Many Citizens See Serious Problems

There are citizen voices outside the legislature that are saying we should look past the dollar signs to the rest of the story about gambling.

The liberal Massachusetts Council of Churches, which represents 1700 congregations, is taking a traditional stand by speaking out against expanded gambling. It organized a "statewide churches call-in week" at the end of January to tell legislators to oppose casino gambling.

Its Director, Rev. Diane Kessler, told the Swift Commission that they oppose casino gambling on moral grounds because, "Casinos do not make for stable, healthy communities. They tear them down."

Kessler said government should communicate the best values it needs from the citizens to promote a responsible society, and casinos discourage rather than encourage personal responsibility. "This is particularly ironic," she said, "at a time when government has made a fetish of the work ethic for welfare recipients, yet it encourages a something-for-nothing mentality to the degree that government pushes gambling revenues to help fund its own budget."

An especially insidious aspect of the gambling culture, said Kessler, is what it says to teenagers and children. We are moving from social acceptability to the desirability of gambling. The message communicated is that it is okay because it is sponsored by the government, and it may even be your civic duty because it will boost revenues.

"We are taking images of 'play' and 'fun,' associated with child-like behavior, and distorting them in ways that are confusing everyone - adults and children alike. Casinos are now spoken of as part of an 'entertainment industry,' with plans for a 'total destination for the entire family.' Even daycare sometimes is talked about as part of the menu for a full-service casino," she said.

"Casino gambling advocates want us to close our eyes and surge forward as quickly as possible, worrying about the consequences later. This is the approach of the gambler, but it does not make sound public policy."

The more traditional Mass. Family Institute is also taking a stand. Its president, Ron Crews, tells MassNews that gambling is bad for families in several ways. First, research shows that serious crime increases by as much as 40% in areas where casinos open. "We really don't want that for our families," he says. Second, the supposed revenue increase has to be weighed in light of the social costs associated with gambling. Those costs sometimes are equal to or greater than actual gambling receipts the state might take in, he says.

"I strongly urge Governor Romney and the legislature to move very slowly in their consideration of this issue and I hope they will look at all the factors, and not just dollar signs as the ruling factor on whether we should proceed with casino gambling," says Crews.

Professor Alan Wolfe, who directs the Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, tells MassNews, "I don't think going further down the road of legalizing gambling is a good idea for the state of Massachusetts. I think it is harmful to the poor, who gamble more in terms of their income, generally speaking, than most people. It sends the wrong moral message to people that it is okay not to think about spending their money in more responsible ways."

Professor Robert Goodman, who teaches urban planning at Hampshire College, tells MassNews that he is not an anti-gambling advocate, but he is critical of government promotion of gambling.

Goodman conducted a study during the 1990s titled, "Legalized Gambling as a Strategy for Economic Development." He tells MassNews that, "Governments, by and large, who have gone into this business have shifted from the role of being regulators of gambling to promoters of gambling. I believe the promotion of gambling by government is bad policy."

He says the shift by government from regulator to promoter is a potentially dangerous direction to move, in terms of protecting people's interests. While gambling is not harmful to everybody, to a certain percentage of people it is, and it can be harmful to the economy of a state. Casino gambling shifts a lot of money out of other enterprises and creates a cohort of people into problem gamblers who before had gambled very little or not at all, he says. That cohort are now costing money to other individuals and businesses across the state whether it is by writing bad checks, committing credit card fraud, bankruptcy or being processed through the criminal justice system.

"You're talking about serious economic costs, and typically the states that are talking about going into these gambling ventures do not look at those costs. They just look at the revenue side and say we are going to bring in so much per slot machine." Goodman criticizes the Swift Commission report for looking at the revenue side but not accurately assessing the cost side of casino gambling.

According to Goodman, we have gotten to this juncture because politicians are selling the idea to the voters that you can have services without having to pay for them. "The experience has been, both in this state and just about every other state in the country, that in spite of people complaining about high taxes, they are also demanding better and more services."

New England Gamblers Anonymous had its public relations chairman, Gil, tells MassNews he never got into any trouble until the gambling casinos in Connecticut opened up. Then he started to gamble the money he received from a large inheritance, and once he began winning at Foxwoods, he became a compulsive gambler.

He says he cleaned out his inheritance, his IRA and maxed out all his credit cards. His ex-wife was ready to obtain a contempt citation to have him jailed. He wasn't paying child support because he was using the money for gambling.

