GraceAbounds
Well-Known Member
This is a paper I wrote on Gambling. It is dedicated to my brother in law who is addicted to gambling. His addiction is ruining his life.
If my words help just one person never gamble, the joy I would feel from knowing that would be immeasurable.
Gambling entertainment, in one socially accepted recreational form or another is legal in forty-seven out of fifty states. Ron Wall a Specialist in Family Economics and Management asks “Is gambling really entertainment? And when was the last time you went out and spent three hundred or a thousand dollars for entertainment, and who can afford to spend such sums, even sporadically, as gamblers often do?” Financially distressed cities initially may be helped monetarily by introducing legalized gambling, but in the long run they will end up paying a much higher price due to the social and economic costs that come with it like bankruptcy, unemployment, crime, divorce, suicide, etc. Legalizing gambling is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. The belief that legalized gambling is going to cure society’s ills, is like thinking a virus is going to get rid of a virus. Legalized gambling never should have been offered as a cure.
Gambling was legalized by many who thought that the revenues from it would help the education system, yet according to Money Magazine, May 1996, “lottery states spend less of their budgets on schools than non lottery states on average. Other people think that if we outlaw gambling it will increase illegal gambling. Yet in a paper by Kerby Anderson titled Gambling, he states that “Legal gambling does not drive out illegal gambling. If anything, just the opposite is true. As legalized gambling comes into a state, it provides additional momentum for illegal gambling.” The Organized Crime Section of the Department of Justice found that "the rate of illegal gambling in those states which have some legalized form of gambling was three times as high as those states where there was no legalized form of gambling.”
Legalizing a harmful addictive activity creates an illusion of safety in the eyes of the consumer. The United States has over 15 million gambling addicts. Gambling addicts suffer from depression, insomnia, intestinal disorder, migraines, anxiety, and cognitive disorders, and even suicide. Between twenty and thirty percent of gambling addicts have attempted suicide according to a Nevada study. There are no other variable addict populaces with such a high prevalence for suicide attempts. According to a study done that Carl Bechtolds reported on in his paper titled Tide of Yields Backwash of Gambling Addiction, ninety two percent of eighty gambling addicts relapsed when trying to break free from their addiction.
Furthermore, populations that are in close proximity to casinos have a much higher chance of becoming a gambling addict. “As gambling becomes legal, the barriers to participate decrease, thus the propensity for involvement increases” states Ron Wall, Specialist in Family Economics and Management. Add to this fact that America has the lowest savings rate of any industrialized nation, and it is no surprise that marriages and families feel the effect of compulsive gambling immediately. The National Gambling Impact Study Commission reports that fifty percent of compulsive gamblers have been divorced versus twenty three percent of non gamblers. Gambling is also a catalyst for domestic violence and child abuse just like alcohol abuse is.
Sylvia Porter reports in the Dallas Morning News that the average gambling addict is in debt over eighty thousand dollars. The debt leads to poor credit ratings and eventually bankruptcy which can prevent people from buying houses, cars or attaining employment. It is obvious that the average worker can’t afford to lose several hundred dollars every couple of weeks. The total amount of money lost over ten, twenty, or even thirty years could have paid for retirement or health care. Treatment for gambling addiction equates to lost work time which equates to lost productivity. It isn’t a stretch of one’s mind to understand the strain these losses put on our nation’s welfare system and the losses felt by American business. John W. Kindt, a professor of business administration estimated that problem gambling, including personal bankruptcies and increased crime, costs the U.S. economy about $80 billion a year.
Another cost of legalized gambling is the eight percent more total crimes that it brings to a community. Earl Grinols reports that “for an average county with 100,000 population crime will increase by 772 more larcenies, 357 more burglaries, 331 more auto thefts, 12 more rapes, 68 more robberies, and 112 more aggravated assaults.” For example, Nevada is the number one most dangerous state to live in. Nevada is also number one in suicides, divorce, prostitution, amount of women killed by men, and gambling addictions. They are ranked number three for high school dropouts, poor mental health, and alcohol related deaths and number four in bankruptcies. Not surprisingly, Nevada is ranked forty seventh in voter turnout. These are the long term effects of a gambling state.
The gambling industry does not stimulate a community’s economy. It drains money from our cities; money that could be spent in things that do stimulate the economy, like businesses, investments, and loans. Economist Earl Grinols reports the costs to benefits are greater than $3 to $1. In USA Today, Ross Wilhelm a Professor of Business Economics with the University of Michigan says, “State lotteries and gambling games are essentially 'a rip-off' and widespread legalization of gambling is one of the worst changes in public policy to have occurred in recent years. . . .The viciousness of the state-run games is compounded beyond belief by the fact that state governments actively advertise and promote the games and winners.” The Twentieth Century Fund research group commented that "Gambling's get-rich-quick appeal appears to mock capitalism's core values: Disciplined work habits, thrift, prudence, adherence to routine, and the relationship between effort and reward." Historian John Ezel concludes in his book, Fortune's Merry Wheel, "If history teaches us anything, a study of over 1300 legal lotteries held in the United States proves...they cost more than they brought in if their total impact on society is reckoned." Psychologist Julian Taber in the USA Today stated, "The states are experimenting with the minds of the people on a massive scale.”
The United States government should be a positive role model in our society; instead they encourage people to gamble. Gambling revenues are never able to meet the demands of the state over time. The more people that gamble, the poorer our society becomes. The government has two choices. One is to remove this harmful product from society. The other is to tax the gambling industry to the nines for all of the social and economical ills their product has created. I say remove it and remove it now; shame on the government for ever offering institutionalized greed as a solution to society’s ills in the first place.
