Gambling Addiction has the lowest rate of self-referral of all addictions and the highest rate of SUICIDE, the Gambling Industry's DIRTY LITTLE SECRET.
When I began collecting articles commenting on SUICIDE and established a separate category, the absence of information was alarming.
Then I discovered this quote:
There are other indicators that industry officials have worked behind the scenes to shape problem gambling research in their favor. Fahrenkopf commissioned research to discedit a groundbreaking and widely publicized 1997 study by a University of California, San Diego, sociologist and suicide expert named David Phillips. Phillips concluded that suicide rates were significantly higher in gambling-intensive Las Vegas, Reno, and Atlantic City than they were in similar-sized cities that had no legalized gambling. Perhaps predictably, the subsequent Fahrenkopf-sponsored study contradicted Phillips conclusions (and those of other scholars who have frequently found a strong link between pathological gambling and suicide.
page 146
"High Stakes The Rising Cost of America's Gambling Addiction"
by Sam Skolnick
Great book that I highly recommend! Well researched and footnoted!
The articles below are linked to the above quote, lengthy, but worth reading.
The ultimate cost of Predatory Gambling is SUICIDE.
The articles below were linked to the comment above --
Casino Industry Fights an Emerging Backlash
GOING FOR BROKE: PART 2
Gambling: Leaders mount sophisticated effort to protect interests, as critics say growth is creating more addicts.
Stung by growing concerns over the social ills accompanying gambling's march across America, the industry is waging a multimillion-dollar campaign to discredit critics and blunt the work of a national commission exploring the human cost of legalized wagering.
The carefully crafted effort--backed by the Mirage, Harrah's, Hilton and MGM Grand casinos and other powerful Las Vegas interests--is intended to fend off new federal regulation and taxation of the $50-billion-a-year gambling industry.
All but three states--Hawaii, Utah and Tennessee--now sanction legalized wagering, and many allow it in various forms--video poker, slot machines, horse racing, off-track betting, card rooms and lotteries. Las Vegas-style casinos now operate throughout much of the heartland.
But in a few states--mainly conservative strongholds such as Iowa and Missouri, where researchers and others say gambling problems are worsening--a backlash is emerging.
Outmanned and underfunded critics compare the tactics of Gambling Inc. to another $50-billion-a-year industry, Big Tobacco. They blame gambling's broadening availability with creating as many wagering junkies as there are hard-core drug addicts--estimated by studies at more than 4 million. The impact, they say, includes family upheaval, bankruptcies, crime, suicides and more.
"This industry has the money and muscle to conquer everything for their benefit at any cost," says Mark Andrews, a St. Louis businessman who this fall led a losing fight against riverboat gambling in Missouri. "They are masters of covering up any problem they cause."
Confronting such criticisms, gambling executives are fighting harder, smarter and in more ways than ever before. With unprecedented cooperation, Las Vegas power brokers established a beachhead three years ago in Washington, D.C., in a lofty I.M. Pei-designed tower between the White House and the Capitol. They enlisted a shrewd general, a former chairman of the Republican National Party, 59-year-old attorney Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr.
Fahrenkopf was paid $680,000 last year to run the nonprofit American Gaming Assn., which represents more than 100 casino companies, suppliers and trade groups. His objective: neutralize threats to industry growth or, at the very least, protect its vast golden turf.
Like a man playing multidimensional chess, Fahrenkopf orchestrates his mandate on many planes.
He tracks legislation and monitors developments on every front of the gambling war. He serves as the voice of the industry in dealing with the media. He relentlessly lobbies Congress, bringing key legislators to Las Vegas, using political fund-raising dinners to expose them to the industry's message of prosperity. He reaches into academia, channeling large sums of money to university professors and private consultants whose studies reflect favorably on gambling.
Positioning the industry as a responsible corporate citizen, he has prodded casino executives to sponsor and serve on nonprofit councils designed to aid compulsive gamblers--a trend lauded by some but dismissed by others as a way to compromise the opposition.
"It's pretty easy to attack gambling," Fahrenkopf says, contending that many will condemn the industry no matter what it does. "Sometimes I walk around feeling like there's a big bull's-eye painted on my back."
The Nevada expatriate is determined, however, to keep his industry out of the cross-hairs.
Several times a week, by phone and fax, he communicates with the board members who help him devise the industry's strategy--among them, top executives Steve Wynn of the Mirage, Philip Satre of Harrah's, Arthur Goldberg of Hilton and J. Terrence Lanni of MGM Grand.
