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.
Focus
Music and sound effects contribute to why you keep losing at slot machines
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.
A good way to wreck a local economy…bring in casinos
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.”
Investigation shows property tax relief for PA homeowners is a “charade”
An Associated Press analysis of state Pennsylvania Education Department data shows that, despite the meteoric rise of Pennsylvania’s gambling industry, the casinos haven’t delivered enough revenue to put a significant dent in most homeowners’ tax bills. If anything, homeowners are feeling even more of a pinch now, 10 years after gambling proponents predicted that casinos would in the words of one lawmaker -“remove the stifling
saddle of high property taxes from the backs of Pennsylvania homeowners.”
Casinos get strong warning for perpetrating financial crimes
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.
Slots used to launder money from drug sales
This article from The Topeka Capital-Journal details the arrest of five Kansas residents after they used slot machines in Kansas City, Kansas to launder $200,000 from marijuana sales. According to the article, “The office of U.S. Attorney for Kansas Barry Grissom said Wednesday that investigations showed some members of the group would deposit large sums of money in small denominations into casino slots, cash out without playing and receive a voucher for the money deposited, then cash the voucher at ATM machines throughout the casino, getting their cash back in large denominations.” These residents have been indicted on 12 counts including money laundering and conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
New Ohio Lottery ad promotes the “fun” of scratch tickets
A recent $4.3 million ad campaign from the Ohio Lottery aims to show players how fun and exciting it is to play scratch tickets, even while making no implication as to whether the people in the commercial won anything. Scratch ticket sales in the US totaled $37.5 billion last year, disproportionately from poorer Americans who are playing these instant scratch tickets as a path to wealth. The fact is, even the Lottery realizes that these games are a poor and almost impossible way to achieve wealth, so these ad campaigns are looking to get players to play just for the instantaneous “buzz” or “high” people can get from these games, which, along with their money, is gone in seconds.
Ohio Lottery Trades the Promise of Riches for the Joy of Instant Gratification
Despite casinos’ poor economic record, Philadelphia pushes forward with second casino
Philadelphia is hoping to buoy the economic prospects of its Center City area with a second casino, despite the fact that the state’s first casino has failed to produce economic growth and despite the fact that time and again, casinos hurt, not help, urban economies. This opinion piece from Next City explains why more casinos won’t make their economic effects any less harmful. Philadelphia’s Center City needs a breath of new life but casinos will not and cannot provide it.
Architectural Gimmicks Can’t Make Casinos Safe Economic Bets
System to allow citizens to set spending and time limits on gambling machines abandoned
This article from the CBC News explains the Nova Scotian government’s recent decision to abandon its “My-Play system” where players, using a card to activate the machine, would be able to set spending and time limits on a VLT (video lottery terminal) and see their spending habits. Gambling interests argued that this system wasn’t working because people would use multiple cards- even despite a 2011 study that found that this system is effective. Gambling critics argue that this is the work of gambling interests upset about their bottom lines being hurt. The My-Play system has already been adopted and has been working quite effectively in places like Norway but now, just two years after the system as made mandatory, the system is gone and Nova Scotian gambling interests can continue to profit more and more from problem gamblers.
VLT cards that track gambling habits abandoned in Nova Scotia
The lower your income, the more likely you are to play the Lottery
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