Investigative Journalism
How Casino Operators Use Bogus Research to Stay Rich
Journalists Reveal How Casinos are Complicit in Money Laundering
Inspired by a criminal case of money laundering in Ontario, CBC investigative journalists used $30,000 to see if they could launder it through two B.C different casinos. They were able to convert $24,000 into “clean money,” an 80 per cent “success” rate.
How the gambling industry preys on senior citizens
According to this article from Salon, seniors are the fastest growing population of gamblers. They are gambling away their income, their savings, and their chance for a secure future. When they lose, they can’t make it up or start over. It’s a no-win game, driven by a greedy industry united in unholy alliance with policy makers and politicians who turn a blind eye to the social and economic costs of gambling.
When dementia affects the frontal lobe of the brain, a person may lose inhibitions, and this sometimes translates into a gambling compulsion. A person with this type of dementia might seem perfectly fine on the surface and even perform normally on standard neuropsychological tasks, so the situation goes undetected
How California Lawmakers Goosed Jackpots To Create Record-Setting Lottery Sales
As California Lottery ticket sales have skyrocketed, California schools aren’t seeing much of a return on that investment. A KPCC/LAist investigation found contributions to education by the lottery are essentially unchanged from 12 years ago, even though revenues are up by billions.
“It’s toilet paper money,” said Mona Field, who writes a textbook on government and served on the Los Angeles Community College District board for four terms. “It really has always been a tiny, tiny percent of our education funding in California.”
Gamblers in Ohio have lost $9.7 billion over four years
Ohio citizens betting at the state’s four casinos, seven racinos at horse-race tracks, and the Ohio Lottery have lost $9.7 billion in the past four years, according to a Columbus Dispatch analysis. Including all major forms of legal gambling, nearly $62.9 billion was bet and $53.3 billion was won from 2012 to 2015.
While the winning percentage at casinos is very high — up to 90 percent of the money bet on slots — losses add up when so much money exchanges hands.
In calendar year 2015 alone, $535 million was lost on slot machines and $273 million on table games at Ohio casinos.
The ‘feminization of gambling’
Although men are by no means immune, most of the big stories about problem gambling in New Mexico have involved women since the legalization of slot machines and other casino gambling in the mid-1990s.
The issue can also affect the mom next door, and researchers in recent years have been looking deeper at female problem gambling as a result of what some call the “feminization of gambling.”
Female gamblers prefer nonstrategic forms of wagering, like slot machines, which have a fast pace of winning and losing that is associated with increased risk of problem gambling, researchers have found. And women can access the devices much easier today because of the explosion in legalized slot machine gambling in the United States and around the world.
Women develop gambling problems almost exclusively with slot machines, researchers say. Some men also develop an addiction to the devices, but research shows male problem gamblers typically branch out to wager on table games, races, sports and lotteries.
Statewide Casino Expansion Could Be A Risky Bet
When it comes to its casino expansion initiative as a vehicle for economic prosperity, New York seems very eager to keep hitting. But it’s a gamble that, at the moment, doesn’t appear to be paying off.
Three new upstate commercial casinos opened this year: del Lago Resort and Casino in Waterloo; Rivers Casino and Resort in Schenectady; and Tioga Downs in the Southern Tier. All have failed to produce the amount of revenue that was initially predicted.
The three casinos are estimated to produce a combined $220 million less in revenue this year than they promised to state regulators when they won their bids to build the casinos three years ago. Del Lago has generated $113 million in gambling revenue in its first nine months, far short of its $263 million projection.
Why gambling is so prevalent in Minnesota’s Lao community
Throughout the decades Sunny Chanthanouvong has served his Lao community in Minnesota, he wanted to solve one widespread problem that has had crippling financial and social effects on many Lao-Americans: obsessive gambling.
As the executive director of the north Minneapolis-based Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota, Chanthanouvong has worked with people who lost their savings, jobs and children as a result of their addiction to gambling.
Those who succumbed to the addiction, said Chanthanouvong, included his relatives and close friends, who have lost young children to the child protection services after leaving them home alone for gambling.
Asian-American seniors riding casino buses not to gamble, but to make ends meet
WABC Eyewitness News in New York City found that many Asian-American on casino buses aren’t going to gamble, they’re there out of necessity. It’s about making a few bucks just to get by, and it’s happening seven days a week, as long as the buses are running.