"These are very dynamic businessmen--maybe the last of the J.P. Morgan types," Fahrenkopf says. "Their commitment is to maximize profits for their shareholders. They're very good at it."
A Study in Power
Glamour, glitz and easy money are popular American aspirations that gambling touts through Fahrenkopf, a relentless promoter whose American Gaming Assn. operates on a budget of more than $4 million a year. Patriotic touches accent his elegant office suite: the flag, a chunk of the Berlin Wall, signed photos of Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Richard Nixon.
Fahrenkopf travels the country to make the pitch that gambling creates government revenue--more than $18 billion a year--and jobs. Dozens of once-languishing towns, he says, are booming again because of casinos.
"We're not outlawing automobiles because there are people who get behind the wheel of a car and become aggressive and cause accidents," Fahrenkopf says.
But Fahrenkopf also is savvy enough to know that the issue of pathological gambling, though affecting a small percentage of the population, could leave the industry vulnerable to charges of reckless exploitation.
So when the American Gaming Assn. was created, it was determined not to repeat the mistakes of Big Tobacco, which for years denied the risks of smoking. Instead, the gambling industry would acknowledge the problem and demonstrate concern. "We must all hang together," Fahrenkopf joked in one speech, quoting Benjamin Franklin, "or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
To that end, the industry saw opportunity in the narrow and poorly funded area of compulsive gambling research. Through lucrative grants, it has developed its own body of data and undermined studies critical of the industry, triggering a war of white papers.
"There isn't one piece of research the industry has funded on the social costs of problem gambling that is academically respectable. It's all self-serving," says scholar Henry Lesieur of the Institute for Problem Gambling in Connecticut. "It says a lot about the nature of the field that research funded by the industry is going to dominate the dialogue for the next few years. That is a sad state."
Fahrenkopf, a frequent participant in media debates with anti-gambling activists, defends the integrity of industry-sponsored studies, saying they are conducted by reputable researchers and can stand up to rigorous review.
"The chips are going to fall where they may in research," he says.
Sometimes, according to those who have operated independently of the industry, those chips land like bricks.
William Thompson of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas says he has felt the weight. On several occasions after he released studies on gambling's social impact, Thompson says, he picked up the phone only to hear Mirage CEO Steve Wynn screaming profanities.
Wynn's spokesman, Alan Feldman, says Thompson had it coming: "Some of Mr. Thompson's theories are deserving of that kind of reaction because they're so off the wall."
To facilitate the industry's academic mission, the American Gaming Assn. created the National Center for Responsible Gaming in 1996. The nonprofit organization--financed by casino interests--immediately became the largest source of gambling research money in the country.
Its grants--more than $1.4 million so far--have gone mainly for research in neurobiology, genetics, relapse rates, brain imaging, drug treatment and youth gambling. Noticeably absent, according to critics, are studies of the pressing social issues vital to setting public policy--gambling's role in causing bankruptcy, for example, and its overall impact on communities where new casinos are opened.
"They're not going to fund anything that's going to hurt them, or that has the potential to hurt them," says Joanna Franklin of the National Council on Problem Gambling.
Last year, Fahrenkopf himself commissioned research to discredit a damaging study by UC San Diego sociologist David Phillips, who concluded that suicide rates are higher in Las Vegas than in comparable cities without casinos.
With a $37,000 grant from the American Gaming Assn., UC Irvine's Richard McCleary this fall explicitly contradicted Phillips' conclusions, rankling independent scholars who believe there is little question of a link between compulsive gambling and suicide.
"We're becoming divided into people doing work exclusively in the industry camp and those outside," says Thompson, who has conducted studies for both the industry and its critics. The bottom line, he says, is that the industry has succeeded in muddying the research waters.
Fahrenkopf, a frequent participant in media debates with anti-gambling activists, defends the integrity of industry-sponsored studies, saying they are conducted by reputable researchers and can stand up to rigorous review.
"The chips are going to fall where they may in research," he says.
Sometimes, according to those who have operated independently of the industry, those chips land like bricks.
William Thompson of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas says he has felt the weight. On several occasions after he released studies on gambling's social impact, Thompson says, he picked up the phone only to hear Mirage CEO Steve Wynn screaming profanities.
