Certainly, the managers of gaming establishments, seeing these addicts every day, understand what is going on. In Atlantic City, for instance, after pathological gamblers lose all their cash, empty their ATM accounts from the casino's teller machines, and can borrow no more, they walk outside the casinos to sell their jewelry and other valuables. Selling jewelry is such a big business in Atlantic City that there are about three dozen "Cash for Gold" stores near the entrances to Boardwalk casinos. How many tens of thousands of people must sell their valuables each year in order to keep these three dozen establishments in business? (You can get about $15 for a man's gold wedding ring.) Why don't the Atlantic City casinos try to help these miserable customers?
A simple answer was suggested in testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. The casinos don't want to stop gambling addiction because they can depend on addicts for a huge percentage of their profits. Prof. Earl Grinols presented evidence that pathological and problem gamblers, representing four percent of the adult population, may account for as much as 52% of an average casino's revenues. "In this respect," he noted, "casino gambling resembles alcohol, for which 6.7% of the population consumes 50% of all alcohol consumed."
When an industry literally is exploiting the mentally ill for profit, one might expect government to intervene. However, governments have become addicted to winning the money that addicted gamblers lose. This irony carves a strange political landscape.
Legalized gambling enriches a small group of entrepreneurs, as well as the government, but does very little for average citizens. So, when there is a proposal to expand gambling, it never is the result of a popular movement. Rather, it is driven by self-interested gambling pitchmen with high-priced lobbyists or by the government itself.
Over the years, individual citizens began to question whether this "free lunch" program rationally could achieve its promise. As the guarantees of economic prosperity evaporated, state and local groups spontaneously sprang up across the nation to oppose the further spread of gambling. In 1994, these varied grassroots citizen groups created the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. The members of NCALG span the entire political spectrum from very conservative to very liberal. The coalition encompasses business and labor, religious and secular, with activists in every state.
Predictably, the pro-gambling lobby attempts to marginalize the coalition by painting it as a religious, moralist group. If NCALG's opposition to gambling were based on personal morality, it would lose in the political arena. After all, a large majority of Americans gamble.
NCALG does not preach the immorality of gambling. Rather, it seeks to stop the expansion of legalized gambling on public policy grounds that it harms individuals, families, businesses, and society in general. Since 1994, these arguments have been enormously successful in the political arena.
Despite furious efforts by the gambling promoters, not one state legislature legalized casinos or slot machines in 1994, 1995, or 1996. Virginia provides a good illustration. In Richmond, over a dozen casino companies pushed to legalize riverboat gambling. They hired more than 50 lobbyists, bought newspaper ads, and even aired television commercials. While the casinos spent more than $800,000 on direct lobbying in Richmond and millions more on indirect lobbying across the state, thousands of citizens, armed with the facts, mobilized at the grassroots level against the casinos. When the smoke cleared, the gambling bill was crushed in the committee.
Similarly, efforts to legalize new gambling establishments by referendum have been beaten back. As the industry's weekly newsletter complained in November, 1995, "It was a tough election day once again for the gaming industry last Tuesday, as virtually every major gaming issue went down to defeat. The results mirrored the 1994 November elections..."
Solutions on the Horizon
On Aug. 3, 1996, Pres. Clinton signed H.R. 497, the National Gambling Impact and Policy Commission Act, which set up a nine-member Federal panel to investigate all facets of gambling in America. This law, sponsored by Rep. Frank Wolf (R.-Va.) and Senators Paul Simon (D.-III.) and Dick Lugar (R.-Ind.), gives the commission a two-year mandate and sweeping subpoena powers.
The National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling worked hard to win enactment of this law, while the casino industry, represented by their Washington-based lobbying organization, the American Gaming Association, fought the gambling commission tooth-and-nail. First, the AGA tried to kill the bill outright. When that proved impossible, they tried to strip the commission of subpoena powers. Although AGA president Frank Fahrenkopf, called the subpoena power "unwarranted," "an intrusion," and "unprecedented," anti-gambling forces prevailed. The commission was granted an unrestricted power to subpoena documents, research, and computer data from the industry.
A national study will not solve the gambling problem, but it could be a turning point for the public, much like the 1964 Surgeon General's report on the hazards of smoking. In the meantime, Federal, state, or local governments should:
- Stop authorizing new gambling establishments and the expansion of existing ones.
- Re-impose a complete ban on television and radio advertisements for gambling.
- Require warning labels on all print advertisements for gambling (like cigarette ads).
- Crack down on illegal casino gambling and sports betting available through the Internet.
- Limit the amounts that can be bet or lost by individuals within a reasonable time period.
- Ban loans by gambling establishments, prevent borrowing on credit cards for gambling stakes, and prohibit ATM machines near gambling sites.
Some of this may seem like strong medicine, but we are facing a very serious societal illness. In 1996, for the first time in decades, there was a real battle over gambling policy in Congress. Pro-gambling forces are trying to recapture momentum by arguing that gambling revenues are imperative to replace massive cuts in Federal aid to states.
In 1997, gambling proponents will focus on referenda and persuading legislatures to legalize or expand casino games in many states, including Alabama, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia.
This year will be a major test. Will America continue to ignore all the warning signs and continue to plunge down into the hole of legalized gambling, or will our nation see that it is time to start climbing out? Will we continue to belittle the epidemic of gambling addiction, or will we finally acknowledge that it has become a public health crisis that requires immediate attention? The stakes have grown alarmingly high.