Editorial: States All In On Gambling

Editorial: States All In On Gambling

Sunday, April 19, 2015
(Published in print: Sunday, April 19, 2015)

 

News that the New Hampshire Legislature is, yet again, considering a bill that would bring big-time casino gambling to the state raises two concerns. The primary one, of course, is that lawmakers will succumb to the lure of additional revenue this time and open the doors to all the ills that accompany casinos. But we’re also a bit worried about the well-being of the legislators themselves. Might another round of the same debate — it’s been going on for at least a couple of decades now, and the talking points for both sides haven’t changed much — prove to be a mind-numbing, soul-killing experience for lawmakers who are otherwise quite busy deciding which social services and agencies to most underfund?

 

We propose to make a contribution to the mental health of New Hampshire lawmakers in two forms.

 

First, we will refrain from repeating the same points that we’ve been making about why casino gambling would be bad for the state and its residents. But just to help the hardworking representatives in Concord keep things fresh, we suggest that if they feel obliged to again address the matter of gambling, they try something different: How about a debate on shrinking the enterprise?

 

Yes, it’s about as likely as a free-ranging debate about the adequacy and fairness of the state’s revenue base, but it’s not unheard of for a state to entertain the notion of reducing its dependency on gambling revenue — or at least toning it down a bit. According to a recent report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, legislatures in several states have considered measures that would require state lottery commissions to exercise some restraint in their efforts to promote their games.

 

How we got to this point is fairly easy to grasp. It’s indisputable that lottery revenue is pretty easy money for most states. Forty-three states now supplement their revenues by offering games of chance. “Supplement” might be the wrong word. According to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, if all states’ revenues were thrown into one pot, lotteries sales would now account for more than 10 percent of the money. Some states are finding it difficult to resist the temptation to further lean on lottery sales to boost their budgetary health — not just by offering new games, but also by venturing into new territory such as mobile apps, online sales and even credit card purchases. That has prompted some legislators to propose measures to ban certain gaming platforms or at least to make more resources available for helping problem gamblers.

 

Such measures signal a recognition that while lottery sales may be an easy way for states to raise money, they’re also a bad way. Numerous studies have documented the reverse Robin Hood effect: A disproportionate percentage of players are among those who can least afford to spend the money.

 

That might not be a troubling phenomenon if they were spending only the odd buck here and there for the slim chance of hitting a big payoff. Many are. But, according to the Stop Predatory Gambling organization, more than 70 percent of state lottery money is coming from just 10 percent of the players. In other words, the nominal price of lottery tickets isn’t preventing problem gamblers from buying so many of them that they’re creating real financial problems for themselves and their families.

 

If New Hampshire legislators were to address the question of whether the state ought to dial back on lottery promotion, it would be an interesting debate. According to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, per capita sales in New Hampshire in fiscal year 2014 amounted to $208 (with total sales at $276 million), compared with the national per capita sales of $250. On the other hand, there are 10 states recording per capita sales below $100. (Vermont, at $163, was not among them.)

 

New Hampshire is not a state that’s shy about capitalizing on people’s vices, so it’s not hard to imagine it following the lead of others by offering online sales or mobile apps. (It’s already possible to sign up for text notifications of jackpots.) Should the state exercise some self-control by pre-emptively banning possible expansion of lottery options or otherwise limiting the amount of money it takes from people who might not be in the best position to squander it? It’s a debate worth having.

 

 

 

 

http://www.vnews.com/opinion/16543957-95/editorial-states-all-in-on-gambling

 

 

 

Overstated Projections

The graphic below illustrates the consistently overstated projections by the Gambling Industry.

Please note that this only considers REVENUES and not the wild projections about JOB CREATION.

If the 'experts' or the Gambling Industry were penalized for the overstated projections, how fast do you think their projections would become more honest? 

They've done much the same in Massachusetts where lawmakers wave the phony numbers as if they're real when any not so bright person [like myself] can easily refute them. In Massachusetts, those overstated projections, based on flawed assumptions, were generated by Spectrum and Clyde Barrow, among others.  




 “Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Center on the States that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.”
http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline/headlines/infographic-have-gambling-investments-paid-off-85899375402

Infographic: Have Gambling Investments Paid Off?

