Showing posts with label expanded gambling. Show all posts

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Your state is attempting to pass the biggest expansion of gambling in its history

While much of the public attention has been focused on the presidential campaigns, there is a stealth, powerful lobbying campaign underway by commercial gambling operators in more than 20 states where legislatures are currently in session.

Their purpose is to legalize online gambling, including a bid to turn every American child’s video game console like PlayStation, Xbox and Wii into a Las Vegas casino.

At least 15 states are facing bills with almost the exact same language (AL, GA, IL, IN, MD, MN, MO, MS, NE, NM, OK, SC, VA, WV, WI.) So far, the bill has advanced the furthest in Virginia.

If your state is not mentioned above, you can be almost certain that a pro-online gambling lobbying campaign has been launched or is being planned A gambling industry news site has provided a useful legislative bill tracking link to tell you the status of online gambling bills in your state.

The implications of these bills are enormous and merit far more public scrutiny and legislative consideration than they have currently received.

We sent a letter today to the Virginia Legislature regarding their bill. Below is a press release about our letter. I urge you to read the letter itself so you can better understand what is happening and why it is essential for you to participate in your state.

I also urge you to modify the letter and the media release to fit your state and put it out there. If you want us to work with you (and any like-minded organizations in your state) to send a similar letter, let us know.

Thanks.

Les

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Les Bernal
February 25, 2015 (202) 567-6996

Virginia Legislature Misled Into Passing the Biggest Expansion of Gambling in State History
Bill allows gambling operators to turn every Virginia child’s video game console into a Las Vegas casino

(RICHMOND, VA) – In a letter to Virginia legislators today, a national government reform group declared that legislators were “misled” when they recently passed a bill legalizing online gambling in the state.

“This bill represents the biggest expansion of gambling in Virginia history and legislators were misled into supporting it,” said Les Bernal, the National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling (SPG) which sent the letter. “If it becomes law, gambling operators will be able to turn every Virginia child’s video game console like PlayStation, Xbox and Wii into a Las Vegas casino. The issue deserves far more public scrutiny and legislative consideration than it’s received.”

In its letter, SPG’s letter points to several examples of the misinformation campaign around the legislation:

1) The bill allows far more forms of internet gambling than constituents, legislators and state media have been led to believe, relying on cookie cutter language found in proposed DFS bills in 14 other states.

2) The bill legalizes “eSports,” allowing gambling operators to turn every Virginia child’s video game console like PlayStation, Xbox and Wii in the State of Virginia into a Las Vegas casino. Users will be allowed to wager on the results of video games;

3) As written, the bill allows wagering on non-sports fantasy contests like awards shows, political debates, and even spelling bees;

4) Despite cloaking the bill’s intent as “consumer protection,” there are virtually no new consumer protections for Virginians

5) Lobbying campaigns have presented these online gambling operators as vibrant, sound businesses but recent media reports have spotlighted how they are on shaky financial ground;

6) To give the appearance that more support for online gambling exists than there really is, proponents are deliberately blurring the amount of participants in “daily fantasy sports” with traditional season-long games already played by Virginians.

“We strongly urge the members of the Virginia Legislature and the Governor to take immediate action to halt the lobbying effort to legalize online gambling in the state,” Bernal said.

To read SPG’s letter, please download it here or by visiting the link: http://stoppredatorygambling.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016-VA-Legislature-letter-on-DFS-bill.pdf

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____________

Les Bernal

National Director

Stop Predatory Gambling

Build a more humane and just society: end government-sponsored gambling because it is dishonest, financially damaging to citizens and contributes to rising inequality of opportunity.

If you support our mission and work, please become a member by contributing $10 or more today to help sustain it.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Beacon Hill Genuflects to More Drunks on the road

Beacon Hill Prostitution disregards PUBLIC SAFETY!

No debate, no fanfare, no discussion! Just slip it in?

What happened to Senator Stanley Rosenberg opposition?

Review the costs of: HAPPY HOUR

FROM MASSterlist:

Casinos’ last-call perk has its share of critics

Public safety officials and casino opponents are among those sounding warnings after the state budget process resulted in the state’s future casinos being able to request the right to serve alcohol until 4 a.m., then start serving again at 8 a.m. Local bars and restaurants say the carve-out puts them at a competitive disadvantage. Dan Atkinson and Jordan Graham of the Herald have more.

Boston Herald

Interesting budget tidbits: 4 a.m. liquor hours for casinos and T pension transfer

Gov. Baker yesterday signed, amended or rejected a number of policy riders within the state budget, two of which caught our attention, via the Globe: “Baker approved language, sought by the casino industry, to extend alcohol service at the gambling palaces until 4 a.m., two hours past what is permitted at the latest-serving restaurants and bars. Baker’s budget message also includes authorization for the state to transfer control of the MBTA employees pension fund into the state’s general pension program, a measure lawmakers have rejected previously.”

MASSACHUSETTS DRUNKS ON THE ROAD? Conn. ended push for 24-hour bars at casinos after crash

EXPANDED FREE ALCOHOL IS NOT ''another little change'!
Massachusetts has only Plainridge Slot Barn open at this time and already CHANGES?

How many DRUNKS do you want on the road?
Masachusetts is unable to reduce ALCOHOL RELATED fatalities now.

Reported by MASSterlist 04/14/2017:

Rosenberg ‘not a fan’ of extending casino last calls to 4 a.m.

