Gambling with safety

Gambling with safety


A Philadelphia man made headlines in June after leaving his 15-month-old son in a car while he gambled inside the Parx casino.

At the time, the story seemed like an extreme example of a problem gambler. Turns out, it's just another day at Parx.

A West Philadelphia mother was arrested recently for leaving her two daughters in a car while she gambled for six hours inside Parx. She became the fifth person charged this summer for leaving a child in a car while she gambled at the Bensalem casino.

The mother played the slots until after midnight. One daughter finally borrowed a cell phone from a customer in the parking lot to call her father. That's five confirmed incidents at one casino within weeks.

Who knows how many other gamblers slipped in and out of the casino while their kids waited in the car? Or how many children are left home alone or elsewhere unattended while their desperate parents pump money into the one-armed bandits? And how many other problem gamblers are quietly falling deeper and deeper into debt since Pennsylvania legalized gambling in 2004?

The casino industry argues that it provides entertainment and doesn't tolerate problem gamblers. The industry says the majority of gamblers come and go without blowing the rent money or leaving their kids locked in a car. And the industry touts services and programs it provides to help or prevent problem gambling.

At best, it's a passive approach. That's because regular, hard-core gamblers are the target market for casinos, especially the regional ones here that don't cater to tourists as Las Vegas does. It's not in the casinos' interest to chase away their best customers.

The fact that a parent can leave his or her child in a car for hours while he or she gambles shows that casinos sell something that can be as addictive as heroin or crack. And it's happening more often than the industry or regulators want to admit. At the very least, the casinos should post a guard to inspect cars entering the parking lot and patrol the lot for children trapped in cars before someone dies.

At the same time, a more proactive approach is needed to stop problem gamblers, not cater to them. The industry can't get away from the reality that casinos make an overwhelming majority of their profits off of a small percentage of repeat customers (read: addicted). Not to mention, casinos provide lots of incentives to keep gamblers coming back.

And gamblers lose far more often than they win - otherwise the casinos wouldn't be in business and Pennsylvania wouldn't be raking in buckets of tax revenue that makes lawmakers' eyes light up.

But here's the dirty secret that no one likes to discuss: Thanks to Gov. Rendell & Co., the commonwealth is now an enabling partner in an addictive industry that destroys lives and drives parents to lock their kids in the car for hours while they play the slots.

There's nothing entertaining about that.