Researchers now believe that the very data casinos use to track customers betting habits can be used as a tool to reduce the problem of gambling addiction. Addiction scientists can use customer tracking information to create computerized models to spot and warn people with high risk profiles. But the reality is, it is merely window dressing, with casinos having little incentive to intervene with their most lucrative customers.
2013 Researchers Bet Casino Data Can Identify Gambling Addicts
A key study found academic research into gambling heavily biased, controlled by industry and government. Gambling researchers maintain funding by producing research that is safe, uncritical and reliably delivered. What is lacking is the asking of the uncomfortable questions and hearing even more uncomfortable answers, something the government nor gambling industry are inclined to do.
2014 He who pays the piper calls the tune- gambling with research
Casinos spend tens millions on marketing incentives for the over-55 crowd, from buffets and wheelchairs to having a supply of adult diapers on hand and even an in-house pharmacy. As casino gambling continues to spread, we face a future of more addicted, broke, lifeless seniors. Amy Ziettlow examines whether the casino environment for these seniors is a mindful connection or mindless escape.
2013 Seniors and Casinos by Amy Ziettlow
With state legislatures across the country considering legalized gambling expansion, the need for unbiased research is crucial. While other fields, such as alcohol or tobacco rely on academia for fact-based evidence, many gambling researchers remain beholden to industry funding, resulting in flawed and influenced findings. The research produced by independent studies, while likely more valid, may be perceived as incomplete or inferior due to lack of funds and access to data.
How casinos are layed out, from the positioning of the tables, down to the lighting and carpet patterns, is no accident. But nothing is more directly related to end-of-the day profits than the strategy of the carefully placed slot machine. With slot revenue now accounting for 85% of profits, the slot machines of today are continuous and uninterrupted, allowing for minimal effort on the players part resulting in maximum financial loss.
2014 Slot-machine science How casinos get you to spend more money
The U.S. Treasury Department is urging casinos to take steps to combat money laundering in their sports books. Regulators and law enforcement authorities are concerned by intelligence suggesting that criminals are making bets with legal sports book operations, using intermediaries, or “runners,” to place bets, the Treasury bureau said.
“In these cases, the intermediaries rarely voluntarily disclose to the casino that a transaction is being conducted on behalf of a third party, thereby disguising the third party’s role in the transaction and obscuring the source of funds used to place the bet. This poses distinct money laundering risks for casinos,” FinCEN said in the letter.
Sports gambling is legal in only four U.S. states including Nevada. However, illegal sports betting operations around the world, including online outfits, sometimes offset bets they receive by placing casino wagers, law enforcement sources told Thomson Reuters.
Runners have been known to loiter at casinos, keeping numerous mobile phones and tablets near them to receive orders from illegal gambling rings.
The letter reminds casinos that the Bank Secrecy Act requires them to ask gamblers whether their bets are for themselves, and to report any wagers for third parties as suspicious activity.
Gambling Watch UK confirmed that recent research, focusing on problem play and problem players rather than on problem products, was conducted by companies having a history of contracts with the gambling industry. Research conclusions were purposely complicated and muddled, resulting in lack of any corrective action and sustaining the status quo.
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.”