"If I didn't win, I don't think I would have continued," he says. "The majority of the people in the program have won some money. That's what keeps them going. If they had lost every time they went down to the casino, they never would continue gambling."

Gil explains a lot of people in the program have dual addictions, such as alcohol, but gambling seems to be the most difficult one to lick. He predicts that if casinos and slots open up in Massachusetts, the halls of Gamblers Anonymous will be filled. He says the only thing that kept him from going to Foxwoods every day was the driving distance. "If it were around the corner, I would have gone every day," he says.

"They say this leads to prison, insanity or death, unless you totally surrender," continues Gil. A lot of people in the program he knew have met exactly that fate. He says he totally surrendered because he realized that he will never win back all the money that he lost, but a lot of people are still trying to win it all back, which is impossible to do.

Gil reveals slot machines are extremely addictive for women particularly, who go to play them the whole day, neglecting their family and their whole life. He has heard that an estimated 5% of the clientele at Foxwoods are compulsive gamblers.

There are 35 chapters of Gamblers Anonymous in Massachusetts according to Gil, which he says aren't that many compared to about a thousand Alcoholics Anonymous groups. He says people don't want to join the group, they want to keep gambling. The vast majority who come into the meeting halls have hit rock bottom and are facing divorce, bankruptcy, loan sharks, etc. "That's the only reason they ever come into these halls," GIl concludes.

The Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling had its director Kathleen Scanlon, tell MassNews their organization educates people about the downside to gambling and they also operate a helpline. She was a member of the Swift Gambling Commission that issued a report in December.

Scanlon says her organization does not work for or against gambling, but they do believe that if the state sponsors, promotes and advertises gambling, then the state has to take the responsibility for the downside of the activities it is running.

People who call the helpline are in extreme distress and don't know how to stop gambling, she says. They get in trouble with the Lottery, casinos, tracks, sports betting, internet gambling, pools at work, etc. Sports betting is a big one she says. The hotline receives about ten calls a day from gamblers or their families and friends.

Asked what sort of problems are described by callers, she says it runs the range from financial problems of all sorts, such as borrowing money they can't repay, to spending the money that has been saved for paying bills, often without the spouse's knowledge, etc. In one extreme case, a woman's neighbor mentioned to her at church that she was sorry to hear they were moving. The woman asked what she meant, and the neighbor says she saw the foreclosure notice in the newspaper.

Family disruption is a frequent result of gambling, says Scanlon, and it is very common to hear from families who were not aware of the gambling or the extent of the problem or the debt, and it very often leads to divorce, separation, etc. People also get in trouble at work spending time gambling online, calling bookies or running out for scratch tickets.

That leads to people doing illegal things, says Scanlon. Like drug addicts, gamblers need cash. They will go through all the legal means, and then they will begin stealing. Some problem gamblers work in convenience stores and steal scratch tickets intending to repay with their winnings. They soon get in a deep hole for thousands of dollars.

Scanlon says a study done two years ago by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that there are higher rates of problem gambling within 50 miles of casinos. She says she certainly can anticipate there being a problem if casinos come to Massachusetts. People who wouldn't make a special trip to Connecticut will certainly do so closer to home, and a percentage of them will have problems.

Certain months, up to 30% of helpline callers say they are in trouble with Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, she says. Some say they never had a problem with gambling and just went there for fun with their friends and got hooked. "Very often," says Scanlon, "what will cause someone to move from simply being a social gambler to being a problem gambler, is a significant win. If it happens early on to a person, it is likely they will not say, 'Well, I'm not going to do that again,' which is what happens to those of us who lose."

Psychiatrist and author of the book, "The Heart of Addiction," Dr. Lance Dodes, tells MassNews that casinos will not necessarily create more compulsive gamblers, but in reality will give compulsive gamblers more opportunities to get in trouble.

When the Lottery came in, there was an explosive increase in compulsive gambling among women, says Dodes. Before that, 90% of the problem gamblers were men who were betting on sports. The Lottery didn't cause the compulsive women gamblers, but made gambling more available to them, he says.

In Massachusetts, roughly 4.5% of the total population were found to be compulsive gamblers according to a famous ten-year-old study by Rachel Bolberg, says Dodes. At the time of the study, Massachusetts had the highest percentage of compulsive gamblers of all the states. Dodes believes that is because we had the most successful Lottery.

Dr. Dodes is a member of the "Division on Addictions" at Harvard Medical School. He works at the Boston Center for Problem Gambling.