Sheriff: Florida can't afford to gamble on casinos
On Thursday, the Florida State Senate Committee on Gaming is coming to Pensacola to give our citizens a chance to express their comments and concerns about expanding gambling in our state and allowing big casinos to open around Florida.
The expansion of gambling is a “crap shoot” at best, pun intended. One only has to look to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to see that the expected panaceas of fiscal stability and work for all were clearly false promises. In fact these two cities have crime rates double the national average.
Formal studies wave red flags about crime and casinos. The Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling reports that 35 percent of callers to its toll-free, anonymous problem-gambling help line say they committed an illegal act to support their habit. One study that examined 167 counties where casinos had been open more than 20 years estimated that 5.5 percent to 30 percent of serious crimes in those counties could be attributed to gambling. Particularly alarming, these counties with casinos saw 157 more aggravated assaults per 100,000 residents than non-casino counties.
If gambling is expanded in our region, our community will be forced to deal with the resulting public safety issues. Our leaders will have no choice but to raise taxes to expand law enforcement coverage to deal with the sharp and sudden increase in crime.
There are those who will argue the tax coffers filled by the gambling industry will offset these increases. Let me be clear, as a state, we will spend more fighting crime than we will ever receive in taxes from gambling.
According to a study by the International Association of Police Chiefs, “for every dollar collected in gambling taxes, the government, on average, spends ten dollars fighting the problems directly related to legalized gambling including prostitution, embezzlement, bad checks, police corruption, racketeering, etc.” Additionally, a report released by the Florida Office of Planning and Budgeting in 1994 projecting costs of legalizing casino gambling in Florida showed that the biggest potential government expense would be incarcerating all the new pathological gamblers who turn to crime. The study reported, “Not counting the cost of prosecution, restitution or other related costs, incarceration and supervision costs alone for problem-gambler criminal incidents could cost Florida residents $6.08 billion.”
If those seeking to expand gambling through the Florida Legislature were successful, it would be opening an entirely new avenue of crime.
Consider these sobering findings from the report “Casinos and Florida: Crime and Prison Costs”:
» Approximately 13 percent of pathological gamblers have assaulted someone for money.
» In the first year after a casino opens, there would be 34 more robberies per 100,000 people, which increase to more than 60 robberies per 100,000 people three years after it opens.
» Casinos would increase crime, burdening the state prison system with billions of dollars of additional costs over a 10-year period.
While these statistics are disturbing, the societal and cultural impacts are not so easily quantified and their damage is lifelong. Often those who turn to gambling are the very people who can least afford to do so. Studies have found a direct link between problem gambling and increased rates of divorce, child abuse, domestic violence, bankruptcy, crime and suicide.
Gambling’s rate of return must not be assessed in monetary measure alone. We must understand that the resulting problems associated with expanding gambling in our state are greater than any potential short term bump in our economy. They are issues we cannot ignore or walk away from. To allow for an expansion in gambling is to allow for an expansion in crime, broken families, and poverty.
http://www.pnj.com/article/20131110/OPINION/311100009/Sheriff-Florida-can-t-afford-gamble-casinos?nclick_check=1
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