North Carolina Lottery Violates its Own State’s Lottery Advertising Laws

When North Carolina introduced the lottery in 2005, it put in a measure that officials thought would prevent it from exploiting people with gambling addiction. A law was passed forbidding the the agency to advertise the lottery in a way that would entice people to play. However, the North Carolina Lottery has disregarded this law.

What is North Carolina After? Bucks, bucks, bucks!

LesNorth Carolina Lottery Violates its Own State’s Lottery Advertising Laws
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Sweepstakes Cafes Popping Up in North Carolina’s Low-Income Neighborhoods

This February 2010 article from North Carolina’s Independent Weekly highlights the fact that sweepstakes cafes are flourishing in the state – particularly in low-income and minority neighborhoods.

Sweepstakes Cafes – Coming to Your Low-Income Neighborhood

CkirbySweepstakes Cafes Popping Up in North Carolina’s Low-Income Neighborhoods
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Taylor Branch Speech at the Stop Predatory Gambling National Convention

This is a video featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch at Stop Predatory Gambling’s 2008 National Convention in Washington, D.C. He begins to specifically address the issue of government-sanctioned predatory gambling after the 6:00 mark. Daniel Hunter of Casino Free Philadelphia was invited to introduce Branch.

 

LesTaylor Branch Speech at the Stop Predatory Gambling National Convention
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Sleep-Deprived Citizens Are a Lucrative Profit Center for Gambling Operators

In this study, researchers at Duke University Medical School found that sleep-deprived individuals tended to make choices that emphasized monetary gain and were less likely to make choices that reduced financial loss. Sleep deprivation can also change the way the brain assesses economic value. Finally, the study also demonstrates that sleep deprivation increases sensitivity to positive rewards while diminishing sensitivity to negative consequences.

Sleep Deprivation Biases the Neural Mechanisms Underlying Economic Preferences

CkirbySleep-Deprived Citizens Are a Lucrative Profit Center for Gambling Operators
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The Ugly Carpets Inside Casinos are Hideously Clever Social Engineering at Work

This article from Gizmodo.com discusses the interesting designs of casino carpets and how they may be designed to be purposely distracting to keep people gambling. Others believe they are deliberately designed “to obscure and camouflage gambling chips that have fallen onto the floor. The casinos sweep up a huge number of these every night. So the carpets are just another source of revenue.”

The Ugly Carpets of Vegas are Hideously Clever Social Engineering at Work

CkirbyThe Ugly Carpets Inside Casinos are Hideously Clever Social Engineering at Work
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Public Health Leader Calls on Rhode Island Not to Create Even More Gambling Addicts

Dr. Bob Breen, a psychiatrist from Rhode Island Hospital, wrote a letter in March 2011 to Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee explaining that 50% of the state’s gambling revenue comes from addicts and warning that allowing table games would create 1,000 to 2,250 new addicts.

Bob Breen Letter to RI Governor Chafee

CkirbyPublic Health Leader Calls on Rhode Island Not to Create Even More Gambling Addicts
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Taylor Branch on Democracy and Government-Sanctioned Gambling

Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the Civil Rights Movement and biographer of Martin Luther King, lays out why the government policy of predatory gambling undermines the core democratic principles our nation was founded on: “State-sponsored predatory gambling is essentially a corruption of democracy because it violates the most basic premises that make democracy unique: that you can be self-governing, you can be honest and open about your disagreements as well as your agreements, and that you trust other people that you are in this together. That’s what a compact of citizens is. And the first-step away from it is to play each other for suckers. We’re going to trick them into thinking they are going to get rich but they are really going to be paying my taxes.”

The first document below is a opinion piece written by Branch for the Baltimore Sun in 2004. The second item is a feature story on Branch’s activism that appeared in the Sun in 2008.

Taylor Branch – Slots and Democracy

Taylor Branch – Slots Foes Bag a Literary Lion

CkirbyTaylor Branch on Democracy and Government-Sanctioned Gambling
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