Wynn's spokesman, Alan Feldman, says Thompson had it coming: "Some of Mr. Thompson's theories are deserving of that kind of reaction because they're so off the wall."
To facilitate the industry's academic mission, the American Gaming Assn. created the National Center for Responsible Gaming in 1996. The nonprofit organization--financed by casino interests--immediately became the largest source of gambling research money in the country.
Its grants--more than $1.4 million so far--have gone mainly for research in neurobiology, genetics, relapse rates, brain imaging, drug treatment and youth gambling. Noticeably absent, according to critics, are studies of the pressing social issues vital to setting public policy--gambling's role in causing bankruptcy, for example, and its overall impact on communities where new casinos are opened.
"They're not going to fund anything that's going to hurt them, or that has the potential to hurt them," says Joanna Franklin of the National Council on Problem Gambling.
Last year, Fahrenkopf himself commissioned research to discredit a damaging study by UC San Diego sociologist David Phillips, who concluded that suicide rates are higher in Las Vegas than in comparable cities without casinos.
With a $37,000 grant from the American Gaming Assn., UC Irvine's Richard McCleary this fall explicitly contradicted Phillips' conclusions, rankling independent scholars who believe there is little question of a link between compulsive gambling and suicide.
"We're becoming divided into people doing work exclusively in the industry camp and those outside," says Thompson, who has conducted studies for both the industry and its critics. The bottom line, he says, is that the industry has succeeded in muddying the research waters.
"They've said they don't want to be cast in the position of tobacco," Thompson says. "The reality is they've taken a lot of the tactics of the tobacco industry."
Of all the industry-funded studies, one in particular stands out because it was produced at one of the nation's most prestigious universities, Harvard, by a top name in the field, Howard J. Shaffer. For years, Shaffer had voiced some of the harshest warnings in academia against the collateral damage of gambling's growth. No longer, not since he accepted nearly $600,000 in grants from the industry in little more than a year.
Through Fahrenkopf's intervention, Shaffer was awarded the first grant by the industry-backed research center--$139,000 to synthesize existing studies and determine the prevalence of compulsive gambling nationwide. Released last year, the report estimated that 1% of the adult population are full-blown compulsive gamblers. Four percent of the population, he concluded, show some symptoms of problem gambling.
The industry seized upon that 1% figure in arguing that the problem's breadth has been vastly overblown. But critics say that, by using the entire nation as a study sample, Shaffer's report ignored the key question of what happens when gambling comes to a specific community. Some studies of that issue show sharp spikes in the numbers of habitual gamblers and associated problems.
"Once you put the analysis on a national level . . . you're lumping together riverboat states like Mississippi, Illinois and Louisiana with states that have little or no gambling," says outspoken gambling critic Robert Goodman, director of the United States Gambling Research Institute in Massachusetts. "It certainly underestimates the problem."
Shaffer is now working on a new project for the industry's research arm--of which he is a board member--for $465,000, more than triple the amount of his first award. He also seems more optimistic about gambling's lasting detrimental impact in new markets.
"In the short run, problems will probably increase until [people] learn how to adapt," Shaffer says. "As knowledge is built, people reduce their alcohol consumption, their tobacco consumption. People do adjust to these things."
For those who question whether he has been co-opted, Shaffer points to his testimony before a congressionally empowered commission on gaming in America, where he called compulsive gambling as virulent as any other addiction.
But he also says he has come to think highly of the casino executives bankrolling his work.
"I have to say, I was very impressed by that group."
Casino Interests Trump Congress
In recent years, much of the industry's collective firepower has been directed at the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, which Congress created in 1996 to examine the societal impact of compulsive wagering. The panel is scheduled to report its findings next June.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who joined former Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) in sponsoring the commission bill, envisioned an impartial body with full powers to subpoena industry executives and internal documents.
Industry executives, however, had a different vision, concerned that such a powerful panel could create image problems and, worse, recommend new restrictions.
"This is the first time they've ever been scrutinized in this fashion," says Charles Anderer, editorial director of International Gaming and Wagering Business, the industry's largest trade publication.
"They're worried."
What unfolded in the halls of Congress is a study in the industry's commitment and clout.
Before the bill's passage, a massive lobbying effort was quickly mobilized by Fahrenkopf's organization and such casino powerhouses as Wynn and Goldberg. At the same time, casinos poured millions of dollars into the political coffers of Democrats and Republicans alike.
"They realized . . . they couldn't defeat the bill straight out, so what they decided to do was to gut it," says Ann McBride, president of Common Cause, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization that conducted a detailed study of the industry's contributions. "It's a blatant case of the money being given to get specific results."
In late spring and summer of 1996, with Congress in full debate on the gambling commission's proposed structure and powers, McBride says political contributions climbed to $1.6 million--13 times more than in the same period the previous year.
The blitz paid off, and the public lost an opportunity for an independent exploration of an issue of growing social importance.
Of all the industry-funded studies, one in particular stands out because it was produced at one of the nation's most prestigious universities, Harvard, by a top name in the field, Howard J. Shaffer. For years, Shaffer had voiced some of the harshest warnings in academia against the collateral damage of gambling's growth. No longer, not since he accepted nearly $600,000 in grants from the industry in little more than a year.
Through Fahrenkopf's intervention, Shaffer was awarded the first grant by the industry-backed research center--$139,000 to synthesize existing studies and determine the prevalence of compulsive gambling nationwide. Released last year, the report estimated that 1% of the adult population are full-blown compulsive gamblers. Four percent of the population, he concluded, show some symptoms of problem gambling.
The industry seized upon that 1% figure in arguing that the problem's breadth has been vastly overblown. But critics say that, by using the entire nation as a study sample, Shaffer's report ignored the key question of what happens when gambling comes to a specific community. Some studies of that issue show sharp spikes in the numbers of habitual gamblers and associated problems.
"Once you put the analysis on a national level . . . you're lumping together riverboat states like Mississippi, Illinois and Louisiana with states that have little or no gambling," says outspoken gambling critic Robert Goodman, director of the United States Gambling Research Institute in Massachusetts. "It certainly underestimates the problem."
Shaffer is now working on a new project for the industry's research arm--of which he is a board member--for $465,000, more than triple the amount of his first award. He also seems more optimistic about gambling's lasting detrimental impact in new markets.
"In the short run, problems will probably increase until [people] learn how to adapt," Shaffer says. "As knowledge is built, people reduce their alcohol consumption, their tobacco consumption. People do adjust to these things."
For those who question whether he has been co-opted, Shaffer points to his testimony before a congressionally empowered commission on gaming in America, where he called compulsive gambling as virulent as any other addiction.
But he also says he has come to think highly of the casino executives bankrolling his work.
"I have to say, I was very impressed by that group."
Casino Interests Trump Congress
In recent years, much of the industry's collective firepower has been directed at the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, which Congress created in 1996 to examine the societal impact of compulsive wagering. The panel is scheduled to report its findings next June.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who joined former Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) in sponsoring the commission bill, envisioned an impartial body with full powers to subpoena industry executives and internal documents.
Industry executives, however, had a different vision, concerned that such a powerful panel could create image problems and, worse, recommend new restrictions.
"This is the first time they've ever been scrutinized in this fashion," says Charles Anderer, editorial director of International Gaming and Wagering Business, the industry's largest trade publication.
"They're worried."
What unfolded in the halls of Congress is a study in the industry's commitment and clout.
Before the bill's passage, a massive lobbying effort was quickly mobilized by Fahrenkopf's organization and such casino powerhouses as Wynn and Goldberg. At the same time, casinos poured millions of dollars into the political coffers of Democrats and Republicans alike.
"They realized . . . they couldn't defeat the bill straight out, so what they decided to do was to gut it," says Ann McBride, president of Common Cause, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization that conducted a detailed study of the industry's contributions. "It's a blatant case of the money being given to get specific results."
In late spring and summer of 1996, with Congress in full debate on the gambling commission's proposed structure and powers, McBride says political contributions climbed to $1.6 million--13 times more than in the same period the previous year.
The blitz paid off, and the public lost an opportunity for an independent exploration of an issue of growing social importance.
The industry won important changes not only in the commission's authority but also in its composition. The idea of a neutral panel was dashed. Commission seats were opened to vested interests from both sides. President Clinton, outgoing House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) appointed commissioners regarded as pro-gambling. Gingrich, in fact, chose MGM Grand Chairman Lanni, a board member of the American Gaming Assn.
Although the commission was given authority to subpoena documents, it was blocked from forcing casino executives to testify. "The last thing we wanted," Fahrenkopf says, "was to have someone embarrass our people."
The commission has managed to collect some meaningful data during a series of public hearings throughout the country. But with much of its work marred by polarization, some observers doubt that the final report will contribute much to the current body of knowledge about legalized gambling's societal cost.
The infighting reached a crescendo in recent months after the commission administered a preliminary survey outside two Las Vegas casinos. The results suggested that 30% of the casinos' clientele showed indications of being problem gamblers. When the stunningly high number was made public, the industry howled, arguing that the study used such a broad definition of problem gambling that too many respondents were labeled as such.
Soon after, Sen. Richard Bryan (D-Nev.), a staunch protector of his state's trademark industry, demanded a federal investigation of the commission, including an audit by the General Accounting Office. His action was seen by some as an attempt to discredit the panel and distract its staff in the preparation of a final report.
Bryan denies that the GAO audit--which is still underway--will hamper the commission's work. He says he was prompted solely by reports of unlawful closed-door meetings, high staff turnover and questionable expenditures.
Motivations aside, it's clear Bryan has little regard for the commission.
"This was born out of a crusade of social conservatives in America who believe gaming is fundamentally and morally wrong," Bryan says.
Republican Congressman Wolf, co-sponsor of the commission bill, says he was motivated not by questions of morality but by stories of misery.
"It's just tearing people up," Wolf says of habitual gambling. "We have record bankruptcies at a time of economic growth. Older, retired people are losing their life savings. The addiction level of young people is just astronomical. The suicides, the heartbreak . . . it's a sickness."
Although Wolf says he had hoped for an impartial commission, free of vested interests on either side, the controversies surrounding the commission have given its underlying mission a higher profile.
"What we wanted was to bring attention to the issue [of compulsive gambling] and the battle got us attention," he says. "The battle was the best thing that ever happened."
Corruption Charges on the Mississippi
The industry's explosive growth has ignited more than a rise in compulsive gambling. Allegations of political corruption and undue legislative influence also are surfacing.
"I am very concerned about the growing clout of the gambling industry," says Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa, where casinos have proliferated in a state that once raided church bingo games. "The general public . . . is up against some very powerful people. I think it's a scandal waiting to happen."
In fact, scandals have bubbled up along the length of the Mississippi River, home to an armada of casino riverboats. The accused have included some of the region's most powerful and enduring political leaders.
In Indiana, former House Ways and Means Chairman Sam Turpin was indicted on felony bribery and perjury charges for his involvement with a riverboat casino contractor. He now awaits trial.
In Louisiana, former Gov. Edwin Edwards also faces trial in an alleged scheme to extort millions of dollars from riverboat casino applicants. Also implicated in the case is sports mogul Eddie DeBartolo Jr., owner of the San Francisco 49ers football team, who has struck a deal with prosecutors for his cooperation.
In Missouri, then-House Speaker Bob Griffin was accused of demanding that a casino firm donate $16 million to his friends and clients to secure a riverboat license. Griffin, indicted on unrelated charges stemming from a wide-ranging federal investigation, is now in prison for bribery and mail fraud.
Government prosecutors in Missouri pursued a separate case against a Hilton executive who was suspected of offering $1.25 million in bribes to Kansas City officials in exchange for a prime casino location along the Missouri River. Rather than press criminal charges, the government allowed Hilton to settle the matter this summer for $655,000 and to keep open its Flamingo Casino.
Even when no laws are broken, the amount of money casino operators are willing to dangle for a foothold in promising markets is stunning. In Illinois, for instance, Primadonna Resorts offered a pair of consultants about $20 million to secure a casino license.
Although Primadonna's plan sank when it couldn't secure riverfront land, the industry has repeatedly shown it's undeterred by setbacks, sometimes overcoming obstacles with lies and low blows, critics contend.
Former journalist Nat Helms had a ringside seat as a media spokesman for the industry during its bitter 1994 fight to legalize slot machines on Missouri's casino riverboats.
Although voters at first rejected the machines, Helms says the industry pooled millions of dollars and gathered signatures to put the issue back on the ballot. One million mailers went out. Field workers called 700,000 households.
"All of a sudden the boats . . . started throwing out money like I've never seen," says Helms, who became disenchanted by what he says he witnessed. "It was amazing."
During the campaign, Helms alleges, backers of the slot initiative knowingly embellished the number of jobs that would be created by the measure. About 50 influential church leaders in St. Louis and Kansas City, meanwhile, were given a total of about $100,000 to silence their criticisms, Helms alleges.
