An important new
report was released this week about government’s promotion of casinos. I'm
writing to urge you to please share it widely with opinion leaders in your
region of the country such as journalists, newspaper editors, public officials,
business leaders, civic groups and non-profits.
By promoting casino gambling to its own citizens,
government has unleashed a host of troubling problems: it is harming health,
draining wealth from people in the lower ranks of the income distribution, and
contributing to economic inequality. These are among the findings of Why Casinos
Matter: Thirty-One Evidence-Based Propositions from the Health and Social
Sciences, a report released today from the Council on
Casinos, an independent group of scholars and public policy leaders convened by
the Institute for American Values, a New York City-based think tank.
"State sponsored
casino gambling creates a stratified pattern that parallels the separate and
unequal life patterns in education, marriage, work, and play that increasingly
divides Americans into 'haves' and 'have-nots,'" the report says.
We thank the
Council on Casinos for doing the kind of analysis this critical issue hasn’t
seen since the National Gambling Impact Study Commission
report
almost fifteen years ago. Sponsored by the President and Congress, the report
called for a moratorium on government-sponsored gambling because the evidence
then, like today, was incriminating.
Casino interests
and their lobbying groups like the American Gaming Association have spent
hundreds of millions of dollars buying the political process and controlling the
public health and economic research about commercial gambling.
Despite all of this
spending to willfully deceive the public, this report, relying on independent
research and endorsed by 33 prominent American scholars, lays bare the evidence
that government's public policy of promoting casinos has directly contributed to
the rise of inequality in America.
We will soon be issuing a call for full
Congressional hearings examining the findings of this report. But first, we need
you to share the report with opinion leaders in your region to build a better
understanding about why casinos matter and how they are changing American
life.
Thanks.
Les
Bernal
Executive
Director
Stop
Predatory Gambling
Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation 100 Maryland Avenue NE, Room 310 ι Washington, D.C. 20002
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