If my words help just one person never gamble, the joy I would feel from knowing that would be immeasurable.
Gambling: Virus or Cure?
Gambling entertainment, in one socially accepted recreational form or another is legal in forty-seven out of fifty states. Ron Wall a Specialist in Family Economics and Management asks “Is gambling really entertainment? And when was the last time you went out and spent three hundred or a thousand dollars for entertainment, and who can afford to spend such sums, even sporadically, as gamblers often do?” Financially distressed cities initially may be helped monetarily by introducing legalized gambling, but in the long run they will end up paying a much higher price due to the social and economic costs that come with it like bankruptcy, unemployment, crime, divorce, suicide, etc. Legalizing gambling is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. The belief that legalized gambling is going to cure society’s ills, is like thinking a virus is going to get rid of a virus. Legalized gambling never should have been offered as a cure.
Gambling was legalized by many who thought that the revenues from it would help the education system, yet according to Money Magazine, May 1996, “lottery states spend less of their budgets on schools than non lottery states on average. Other people think that if we outlaw gambling it will increase illegal gambling. Yet in a paper by Kerby Anderson titled Gambling, he states that “Legal gambling does not drive out illegal gambling. If anything, just the opposite is true. As legalized gambling comes into a state, it provides additional momentum for illegal gambling.” The Organized Crime Section of the Department of Justice found that "the rate of illegal gambling in those states which have some legalized form of gambling was three times as high as those states where there was no legalized form of gambling.”
Legalizing a harmful addictive activity creates an illusion of safety in the eyes of the consumer. The United States has over 15 million gambling addicts. Gambling addicts suffer from depression, insomnia, intestinal disorder, migraines, anxiety, and cognitive disorders, and even suicide. Between twenty and thirty percent of gambling addicts have attempted suicide according to a Nevada study. There are no other variable addict populaces with such a high prevalence for suicide attempts. According to a study done that Carl Bechtolds reported on in his paper titled Tide of Yields Backwash of Gambling Addiction, ninety two percent of eighty gambling addicts relapsed when trying to break free from their addiction.
Furthermore, populations that are in close proximity to casinos have a much higher chance of becoming a gambling addict. “As gambling becomes legal, the barriers to participate decrease, thus the propensity for involvement increases” states Ron Wall, Specialist in Family Economics and Management. Add to this fact that America has the lowest savings rate of any industrialized nation, and it is no surprise that marriages and families feel the effect of compulsive gambling immediately. The National Gambling Impact Study Commission reports that fifty percent of compulsive gamblers have been divorced versus twenty three percent of non gamblers. Gambling is also a catalyst for domestic violence and child abuse just like alcohol abuse is.
Sylvia Porter reports in the Dallas Morning News that the average gambling addict is in debt over eighty thousand dollars. The debt leads to poor credit ratings and eventually bankruptcy which can prevent people from buying houses, cars or attaining employment. It is obvious that the average worker can’t afford to lose several hundred dollars every couple of weeks. The total amount of money lost over ten, twenty, or even thirty years could have paid for retirement or health care. Treatment for gambling addiction equates to lost work time which equates to lost productivity. It isn’t a stretch of one’s mind to understand the strain these losses put on our nation’s welfare system and the losses felt by American business. John W. Kindt, a professor of business administration estimated that problem gambling, including personal bankruptcies and increased crime, costs the U.S. economy about $80 billion a year.
Another cost of legalized gambling is the eight percent more total crimes that it brings to a community. Earl Grinols reports that “for an average county with 100,000 population crime will increase by 772 more larcenies, 357 more burglaries, 331 more auto thefts, 12 more rapes, 68 more robberies, and 112 more aggravated assaults.” For example, Nevada is the number one most dangerous state to live in. Nevada is also number one in suicides, divorce, prostitution, amount of women killed by men, and gambling addictions. They are ranked number three for high school dropouts, poor mental health, and alcohol related deaths and number four in bankruptcies. Not surprisingly, Nevada is ranked forty seventh in voter turnout. These are the long term effects of a gambling state.
The gambling industry does not stimulate a community’s economy. It drains money from our cities; money that could be spent in things that do stimulate the economy, like businesses, investments, and loans. Economist Earl Grinols reports the costs to benefits are greater than $3 to $1. In USA Today, Ross Wilhelm a Professor of Business Economics with the University of Michigan says, “State lotteries and gambling games are essentially 'a rip-off' and widespread legalization of gambling is one of the worst changes in public policy to have occurred in recent years. . . .The viciousness of the state-run games is compounded beyond belief by the fact that state governments actively advertise and promote the games and winners.” The Twentieth Century Fund research group commented that "Gambling's get-rich-quick appeal appears to mock capitalism's core values: Disciplined work habits, thrift, prudence, adherence to routine, and the relationship between effort and reward." Historian John Ezel concludes in his book, Fortune's Merry Wheel, "If history teaches us anything, a study of over 1300 legal lotteries held in the United States proves...they cost more than they brought in if their total impact on society is reckoned." Psychologist Julian Taber in the USA Today stated, "The states are experimenting with the minds of the people on a massive scale.”
The United States government should be a positive role model in our society; instead they encourage people to gamble. Gambling revenues are never able to meet the demands of the state over time. The more people that gamble, the poorer our society becomes. The government has two choices. One is to remove this harmful product from society. The other is to tax the gambling industry to the nines for all of the social and economical ills their product has created. I say remove it and remove it now; shame on the government for ever offering institutionalized greed as a solution to society’s ills in the first place.