Worse, Helms says, was the smear campaign launched against minister-activist Tom Grey and businessman Mark Andrews, who had teamed up to start Missouri's fledgling anti-gambling movement, which had begun attracting media attention.
The casinos portrayed the men as right-wing fanatics. Fake documents were leaked to local TV stations alleging that Andrews was linked to Louisiana's David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. An internal memo by gambling proponents, which was later made public, detailed the scheme and warned: "Obviously, none of these activities can be traced to us."
In the end, the casinos sailed to victory. The slots went in, bringing millions upon millions of new dollars to the casinos.
Major sponsors of the pro-slot movement--including Harrah's, Hilton and Boyd Gaming--say they had no knowledge of any of the underhanded tactics now alleged by the campaign's spokesman.
"You're talking about an industry that is more policed than any other industry in the United States," says Boyd Gaming executive Rob Stillwell. "Everything has to be done with the utmost integrity."
He says the projected employment figures, for example, were calculated with the help of reputable and independent accounting firms.
Even if top casino executives were unaware of wrongdoing, Grey says, someone working toward their financial benefit unquestionably tried to neutralize opposition by discrediting him and Andrews with lies about extremist ties.
"These people will resort to anything to protect their self-interest," Grey says, adding that the experience has not deterred him from preaching the evils of legalized gambling to groups across the country.
The fierce battle over slot machines was only one episode in the industry's strategy to amass greater riches along the rivers of the Midwest.
That same year, cunning casino interests had learned to ply the political waters of Missouri so well they obtained passage of "emergency" legislation expanding the state's definition of a river to include areas up to 1,000 feet from the real shoreline. This fundamentally altered the original concept of riverboat gambling: to keep it contained to waterways.
Under the new law, the industry was able to construct sprawling boat-shaped casinos that would go down like the Lusitania if forced to float without artificial supports. The lavish palaces meet the letter of the law only by virtue of pumps and spigots that surround them with water from the nearby river.
The $300-million Station Casino in Kansas City is one example, built on two "barges" moored in a moat filled with a couple of feet of murky green water, piped from the Missouri River about 100 yards away. Station is one of the largest gambling halls and entertainment complexes in the world.
Every two hours, passengers board for "cruises" that go nowhere--a charade designed to maintain a distinction from land-based casinos.
Adopting the slogan "Show Me the River," anti-gambling activists this fall rallied behind an initiative to remove slot machines from the "boats in moats," a move intended to torpedo them financially. But the effort was handily defeated by the free-spending industry.
Today, roughly 80 riverboats--some real, some not--form a ragged line down the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, reaping enormous revenues.
Although Las Vegas and Atlantic City, N.J., casino executives initially worried that the boats and legalized gambling elsewhere would steal customers, they have happily learned that these burgeoning markets simply created more gamblers. The once-reluctant casino bosses are now leading the charge into new regions, often playing one territory against another.
Gaming interests in Detroit, for example, obtained hard-fought approval for three casinos by arguing that the city was losing revenues to Windsor, Canada, which offers casino gambling just across the international border.
That same reasoning prompted Iowa--where the first riverboats opened in 1991--to abandon its $5 betting limit. Some of its boats had begun motoring to less restrictive ports in Illinois.
"This has been really railroaded and rammed down people's throats," anti-gambling lobbyist Steve Taylor of CasinoWatch says of the industry's expansion.
As legalized wagering spreads throughout the nation, another concern among industry critics--especially in light of the government scandals--is crime. Huge amounts of cash tempt not only policymakers, but thieves, swindlers and organized syndicates long associated with casinos.
To some extent, ever-tightening regulations in recent years have cleaned up the most obvious involvement of underworld figures. Known gangsters no longer occupy boardrooms, and the stocks of major casinos are now traded on Wall Street, regulators say.
Even so, the presence of organized crime remains strong through covert ties to seemingly legitimate casino operators, according to Tom Fuentes, chief of the FBI's Organized Crime Section in Washington, D.C. Fuentes says he is often asked about the prospects of new casinos attracting Mafia attention.
"Our position is, 'If you build it, they will come,' " he says. "They understand not only the mechanics of gambling, but also how the industry works: the labor unions, the equipment, the pawn shops . . . the trucking industry, the housekeeping services . . . all the collateral industries. They set up kickback schemes, extortion schemes, sweetheart contract schemes. They have to attack from the side and underneath and from within--and they do that."
