A casino in Toronto? Just say no
Published on Monday November 05, 2012
By Joe FioritoCity Columnist
Like everyone who bets on the turn of a card or a roll of the dice, Jason Applebaum has lost a lot of money. How much? Let’s just say he is $100,000 in debt.
The good news?
He has not placed a bet in 500 days, and he will be speaking Monday at city hall, where the matter of the casino will be discussed. You can guess that he opposes the casino.
Jason is worth hearing because, as a former addict he is smart about gambling in ways that most of us are not, and also because his story is not unusual: Jason is a North York kid who grew up happy on the leafy streets.
We had lunch the other day, at an all-you-can-eat sushi joint near his home. He told me he remembered seeing a casino in a movie when he was 7 years old; the thought of it excited him even then.
“I was fascinated by the idea of gambling. My parents were avid gamblers. Mum played the slots. Dad played blackjack and poker. They’d take vacations in Vegas, in the Bahamas, where there were casinos.”
He first went to Vegas when he was 12 years old. “I was too young to gamble, but the hotels are built around casinos, so you have to walk through.” He recalls peering around a corner at his mother, as she was working the slots. The flashing lights, the still and heavy air, the disorienting sounds: he was in love.
Love blossomed.
“In junior high, I felt I wanted to manage a casino — all the money, the excitement, and you could become rich without working hard.”
That’s the dream.
He was 15 when he had his first serious taste of casino life. “I got a fake ID at one of those head shops around Yonge and Dundas.” Fake, but good enough to fool them in Vegas.
“I went down and played the slots and blackjack. I took $500 for three or four days.” Where’d he get the money? “I’m pretty sure from my parents.”
He lost it all.
Eventually he went to university, as most bright kids do, but he never fit in at Laurier. “I couldn’t handle the anxiety, so I started going to the casinos. I went to Niagara Falls. I was going two or three times a week.”
He lost so much money that he had himself put on the trespass list and, in the end, he dropped out of school. He returned to Toronto, tried Ryerson and dropped out even quicker. And then?
“I got a job at the casino in Port Perry. I knew that was where I wanted to be. I started as a dealer. I became a supervisor.” He was gambling all the while.
Eventually, he moved to Niagara Falls, where he lost money on the American side while working in casinos on the Canadian side.
He said, “You know the people in those casino ads? They’re happy, they’re smiling. But there’s no one smiling in casinos. Vegas could not be built on the people who spend $50 and go home.”
Put another way: most of a casino’s profits are derived from a small handful of problem gamblers.
Jason said, “The staff at casinos are mostly gamblers; they encourage people to make bad bets; and it all seems normal because you’re gambling, and you’re surrounded by gamblers.”
And lurking in the shadows are the loan sharks: casinos won’t admit this, but loan sharks are the ones who make it possible for problem gamblers to keep on losing.
He showed me a sheet of paper, one he obtained from a casino: the details of his habits. “They knew how much I was going to bet the minute I walked in the door.” They had charted his patterns, they knew how much he was going to bet, and lose, how long it would take, how much free stuff they could give him and still make a profit.
The point?
The game is rigged in favour of the house; much of the profit from casinos is plucked from gamblers who can’t help themselves.
Jason has 100,000 reasons to fight a casino in this city. You now have one more.
Just say no.
Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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