Commentary –

Get Smart About Gambling

By William A. Collins

Gambling hasn’t,

Got me yet;

And never will,

Ya wanna bet?

If the state could just collect 25 percent of the sale price of marijuana, we’d probably see billboards for it along I-95. But pot is the wrong addiction. Instead we spend tens of millions trying to stamp it out.

Gambling, conversely, is the right addiction, and so we do see billboards for it along I-95. It’s the right addiction because the state does indeed pocket 25 percent of the take from the slot machines at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, and a similar share from the lottery. Even with this heavy tax, gambling is Connecticut’s fastest growing industry and habit. Further, it will soon enjoy another happy spurt when the Mohegans open their latest addition. Then this Land of Steady Habits will boast the two biggest casinos in the world.

And one nice part of gambling is that it doesn’t pollute. No PCBs slip into the river, dioxin into the air, or mercury into the ground. Even the noisy curses over failed wagers are muffled by the din at the casinos, and dead lottery tickets are recycled into electricity like the rest of our garbage. The only serious debris from gambling is the gamblers, and they mostly suffer in silence.

As you can imagine, measuring the number of these addicts is a trick. They don’t wear stigmata on their foreheads, and don’t readily admit their problem, even to themselves. Various researchers have come up with figures ranging from two to six percent of the population, with five often used as a working estimate. Not all these folks are slot machine zombies by any means, and few have lost their shirts, yet.

Their number, however, is growing, as access to new and more convenient formats increases. Foxwoods is closer than Vegas, and Lotto is closer than Foxwoods. Worse yet, computers are closer than either one, and contain around 700 casino sites so far. Here in Norwalk we’re additionally proud to host eLOT, Inc., a hot new dotcom which proposes to market all manner of lottery tickets over the net. What a coup for our city! eLOT just spent $750,000 lobbying Congress to fend off a law that would deeply restrict such Internet gambling. Ironically the company only enjoyed total first quarter revenue of $150,000, but not to worry. When that deadly bill in Congress failed, its stock rose 32 percent. Hence, with the aid of Wall Street, you can now gamble on gambling.

But if you’d like a surer bet, put your money on an increase in addiction. After some survey work, the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling estimates that we’re already home to about 70,000 problem gamblers. Not surprisingly, the heaviest concentration is in New London County, where the casinos are. This makes it fairly easy to predict what will happen in Fairfield and Litchfield Counties if any of our local tribes gain federal recognition and put up casinos of their own. No doubt the continued growth of Internet access will also speed these addiction numbers along.

Also, between 1989 and 1998, US bankruptcies doubled, highest in those counties with legal gambling. The 1998 figure was 1.4 million. This, of course, was during the longest economic boom in US history. Embezzlements are up too, especially in Conn.

Ah, what to do? Policy makers are loathe to cut back on gambling. It brings in so much money, and lots of voters enjoy it. But at least we could set aside a much bigger chunk of that tasty revenue than we do now, and place Gamblers Anonymous booths in every casino hall. We could also lay off new lottery games and outlaw Powerball and Internet wagering. Even if we can’t act intelligently about drugs, at least we ought to get smart about gambling.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative & a former mayor of Norwalk, Conn.)