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.
Form of Government-Sanctioned Gambling
7% of Wisconsin Residents Are Now Addicted Gamblers
According to the Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling, 7% of the state’s population are now problem gamblers.
Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling – 1.12.11 Press Release
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.
One of the world’s largest accounting firms finds that gambling was the most common motivator of fraud
This 2009 Australian report from KPMG (one of the world’s largest accounting firms) finds that gambling was the most common motivator of fraud with an average value of $1.1 million per incident.
FBI Letter on the Threats Posed By Internet Gambling
Below is a 2009 letter from the F.B.I.’s Cyber Division with responses to questions about internet gambling from the Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee. The letter includes statements that technology currently exists to both manipulate online gambling and to illicitly launder money through online gambling. Serious questions are also raised about the claims that online vendors could accurately validate the age of players.
Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling
The online gambling world is faced with a menace: poker bots. These are robots that have been programmed to play poker and beat the odds – and people are racking up debt because of them.
Study spotlights how the Lottery exploits ordinary citizens in California
In 2007, the California Budget Project reported on the possible privatization of the state lottery. It reported that the poor, non-white, urban and less educated spend a higher portion of their income on the lottery than other demographics.
Gamblers Stealing Millions to Feed Habit
A private investigative report in Australia found that millions of dollars were being stolen because of the rising numbers of problem gamblers in the country. This includes $13 million of stolen money lost in slot machines or “pokies.”
Sydney Morning Herald – Gamblers Stealing Millions to Feed Habit
Gambling Problems More Common than Drinking Problems
In a study published in Journal of Gambling Studies, gambling problems were discovered to be more common than alcohol problems among adults in the U.S. Dr. John Welte, a national expert on alcohol and gambling pathology at the University of Buffalo, also concluded that problem gambling increases in frequency during adolescence and reaches its highest levels during the 20s and 30s.
Money From Slots Has Done Nothing to Improve Horse Racing
This Washington Post story spotlights how slot money has been used to simply prop up tracks that have virtually no fan base and couldn’t exist on their own merits. When slots were legalized, the machines proved to be so lucrative many track owners lost interest in the sport and viewed it as a nuisance. They made no effort to improve the game or attract new fans; slot players are more profitable customers.
While the money has benefited owners, trainers and breeders, it has done nothing to popularize or improve horse racing. On the contrary, it has hurt the sport in some ways. At a time when almost every track is suffering from a shortage of thoroughbreds, the horses who go to slot-subsidized tracks could be running at viable tracks, helping them to offer a better product, instead of racing in a place where almost nobody watches them.
2012 Money from slots has done nothing to improve horse racing