That's the analogy that critics invoked to The Associated Press' Vicki Smith as she details the ongoing push by the Lottery Commission to exert greater control over the state's program for problem gamblers.
"The Help Network provides unique, customized treatment on demand to callers to its toll-free hot line, which has counseled more than 5,000 gamblers and their families in seven years. The network assigns local counselors, scheduling appointments and following up on visits within 24 hours," Smith found.
Public Broadcasting reported on the Lottery's plan earlier, and also offers audio on its main web site. Public Broadcasting outlines the story and links on its new blog page as well.
14 May 2007
Foxes And Henhouses
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Following is an excerpt from Justice Larry Starcher's separate opinion in the last gambling case to come before the State Supreme Court. Notably, the opinion talks about how few problem gamblers actually seek and receive help, based on the experiences of Oregon and Kentucky, where there is an abundance of data.
" Personally, I question whether it is right or wise for my government to set up and operate this massive, statewide, government-operated gambling system - and to use, in managing this system, thousands of privately-managed sites that are impossible to supervise and monitor; and to also use thousands of gambling devices that are known to be especially dangerous and addictive; and then to make it next to impossible for future generations to cancel, revamp, or restrict this system, because of the legal obligation to pay off bonds that are based on gambling revenues.
The Legislature has decided to have massive, statewide, government-operated gambling, in thousands of privately-managed locations in West Virginia - and to fund a good bit of the State's budget with the revenues from this gambling enterprise.
Regardless of one's ultimate position on the wisdom of this course, it is beyond dispute that West Virginia, as a result of this decision by the Legislature, does now and will in the future increasingly suffer a substantial amount of tragic harm and injury to individuals, families, businesses, and communities.
Under the system created by the Legislature, we can expect to have between twenty to forty (closer to forty) thousand West Virginia adults, and about five thousand West Virginia teenagers - at any given time - who are problem or pathological gamblers. The effects of these thousands of West Virginians' severe gambling problems - on their families, jobs, schools, communities, and households - will directly and negatively affect several hundred thousand other West Virginians: family members, employers, etc. Many personal bankruptcies will originate in gambling problems, as will many incidents of crime, suicide, divorce, and domestic violence. Less than five percent of West Virginians with gambling problems will seek help; of those, perhaps half will be able to recover significantly. (See footnote 1)
This, in rough summary, is the tragic human cost (in numbers) that our Legislature has decided our State will pay, to get the benefits of widespread, state-operated, “convenience” gambling.
Each of these tragic numbers, of course, has a human face.
When I think about the “instant lottery ticket” system that the Legislature has created in every community in our State, the first image that comes to my mind is the memory of two poorly-dressed women whom I recently saw, as they were sitting in a beat-up car, outside a convenience store.
The women were feverishly scratching the surfaces of their lottery tickets to see if they had a winning number. When they were done, they headed inside to buy some more tickets.
This, I thought, is how we are financing our senior citizens' centers - on the backs of these low-income people's wishful imagination that they might miraculously escape their materially impoverished existence by “hitting it big.”
I thought of the Bible verse - “insofar as you do it to the least of these, you do it to me.” What would Jesus think of balancing the State's budget on the dollars of these poor women?
And when I think about the thousands of “video slot machines” that are spread across the state, I think of a middle-class family I know where a wonderful parent became addicted to video machine gambling - the “crack cocaine of gambling” - and in a few months, lost tens of thousands of dollars. (The speed and ease of play of video slots rapidly accelerates the addiction process for vulnerable individuals.)
This, I thought, is how a building in some politician's home town will be financed - on the back of a family's crisis of addiction and suffering.
I do not want to be misunderstood. In no way do I condemn gambling per se. People should be able to gamble legally, it seems to me - but only if we devise and put in place a system that contains effective, proven structural checks and safeguards that will minimize the terrible problems and harms associated with legalized gambling.
It appears to me, however, that the system that the Legislature has created - massive, statewide, convenience gambling - is pretty much the exact opposite of a sound approach.
In West Virginia - instead of conducting gambling in a limited number of publicly managed and overseen sites, where the problems of addictive, compulsive, pathological, and excessive gambling can be avoided, identified, and responded to - the Legislature has proliferated the most fiscally regressive and psychologically dangerous gambling devices, like instant lottery and video slot machines - in thousands of decentralized, privately managed sites, where all of the financial incentives are to maximize revenue, and to ignore problem and pathological gambling.
Furthermore, the Legislature does not even allow gamblers to have the best chance of success, or at least to prolong their entertainment as they lose their money. Instead, the Legislature sets high odds against gamblers (much higher than Las Vegas). Then, the massive gambling revenues, well above the costs of doing business, are treated as a “cash cow” for our government, which becomes dependent upon these revenues. The Legislature is even issuing bonds that must be paid from money taken from our State's children decades from now, when they become gamblers. (See footnote 2) Talk about a credit-card government!
To me, this is a dismal situation. For these reasons, I personally question the wisdom of the course that the Legislature has chosen.
Footnote: 1
These conservative figures come from a number of national and state studies. The Louisville Courier-Journal did a series in December of 2002 that brings together some of the most compelling facts. See www.courier-journal.com. There seems to be a consensus that the State of Oregon, which has also hitched its public budget to gambling revenues, is a leader in measuring and offering treatment to problem gamblers. A well-documented report on problem and pathological gambling in Oregon, published by the Oregon Department of Human Services, is titled “Gambling Treatment Programs: Evaluation Update 2002,” and can be found at http://www.dhs.state.or.us/addiction/publications/ gambling/2002ann summ .pdf.
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Footnote: 2
I recognize that the gambling system that the Legislature has created, and the money that this system collects from gamblers (both problem and non-problem), provide jobs for many people. This fact, made much of in the briefs in this case, is not rocket science. Money coming out of gamblers' pockets is obviously going into other peoples' pockets, directly and indirectly - where else would it go?
I also recognize that the members of the Legislature are strongly motivated by the goal of creating and supporting jobs - jobs for people who work in connection with gambling operations, and jobs for people who work for government, too.
But I don't think that the human and social costs of the current system have been weighed against these job-related benefits. I question whether there will ever be a fair appreciation and weighing of the true costs of massive, statewide, convenience gambling. Rather, I foresee that dependence on gambling for state revenues will blind our leaders, who seem to be ever fearful of raising revenues by general taxation and fees, from recognizing and evaluating the human and social cost of the system they have created to obtain money from gamblers. And of course, a portion of the massive revenues that are also going in the pockets of the private gambling operators who manage the system the Legislature has set up will inevitably return to influence the political process -- in ways that I frankly would rather not think about."
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