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How Leaders Went After Businesses That Used Fraud to Exploit Citizens
The U.S. has a lottery problem. But it’s not the people buying tickets.
From The Washington Post:
Despite their role in increasing economic inequality, lotteries remain remarkably popular in the United States, as millions of players believe in the distant chance that a lucky gamble will change their life. In 2014, annual sales reached over $70 billion, and Americans spent more on lottery tickets per year than they spent on books, sports tickets, music, video games and movie tickets combined.
The United States has a lottery problem, but it runs much deeper than players duped by a “stupid tax.” Public officials need to address the nation’s lottery addiction. When they do so, however, they need to consider not only the root causes of lotteries’ popularity — for example, declining access to social mobility and the concentration of lottery outlets in poor neighborhoods — but also the beliefs about taxes and state revenue that ushered in lottery legislation in the first place.
Judge lets suit continue vs casino tech biz Scientific Games over patent fraud, antitrust claims
A federal judge has denied a request made by Scientific Games Corporation and its subsidiary Bally Technologies Inc. and Bally Gaming Inc. to fold up the sole remaining count in a competitor’s antitrust lawsuit over casino card shuffling technology.
U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly handed down the opinion on Sept. 1,2017 holding the plaintiffs provided sufficient evidence that Las Vegas-based Scientific Games may have acted fraudulently.
Scientific Games is accused by rival Shuffle Tech International LLC and its subsidiaries, Aces Up Gaming Inc. and Poydras-Talrick LLC, of misusing patents for an automatic card shuffling device to stifle competition
In System With Little Oversight, Connecticut’s Biggest Lottery Winners Often Pay Huge Price
Lottery players in Connecticut spend millions on tickets every day, most chasing a once-in-a-lifetime dream that never comes. But a handful of big winners show up again and again, seemingly beating astronomical odds to rack up dozens, even hundreds of sizable payouts.
A first-ever analysis of lottery winnings dating back to mid-1998, conducted by The Courant in collaboration with students at the Columbia School of Journalism, found 57 people who have won $1,000 or more at least 50 times. A dozen have won that much at least 100 times.
For those in Connecticut who have beaten the odds an extraordinary number of times, chances are most of them have spent far more on tickets than they have won.
New York’s Bet on New Casinos Has Yet to Hit Jackpot
This was to be a year of celebration for New York’s booming gambling industry, with gleaming new casinos opening, rapturous bettors flocking in and a win-win for the state, and a torrent of new taxes pouring into government coffers at no cost to anyone but the bettors themselves.
But like casinos — where glitter often hides the grime — the reality has been far less glamorous, with underwhelming returns, evidence of industry cannibalization and a new, sharp-edged conflict between the state and a major tribal gambling operation.
Massachusetts slashes problem gambling services funding by 17 percent
When corporate gambling interests and state officials lobbied for government-sanctioned casinos in the state, they told the public that problem gambling services would be fully funded. Just a few years later, the state is slashing problem gambling services funding by almost 20 percent.
Amid state takeover, bond agency designates negative outlook for Atlantic City
Moody’s Investors Service issued a May 2017 report on Atlantic City that kept the city’s general-obligation bond rating at Caa3 but revised the outlook to positive from negative.
The ratings company believes the state intervention has had a positive effect on the city, but it remains concerned about the city’s continued reliance on the casino industry and high debt burden.
New Illinois Report: Increased access to video gambling leads to to rise in violent and property crimes in Chicago
An academic paper written by PhD candidates at the University of Illinois took a closer look at the expansion of video gambling machines in the state and their relation to crime.
According to the paper, “increased access to video gambling leads to a statistically significant rise in violent and property crimes in Chicago.”
More from the paper:
On average, being near at least one video gambling establishment is associated with a 7.5% and 6.7% increase in violent and property crime. These estimates control for potential confounders, including access to riverboat casinos, community area specific trends, and demographic controls. Reassuringly, these effects are strongest in the block groups closest to video gambling establishments. The effects decrease as gambling access declines, becoming zero after moving three census block groups away, and remaining at zero thereafter.
Gambling Away Our Moral Capital By William Galston and David Wasserman
This essay ran in The Public Interest in 1996. It remains one of the most persuasive about the ways in which state-sanctioned gambling severely damages American society and worsens people’s lives.