Gambling's expansion into Louisiana and Mississippi, for example, motivated mobsters to organize a phony video poker distributorship that defrauded a legitimate firm of millions of dollars, Fuentes says. Eighteen members of the Marcelo, Gambino and Genovese crime families were convicted of the scheme in 1995.
Last year, the FBI busted a money-laundering operation at a casino on the Rincon reservation near San Diego, Fuentes says.
Keenly aware of the threat to the industry's overall well-being, the American Gaming Assn. hired Chicago attorney Jeremy Margolis to conduct a study released last December. The glossy, 66-page report, "Casinos and Crime: An Analysis of the Evidence," was sent to the president, to every member of Congress, to every state governor and attorney general, to police chiefs throughout the country and to every major university with a law-enforcement teaching program.
"This study found little evidence to support the notion" that casinos contribute to higher crime rates, Margolis concluded. "The presence and/or influence of organized crime is no longer a factor in the modern, regulated gaming-entertainment industry."
The report identified Margolis as former director of the Illinois State Police. It did not mention that upon leaving that office, he became a registered lobbyist for Caesars, Circus Circus and Hilton.
Millions of Names in Databases
The gambling industry, like any business big or small, worries about its next dollar--or, in this case, its next billion.
Recently, the growth rate and stock prices of casinos have cooled, a reflection of over-saturation and the recession in Asia, long a source of some of the casinos' highest rollers.
So to keep the money flowing, industry executives are relying more than ever on marketing and technology, using vast databases, shrewdly tailored promotions and high-tech slot machines to boost their drawing power.
Virtually every major casino now records information about its customers in electronic rosters running to millions of names--data that can be filtered for any number of marketing purposes: to lure golfers to weekend getaways, to woo gamblers fond of vacationing in the winter dead months, to promote a certain restaurant--such as Benihana at the Las Vegas Hilton--to lovers of Japanese food.
"What's one thing we're always trying to do? Grow our database--make it bigger," one prominent casino consultant said during a Las Vegas seminar. "You have to create an accurate customer profile, try to know every penny he spent on your property."
With the advent of "slot clubs," many gamblers now play the machines using plastic cards instead of cash--a technology that has further enriched the information pool. Casinos can identify the most popular types of slots and place them near restrooms and cashiers' booths for maximum exposure. At the same time, the club applications add to the personal data culled from hotel registrations.
"The fascinating thing," says another casino consultant, Hershel Sarbin, "is the willingness [of people] to tell us about themselves to get the club card."
Some compulsive gamblers, however, wish they had said less. They have tried to remove their names from databases, only to keep receiving enticements.
Tommy, a 37-year-old Los Angeles man who has sought private therapy for compulsive gambling, was betting with $100 and $500 chips--and dropping as much as $10,000 a weekend--by the time he asked casinos to remove him from their mailing lists about six years ago. Still, he kept receiving invitaions to blackjack tournaments, roulette tournaments, slot tournaments. He was offered a free golf trip to Pebble Beach. A marketing agent called, offering a $10,000 credit limit at a casino where he had never played.
"She said, 'When are you coming in again?' " Tommy recalls. "I said, 'I've never even stayed at [your hotel].' She said, 'Well, that's why you have to come. We'll set you up with whatever you want.'
"I'd liken it to tobacco calling up someone with cancer. It's like, 'You already have cancer. Have another cigarette.' "
Concerned about such incidents, Fahrenkopf says companies should be punished if they purposely disregard a compulsive gambler's wishes. But people like Tommy are mostly left on lists by accident, he says.
"You're dealing with computers and human beings," Fahrenkopf says. "Mistakes are going to be made."
Of perhaps greater concern to many gambling treatment professionals is the rapid evolution in gambling technology. Slot machines, for example, are becoming faster, more fun and therefore more dangerous to people prone to gambling problems. Some now feature film clips, animated graphics and games within games.
"They're so much more addicting," says Beverly Hills psychiatrist Richard J. Rosenthal, who founded the California Counsel on Problem Gambling. "There's so much more potential for problems."
Research and development of new slot machines is a $100-million-a-year industry unto itself, says Randy Adams, a game development specialist at Las Vegas-based Anchor Gaming.
At a fall trade show in Las Vegas, Adams offers his vision of the casino of the future: game areas built in a bowling alley theme, 1,000 different types of slots, a man with a wand looming over rows of players, pointing randomly at a lucky few: " 'Boom! It's you!'--and he gives you $20."
