Gambling-related corruptions plagued other states over the years
By Dr. John Hill
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas For lower income people gambling becomes more frequent & more of a problem. Few research reports more clearly illustrate the dangers of expanding state gambling ... and the benefits of getting rid of it altogether. The first study flips the long-common wisdom that alcoholism is more prevalent than gambling problems. The opposite is true according to the Institute.
Conducted by the
University of Buffalos Research Institute on Addictions and in the words of the studys chief investigator John Welte the rate of problems with alcohol tends to peak around the college years when risky behaviors and feelings of invulnerability are at their highest-then sharply tapers off.
By comparison the number of those with gambling problems rises after age 21 peaks among most people while they are in their 30s and drops off after age 40.
The study included all forms of gambling such as lotteries office pools charity bingo Internet gambling and raffles.
Welte and his colleagues also found that for lower income people gambling becomes more frequent and more of a problem. This may be because the motivations for lower income Americans are more about making money than having fun which may in turn drive their desire to gamble more.
Even critics of Weltes study agree that the availability of gambling is rapidly approaching that of alcohol. Robert Hunter who operates a problem gambling treatment clinic in Las Vegas and is skeptical of the study admits Conventional
wisdom says you can get alcohol everywhere. Theoretically you can get gambling everywhere too.
The
second study by University of Illinois professor John Kindt proposes that the best way to boost sagging state economies is not by legalizing more gambling but by banning all of it.
If youre dumping money into gambling or slot machines youre not spending money on cars refrigerators computers or education says Kindt a professor of public policy. The lost consumer spending is enormous. The lost sales tax revenue-enormous. And when you start losing the economy you want to go back to basics; you dont want to keep going down the wrong path.
Using Illinois as an example Kindt notes that for every dollar gained by the state from gambling revenue it loses three dollars as a result of increased crime broken families and poverty.
In studies it shows that around these slot machine areas we have people spending up to 10 less on food.
If gambling were banned outright though families would have more money to spend on consumer goods and services which would lead to the creation of jobs to supply these products which would lead to more spending in our state and local economy and the creation of more jobs.
By themselves either of these reports would be reason enough not to want to bring more gambling into at least one state for instance ...
Alabama. But then there is the aspect of political corruption to also consider.
Last October
two of Alabamas largest casino owners four state senators and several top lobbyists were arrested on federal charges accusing them of vote buying on a bill to legalize electronic bingo in the state. Two of those arrested have already struck plea deals in exchange for a dismissal of some of the charges against them.
Over the years gambling-related corruption has plagued other states.
- In West Virginia two former presidents of the Senate were sentenced to prison in 1989 for taking money from gambling interests.
- In Arizona six legislators accepted plea bargains and another was convicted of conspiracy in 1991 after being caught on videotape taking $25000 from an undercover agent for agreeing to vote for legalized gambling.
- And in 1995 15 Kentucky state legislators were eventually convicted or pled guilty to charges from an FBI investigation surrounding bribery and influence-peddling involving the states horse racing industry.
Without powerful gambling interests dominating the current
Alabama legislative session the State Legislature has made tremendous progress on
key reforms and the state budgets.
Even if the economic and social costs of gambling are not reason enough for Alabama leaders to reject any consideration of gambling gambling-related corruption should be.
Alabama can ill afford to reopen that door and have our State Legislature locked down year-after-year and our elections unduly influenced by money from powerful gambling interests.
Dr. John Hill is a Sr. Fellow at the Alabama Policy Institute. He has authored more than two dozen publications regularly appears on radio & television and writes about gambling effects environmentalism & education outcomes. He is also the founder of American Indicators Inc. a statistical consulting service.
