Most of us can visit a slot parlor, feed the machines and leave.
A small percentage, estimated at 10% by Harrah's, but higher according to other studies, simply can't.
Those players are then targeted, marketed and promoted by the industry.
Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, appearing on PBS Frontline in 1997, said:
"I don't agree with the premise or the concept that it's entertainment...
The public, being so uneducated, doesn't realize how vulnerable they really are to what we call 'the heat' - the heat being you start out very lightly, very small, very conservatively, and then you lose your control....
It's the only industry that I'm aware of in the world where the player really has virtually no chance."
Winner Takes All, Christina Binkley, page 186.
Each time an article appears about someone who naively believed it was 'simply entertainment,' and no one warned them about the addiction hazards, where are the warning signs? where are the odds posted? where is there any consumer protection?
Most of these people are law abiding citizens who become consumed.
Gambling addiction has the highest rate of suicide or suicide attempts of all addictions.
How pathetic are we that we justify sacrificing of neighbors on a false pretext?
Former House of Assembly bureaucrat Bill Murray pleads guilty
Murray, 55, has no previous criminal record and Coady said there was a strong likelihood he would not be before the courts again.
... Murray had a significant gambling addiction.
At one point, he was pumping $500 a day into video lottery machines, an estimated $180,000 a year.
After the spending scandal became public, Murray tried to kill himself and was admitted to the Waterford Hospital.
... it's hard to put an exact dollar amount on how much Murray profited from his crimes between 1999 and 2006 because while some transactions were fraudulent, others may have been legitimate.
... estimates it was about $400,000.
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