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Gaming
Commission is Wrong
by David P. Smith, M.D.
I read with interest an
editorial recently in the McComb Enterprise-Journal entitled “End the
charade on casino ‘boats’” and am glad to see it recognized that it is a
charade the way the casino industry has pushed the law to the limit in the
construction of the casinos. What
was disappointing about the editorial was the decision by the editorialist to
support the Gaming Commission’s decision to recommend that lawmakers now allow
the gambling business owners to build their casinos on land next to the water
instead of the floating barges which I’m glad only last fifteen years.
All of this started with people considering a state lottery and there has
been a slow encroachment of gambling since then.
Now we’re being asked to accept one more small change that doesn’t
seem too major unless one looks at how far this has come since it started.
The old analogy of how the frog will stay in the pot and then be boiled
if the heat is very slowly raised applies here.
One might ask why the casinos
weren’t allowed to build permanent facilities in the beginning.
It certainly wasn’t due to ignorance.
The reason is that the lawmakers knew that it would be less likely to
become law if there was a sense of permanence about the casinos coming here.
There was rationalizing among those who thought allowing casinos here
would solve all the state’s financial problems.
We were all told about how education would benefit so greatly from the
extra money. On and on the gambling
proponents presented excuses to help people rationalize.
It’s a shame to see how many times people get themselves in trouble
trying to flirt with something that they know they shouldn’t have even touched
in the beginning. It’s good to see
that some politicians in the state have refused any funds that would be given by
the gambling businesses. I would
encourage people to find out which candidates are accepting campaign money from
the gamblers.
I’m glad to see that other
states have abandoned their plans for casinos after seeing that the
“Mississippi Miracle” is nothing more than hot air.
This “miracle” of how the state’s unemployment rate declined from
8.2 percent in 1992 to 4.8 percent in 1998 was touted by a lot of people who
didn’t take the time to realize that the national unemployment rate declined
from 7.5 to 4.1 percent in that same period; this is the same rate of decline
and no “miracle” at all. We
continually hear now that there isn’t enough money in the state treasury and
that we should be expecting a tax increase next year.
This last legislative session’s politicians decided to address these
plans after the election this fall.
This isn’t responsible leadership in any sense.
It also isn’t the right kind of leadership to recommend that we go
ahead and make the casinos even more permanent than they are.
It would be interesting to know which bureaucrats are supporting the
current recommendations. Several of
these folks left their state jobs and got very high paying jobs in the gambling
businesses after gambling was allowed to start infesting the state.
What happened to all those
predictions of how good the casinos would be for the state economy?
Where is the money now? The
entire state population would be wise to read the National Gambling Impact Study
Commission (NGISC) Report and one can also refer to www.casinowatch.org
for information on the real effects of casinos and gambling.
Even the Enterprise-Journal reported
on Sunday about all the embezzlement cases in the area and these crimes have
become much more frequent. Dr.
Valerie Lorenz treats compulsive gamblers and reports that these people are
responsible for $80 billion stolen
directly or indirectly from employees with embezzlements or lost work time and
work productivity. Has anyone
noticed the proliferation of various quick cash businesses all over the state
and especially around the casinos? With
a Harvard study estimating that 15.4 million Americans are already suffering
from problem and pathological gambling, is it any wonder why there are more
bankruptcies, broken families, and criminal charges from employers?
All of these problems are a cost to everyone ultimately.
Money that is spent at casinos is money that is not spent at other local
businesses and it usually comes from those who can least afford it.
Has anyone thought about the possibility that the state’s current
economic problems are actually significantly caused by gambling? The
state had a lot of extra money right after gambling started before the
devastation has mounted; the balance has now tilted and the state will continue
to suffer from the effects of gambling. Professor
John Kindt of the
University
of
Illinois
has stated that for every $1 in tax revenue that gambling raises, it creates $3
in costs to handle economic disruption, compulsive gambling and crime.
Allow me to share a few other
interesting facts out of the multitude
available on the devastation that gambling causes.
Barry Durman, the director of the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, noted in
written testimony before the NGISC in 1998, that at least 22 percent of the
homeless served by the
Mission
say gambling is the cause of their homelessness.
This same figure is 33 percent in a survey of
Chicago
area shelters. In
Harrison County
,
Mississippi
, one shelter had a 300 percent increase in the number of requests for domestic
abuse intervention after the arrival of casinos.
Gambling was reported as a contributing factor in a substantial portion
of the women seeking refuge. The
National Research Council reported on two studies that indicated between 10 and
17 percent of children of compulsive gamblers had been abused.
I wonder what the newly formed and local Children’s
Advocacy
Center
would have to say on this issue. On
the issue of suicide rates, cities with gambling are up to four times higher
than comparably sized cities with no legal gambling.
Gambling also causes increases rates of divorce.
I think that if people would
really give some serious thought to this issue, why would anyone want legal
gambling here at all? All of these
effects are not just conjecture or assumptions, they are facts.
It’s about time the state government start considering the plight of
everyone in this state and not promote policies that devastate certain segments
of the population for the supposed benefit to everyone else.
We all will pay the price if this kind of thinking continues.
With all of this to consider, why would anyone want to just go ahead and
let the gambling businesses build permanent facilities?
A select few will benefit greatly while the population as a whole will
pay the price for such short-sighted thinking.
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