By Mary Mahling, Special to Stateline; Ben Wieder, Staff Writer

Return to related story "Gambling revenue promises rarely met"

The Cuts Are Coming

The Cuts Are Coming

“Casino Jack,” the movie about crooked lobbyist Jack Abramoff, portrayed anti-tax demagogue Grover Norquist as just another member of the Washington fixer’s club. But the filmmakers greatly underestimated him.

Abramoff went off to prison while Norquist, who heads Americans for Tax Reform, has stayed around to twist the arms of legislators in every state in an effort to make them sign no-tax-increase pledges. Those pledges, if honored, would result in reductions in already dwindling appropriations for education and social welfare programs and many other needed services in states with huge deficits. “My goal,” Norquist famously said, “is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

He started Americans for Tax Reform during the Reagan administration. Later, he was a leading strategist of Republican Newt Gingrich’s takeover of the House in 1994. Over the years, Americans for Tax Reform has become the nation’s most effective anti-tax organization.

There’s an angry self-righteousness about the movement. Its members seem to see themselves as doing God’s work while the rest of us are sinners, especially the sinner-in-chief in the White House. But as Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

And sin—if it is a sin to betray the public trust—is part of the Abramoff-Norquist story, as told in “Casino Jack.” What’s in the film is backed up by documents and news stories about the days, some 15 years ago, when the two men and their cohort were flying high, along with another collaborator, Ralph Reed, who was head of the right-wing Christian Coalition.

Abramoff, played in the film by Kevin Spacey, was known as Casino Jack for his highly expensive lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes involved in gambling enterprises. He was lobbying against lotteries and casinos that would have been competition for his clients.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee said in 2006 that Americans for Tax Reform had been a “conduit” for funds that flowed from Abramoff’s clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi reported in The Washington Post that “as the money passed through, Norquist’s organization kept a small cut, e-mails show.” Norquist also moved more than $1 milllion from Abramoff clients to Reed, then an influential fundamentalist Christian organizer. “Reed was working to defeat lotteries and casinos that would have competed with Abramoff’s tribal and Internet clients,” the reporters wrote. It would, of course, look better to the public if the money came from Christian and anti-tax groups rather than gambling interests.

Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. Norquist told the Post that Americans for Tax Reform worked with Abramoff’s gambling clients because they shared anti-tax, anti-regulatory views. He said his organization was not used to conceal the source of funds sent to Reed. Reed said he hadn’t known the money originated from Indian casinos.

Norquist and Reed moved on with their careers. Norquist’s best-known activity is pressing officeholders and candidates to make a “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” to voters—a promise to “oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.”

Tea party influence in Republican primaries makes this a powerful threat to some politicians. In November, the Republicans won a majority of the nation’s legislative seats. The elections produced the biggest Republican statehouse majority since 1928, according to Stateline.org, published by the Pew Center on the States. This means that state governments in big and small states will be heavily influenced if not controlled by uncompromising signers of the Norquist pledge, all of them frightened by the prospect of Norquist-led tea party opposition in their next primary election.

This uncompromising politics leaves states with deficits only one alternative—to sharply cut money for medical aid to the poor, education, law enforcement and many other services. In California, the Republicans in the Legislature won’t even support Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal for legislation that would submit to a popular vote a tax increase to help eliminate a $28 billion budget deficit. Although Democrats control the Legislature, they need Republicans for the two-thirds majority required for passage of the legislation.

This is happening in the state where a popular-vote approval of Proposition 13 in 1978 started the anti-tax movement. I asked John Kartch, communications director for Americans for Tax Reform, about this contradiction in which the anti-taxers now oppose the California Legislature authorizing a popular vote after they supported one in 1978. Kartch, in an e-mail, said Brown should gather enough signatures for a voter initiative putting the measures on the ballot without involving the Legislature. “ATR’s position is that Gov. Brown should not be forcing legislators to do his dirty work, making many of them break their central campaign commitment to constituents in the process,” he said.

That uncompromising attitude in legislatures all over the country will result in great hardship to those dependent on our government’s safety net. The Grover Norquist who was willing to wheel and deal with Jack Abramoff shows no compromise when it comes to inflicting misery on millions of people.