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
This article from the Maryland Reporter details why the lower-income communities in Maryland play the Lottery disproportionately. For example, Park Heights, one of Maryland’s poorest neighborhoods with a median income of $35,000, gave the most money to the Lottery in the entire state- a whopping $34 million. A truck driver from Park Heights told the Reporter that, “We play to make some extra money… I want some extra money. We all do.” Lower-income communities disproportionately believe the path to wealth is the Lottery, not responsible saving and spending. However, with every Lottery ticket, as this article explains, residents only fall deeper and deeper into poverty.
Low-income players drive lottery sales as a big source of state revenues
This article from The Baltimore Sun summarizes the findings of a new study from Johns Hopkins University that concluded that disadvantaged youth have a higher propensity to become problem gamblers, due in part to their increased level of participation in betting on dice in the streets or betting on sports games, which serves as a gateway to more serious, problem gambling when they are allowed in a casino. These discoveries come on the heels of an increased casino and gambling presence in Maryland, where the study took place.
Disadvantaged urban youth may be more likely to be problem gamblers
This article from The Grio outlines why the casino industry in Atlantic City have proved a detriment, not an aid, to the African-American community in the city. For years, the city government has served the needs of the casinos in a desperate attempt to save their falling revenues, ignoring the city’s many African-American workers, and leaving them behind. Casinos came to the city because they were the supposed savior of the city’s financial problems, however the African-American community can attest that in its wake, the casino industry has decimated the city, leaving it on the financial respirator, and on its last limb.
A bus ride to a casino in the New York/Pennsylvania area is often accompanied by a free-slot play promotion, worth around $15-$45 of free play in a surrounding casino. This is meant to draw bus riders into the casinos, however, for some citizens like these poor New Yorkers, this is a way of life. Many citizens, desperately looking to make ends meet, spend their days riding casino buses for hours to collect free-slots play and often reselling the coupon for cash.
2014 Sands Bethlehem casino bus-hoppers beat odds using free money
Commercialized gambling is based on getting people to lose far more than they can afford. One common tactic is to get citizens to chase their losses. Casinos like Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun often lend gamblers money interest-free because they know the players will inevitably gamble away all the money back to the casino. Then the casinos demand to be paid back for the money they lent! It’s a state-sanctioned business practice, often ensnaring people’s homes.. These two articles from WPRI (RI) and The Boston Globe describe the situation.
2013 The big swindle- In lotteries, the poor are the biggest losers
This article from Deseret News details how seniors are affected by going to casinos. Seniors are often one of the most vulnerable groups to problem gambling, with some studies finding that up to 70% of seniors have gone to a casino in the past 12 months, with one in eleven having bet “more than he or she could comfortably afford to lose.” Once these seniors get sucked into a casino, many find themselves unable to leave until they have drained the savings on which they depend.
The Massachusetts Lottery is, what the author of this Boston Globe article calls, “a Robin Hood in reverse”. Like most lotteries, it generates the most profit from poorer communities, filled with impoverished people who feel the only way to get out of their dead-end situation is to get lucky on the lottery. However, these poor communities receive back in aid a fraction of what they put in through revenue, while richer towns enjoy much higher levels of aid than they contribute to the system.