The House budget unveiled earlier this week has an outside section that would allow casinos to sell liquor to gamblers an extra two hours till 4 a.m. But Shira Schoenberg at MassLive reports that Senate President Stan Rosenberg is “not a fan of the idea,” in his words. "We said we're not going to chip away at the statute because this is how it happens in state after state,"Rosenberg said. "First there's one little change, then another little change and before you know it the commonwealth loses control of the industry."

MassLive

Conn. ended push for 24-hour bars at casinos after crash

State had hoped to collect more slot machine profits

DRIVER CHARGED
A sailor, Daniel E. Musser, 24, is charged with manslaughter and driving under the influence and faces up to 19 years in prison.

By Gregory B. Hladky

Globe Correspondent / March 22, 2009

HARTFORD - Officials looking to help solve Connecticut's multibillion-dollar deficit thought they had found an easy way to raise another $5 million a year: allow casinos to serve alcohol 24 hours a day.

A sailor, Daniel E. Musser, 24, is charged with manslaughter and driving under the influence and faces up to 19 years in prison.

DRIVER CHARGED

More hours of bar service would mean more gambling, they figured, which would mean the state could collect more slot machine profits.

But the proposal by Governor M. Jodi Rell's administration came to a sudden end at about 3:30 a.m. on March 7, when a car leaving the Mohegan Sun casino turned the wrong way down Interstate 395, headlights off, and slammed into a van full of college students on their way to Logan International Airport. They were scheduled for a flight to Uganda, where they had plans to help out at an orphan age over spring break.

Elizabeth Durante, a 20-year-old pre-med student at Connecticut College in New London, was killed.

The car's driver, Daniel E. Musser, 24, a sailor from the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, was charged with manslaughter and driving under the influence and faces up to 19 years in prison.

The next day, Rell called Durante's death "an unconscionable tragedy" and pulled back her budget proposal to make alcohol available 24 hours at the casinos.

"Even though this accident occurred under the laws as they have been for many years, the governor said it does give one pause to question the wisdom of extending liquor service hours at the casinos," Christopher Cooper, Rell spokesman, said recently. "We don't believe the bill is going to move forward this session."

Chuck Bunnell, chief of staff for the Mohegan Tribal Council, agreed.

"The Tribal Council in general has taken the position that it's time to pause and mourn the loss of this very bright light of humanity," Bunnell said, "that it's not appropriate to have those discussions right now."

Bunnell said the tribe was originally "approached on a bipartisan basis" by lawmakers looking for ways to increase state revenue.

Lori A. Potter, a spokeswoman for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, said analysts at the tribe's Foxwoods Resort Casino stand by their prediction that extending casino bar hours would result in an increase in state revenue.

"It is important to note that it would be impossible to find a more heavily regulated serving establishment in the state of Connecticut than the two casinos," Potter said.

Connecticut law requires the casinos' bars to stop serving by 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and by 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. One of the arguments originally used in favor of allowing longer serving hours was that their competitors in Atlantic City serve alcohol 24 hours a day.

Legal hours for bars to serve alcohol vary greatly across the United States, according to Steven Schmidt, vice president for public policy at the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association.

In Massachusetts, for example, state law allows service until 11 p.m., but local governing bodies can extend the hours to 2 a.m. In states such as New Jersey and Nevada, Schmidt said, local authorities are allowed to set bar closing hours.

Charles H. Gartman, one of the students with Durante in the van that night, has difficulty understanding why anyone thought round-the-clock liquor at the casinos was a good idea.

"Twenty-four-hour bar service is a little bit ridiculous," Gartman said last week in a phone interview from his New York City home. "You can't trust everyone to drink and drive safely."

Gartman, 19 and a sophomore at Connecticut College, has not yet recovered from injuries he suffered in the crash.

The five other passengers also suffered injuries, some minor.

"Both my legs were pretty banged up, and at first I couldn't walk," he said. "I have pretty severe lacerations on my chin."

Nor has he recovered from the loss of Durante, of West Islip, N.Y. Gartman said it was Durante who got him interested in going to Uganda to aid orphaned children. "It was her enthusiasm for helping people," he recalled.

Stephanie Hinman, who was Durante's roommate and one of the students on the Uganda trip, finds it ironic that her friend would die at the hands of an accused drunk driver.

"Neither Liz nor I ever drank," Hinman said from her home in Norfolk, Conn.

"We lived together in the substance-free dorm."

In a 2007 interview with a college publication, Durante said she wanted to become a surgeon and work in Africa with Doctors Without Borders.

For Janice Heggie Margolis, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Durante's death provided tragic evidence of why casino liquor hours should never be expanded.

She said the potential price to society of more fatal crashes is simply too high, no matter how much money might flow to the state. "This is exactly the reason why," Heggie Margolis said.

"You can never put on paper the cost of a life."

http://archive.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2009/03/22/conn_ended_push_for_24_hour_bars_at_casinos_after_crash/

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

MASSACHUSETTS DRUNKS ON THE ROAD? Conn. ended push for 24-hour bars at casinos after crash

Rosenberg ‘not a fan’ of extending casino last calls to 4 a.m.

The House budget unveiled earlier this week has an outside section that would allow casinos to sell liquor to gamblers an extra two hours till 4 a.m. But Shira Schoenberg at MassLive reports that Senate President Stan Rosenberg is “not a fan of the idea,” in his words. "We said we're not going to chip away at the statute because this is how it happens in state after state," Rosenberg said. "First there's one little change, then another little change and before you know it the commonwealth loses control of the industry."