Massachusetts kids will feel the biggest impact of the state's effort to bring in casinos. Through no choice of their own, they will bear the brunt of the financial and social harm of government-sponsored casinos.
To help highlight how casinos impact kids, we joined this week with the Public Health Advocacy Institiute at Northeastern School of Law to issue a demand letter of a Mass Lottery retailer to remove free standing lottery scratch ticket vending machines from its stores. The demand letter came after a 14-year old boy bought lottery tickets at two different supermarkets which was copied on video.
Northeastern University Professor Richard Daynard, President of PHAI, addressed the implications for casinos: “If a basic protection like age restrictions on the sale of state lottery tickets is not being enforced, what can we expect if casinos and slot parlors are actually allowed to open in Massachusetts?”
According to the demand letter, state law expressly prohibits the sale of lottery tickets to “any person under age eighteen” (G.L. c. 10, sec. 29). Yet, the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling reports that over two-thirds of teenage boys (aged 14-17) have gambled in the past year, and over half of teenage girls have done so. About a third of these children gambled by playing lottery games.
In testimony before Congress as part of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, the head of the New Jersey’s Council on Compulsive Gambling said 38,000 juveniles were escorted off the state’s casino floors in just one year; 445 were taken into custody by the state.
The future of casinos and lotteries, both of which only operate in partnership with state government, hinges on luring kids to develop a gambling habit. Please share this truth with your friends, co-workers and social networks as you educate them about why regional casinos are financially and socially harmful, especially for the state's kids.
Thanks for your work.
Best,
Les
____________
Les Bernal
National Director
Stop Predatory Gambling
"End the unfairness and inequality created by government-sponsorship of casinos and lotteries."
If you support our mission and work, please participate by contributing $10 or more today to help sustain it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment