The mayor of Birmingham has suggested that an electronic bingo casino be built at the Birmingham Race Course.
The Etowah County Commission recently voted to proceed with the development of an electronic bingo casino in that county, following the example of the Houston County Commission, which voted to allow an electronic bingo casino to be built near Dothan.
The city of Jasper and Walker County are inundated with small electronic bingo casinos. They are all touting the financial gains that such ventures have brought or will bring to their cities, counties and/or regions, but what they fail to mention is the financial costs of such ventures.
First, and most importantly, it should be emphasized that the losers are the ones who provide or will be providing these so-called financial gains.
That is why gambling is a regressive tax — it taxes the poorest citizens because statistics show that it is those who can least afford to gamble that do most of the gambling.
Second, the leaders of these communities are not counting the costs to their community in increased crime.
In a July 2004 report funded and published by the U.S. Department of Justice, it was found that there were significant connections between gambling and crime. More than 30 percent of pathological gamblers who had been arrested in the two cities at the center of this study — Las Vegas and Des Moines, Iowa — reported having committed a robbery within the past year. Nearly one-third admitted to committing the robbery to pay for gambling or to pay gambling debts, and about 13 percent had assaulted someone to get money.
According to the report, “[C]ompulsive or pathological gamblers were significantly more likely to have sold drugs than arrestees who fit the other gambling types.”
A 2003 study, “Beyond the Limits of Recreation: Social Costs of Gambling in Southern Nevada,” prepared for the annual meeting of the Far West and American Popular Culture Association revealed that when pathological gamblers run out of legitimate sources of money, they turn to illegal sources like passing bad checks.
The study found that 63.3 percent have written such checks. A majority, 50.6 percent, indicated that they have stolen money or things to gamble or to pay gambling-related debts. Also more than 30 percent admitted to looking to steal in the workplace.
This is about the same portion that stole from the workplace in other surveys: 31.7 percent in Wisconsin, 37.1 percent in South Carolina and 40.7 percent in Connecticut.
Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute, in referencing a national study by Earl L. Grinols of Baylor University and David B. Mustard of the University of Georgia, noted the following: “In addition to more crime, studies show that casinos result in other external social costs that are substantially higher than the revenues state and local governments rake in from allowing casinos to pillage their citizens.
Nationally, according to Grinols and Mustard, casinos generate total external social costs in the range of $40 billion per year with the biggest portion of the cost related to crime. Grinols and Mustard conclude that even when using conservative estimates of the external social costs and using generous estimates of the benefits of casinos, the research suggests that the costs exceed the benefits.”
Gambling is all about making vain and empty promises.
Billboards along Alabama’s highways and commercials that pop up on the television screens throughout the evening all promise, “You can be a winner, too!” But except for a handful of individuals, many of those who play the games end up losing everything. And even those who win often gamble away their winnings.
That’s why one casino owner, when asked how a person can win at casino gambling, remarked, “Buy one.”
If electronic bingo casinos are permitted to proliferate in our state, then the only real winners will be the owners of these casinos.
If the Christian community had the resources the gambling industry has, then perhaps billboards could be erected and TV commercials aired that say, “I lost my home. You can, too!” or “I lost my job. You can, too!” or “I lost my family. You can, too!”
Instead churches must continue to use their limited resources to minister to the individuals whose lives have been destroyed and minister to the families that have become broken by the devastating effects of gambling.
What can Christians do to reverse this wave of gambling expansion in Alabama?
- Christians throughout Alabama need to tell their city council members, county commissioners and legislators, “We’ve had enough. We want this proliferation of gambling to stop, and we want it to stop now!”
- Make sure that when each election cycle rolls around that only those who are opposed to gambling expansion and who are not receiving any campaign money from the gambling industry are elected.
- Write letters to the editors of local papers, giving the facts of the devastation that gambling brings to a community. A number of resources are available at www.alcap.com.
- Do not go to these electronic bingo casinos.
If God’s people will stop supporting the establishments that are already operating, then they will close their doors and new casinos will not open.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Joe Godfrey is executive director of Alabama Citizens Action Program.
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