But past and future, Adams says, share this enduring value: "We're all vying for the playing public's dollar."
For seven months, Times staff writers David Ferrell and Matea Gold traveled the country examining the phenomenal growth of legalized gambling and its profound social consequences. Their three-part series, "Going for Broke," provides a revealing look at the gambling industry and at the tragic lives of some of those who help it thrive.
Sunday: Compulsive gambling is one of our most overlooked and troubling problems--a crisis, some would say. Millions of gambling junkies are suffering financial and familial ruin, costing society in the process.
Today: With billions of dollars at stake, the gambling industry is determined not to duplicate the blunders of Big Tobacco in battling critics. To that end, Gambling Inc. is waging a multimillion-dollar war for the hearts--and money--of the public.
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/dec/14/news/mn-54012
Suicide Rate Higher in 3 Gambling Cities, Study Says
The dramatic increase in legalized gambling in the United States may be leading to a significant increase in suicide rates among both residents of and visitors to communities where casinos are thriving, according to a new study on suicide and gambling.
In the study, Dr. David Phillips, a professor of sociology at the University of California in San Diego, examined death certificates in major gaming cities in the United States -- Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Nev., and Reno -- and found that suicide rates were up to four times higher than in comparably sized cities where gambling is not legal.
Because there is a long lag in the compilation of death certificates nationwide, it was not possible to determine whether the 24 states that have legalized casino-type gambling within the last 10 years have experienced a similar increase in suicide rates, said Dr. Phillips, an expert on suicide.
The study by Dr. Phillips is reported in the December issue of the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. It is the first large-scale statistical investigation of gambling and suicide.
Earlier studies have shown that compulsive and pathological gamblers have many problems, including alcoholism and drug addiction, that contribute to suicidal behavior.
Still, several smaller studies have found gambling to be associated with increased suicide rates, white-collar crime, substance abuse and child abuse, Dr. Phillips said. For example, one study found that 3 of the 6 Atlantic City suicides for which the researchers had information probably occurred because of gambling problems.
Americans love to gamble, Dr. Phillips said, and spend nearly as much on gambling (6 percent of the G.N.P., according to a Standard & Poor's Corporation 1996 survey) as they do on family groceries (8 percent).
Dr. Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology in Washington, praised the study as ''quality sociological research,'' and said the next step would be to design smaller studies that compared gamblers and non-gamblers -- matched for age, occupation and other factors -- over time, to see whether gambling itself was the direct cause of higher suicide rates.
But Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, an organization in Washington that represents major hotel and casino companies, said legalized gambling might have very little to do with suicide.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/16/us/suicide-rate-higher-in-3-gambling-cities-study-says.html
In the study, Dr. David Phillips, a professor of sociology at the University of California in San Diego, examined death certificates in major gaming cities in the United States -- Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Nev., and Reno -- and found that suicide rates were up to four times higher than in comparably sized cities where gambling is not legal.
Because there is a long lag in the compilation of death certificates nationwide, it was not possible to determine whether the 24 states that have legalized casino-type gambling within the last 10 years have experienced a similar increase in suicide rates, said Dr. Phillips, an expert on suicide.
The study by Dr. Phillips is reported in the December issue of the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. It is the first large-scale statistical investigation of gambling and suicide.
Earlier studies have shown that compulsive and pathological gamblers have many problems, including alcoholism and drug addiction, that contribute to suicidal behavior.
Still, several smaller studies have found gambling to be associated with increased suicide rates, white-collar crime, substance abuse and child abuse, Dr. Phillips said. For example, one study found that 3 of the 6 Atlantic City suicides for which the researchers had information probably occurred because of gambling problems.
Americans love to gamble, Dr. Phillips said, and spend nearly as much on gambling (6 percent of the G.N.P., according to a Standard & Poor's Corporation 1996 survey) as they do on family groceries (8 percent).
Dr. Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology in Washington, praised the study as ''quality sociological research,'' and said the next step would be to design smaller studies that compared gamblers and non-gamblers -- matched for age, occupation and other factors -- over time, to see whether gambling itself was the direct cause of higher suicide rates.
But Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, an organization in Washington that represents major hotel and casino companies, said legalized gambling might have very little to do with suicide.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/16/us/suicide-rate-higher-in-3-gambling-cities-study-says.html
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