the first state in the nation to have legal casino games online. These two articles, from the USA Today and Delaware Online, describe this development, which will allow problem gamblers to throw their money away from the comfort of their own couch and allow America’s kids to get sucked in through Facebook.
Delaware’s 3 casinos launch free online gaming
Delaware casinos’ online gambling will be run through Facebook
According to this story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “Casinos have long reaped profits from what can politely be described as plausible deniability when it comes to identifying the source of their large cash customers’ income.” Jennifer Shasky Calvery, director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), wants to put a stop to that. In a speech at the annual gambling trade show, G2E, Shaky Calvery called for a cultural change inside the casino business to root out and stop financial crimes, such as money laundering. This comes as an ominous warning for casinos, who often benefit from some shady deals.