Happy Groundhog Day!

Groundhog Day has taken on new meaning.  Today, at least temporarily, Punxsatawney Phil regains his rightful place as Pennsylvania’s most famous groundhog.   Gus may claim to be number two, but he’s probably number one by now, thanks to all the media play he’s received as promoter of the Pennsylvania lottery.

If you want Phil to stay on top, plug your ears when Gus tells you to “keep on scratching.”

 

Surprise: The mob likes gambling

The past week has brought us another item in the long history of criminal charges related to casino gambling.  Louis DeNaples, owner of the Mt. Airy slots facility in the Pocono Mountains, has been indicted for perjury and has had his gambling license suspended.  Apparently a grand jury thinks he was lying when he denied “mob” ties.

The indictment has spawned yet another flurry of criticisms of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s investigation practices.  House Republicans plan to push for changes that, they claim, will help to bring “integrity and transparency” to the casino industry.

If they discover a way to bring integrity to a business that is wholly built on finding ways to separate people from their money, I will look forward to hearing about it.

 

Casino psychology 101

Sorry, I broke a promise. In our January 1 newsletter I promised to share more in the next issue on my trip to Wheeling Island, but I didn't do so.

My wife and I visited Wheeling Island’s casino on December 20, the first day when table games were available to the public.  Staff kindly permitted me to take photos as long as I did not photograph any patrons.  Having visited the casino once previously, I knew many of the photos I wanted.

The Wheeling Island casino entrance is a bright, cheery lobby area from which a short escalator (see photo in the attachment if you can download it) leads to the casino floor.  The one-level rise seems insignificant, but it’s enough so that none of the daylight streaming through the glass doors into the lobby area reaches the casino level.  That’s intentional, of course.  Casinos are designed to be dark, without windows or clocks, because patrons aren’t supposed to remember there’s an outside world until they have emptied their pockets.

The arrival of table games required some remodeling, of course.  You can’t play blackjack or craps if it’s too dark to see the cards or dice.  So now the table games area is lighted from above in such a way that the slots areas remain dark, hypnotically illuminated by the lights inside the machines.

The background music—well, I would hate to call it music.  If you stop and listen closely, you realize that it’s basically a single set of pulsating, synthesizer-produced tones, rapidly sounding in the style of an arpeggio, and endlessly repeated.  Perhaps some day, just as we have learned about internal tobacco industry memos on nicotine’s addictive nature, we will learn about the experiments by which the casino industry determined that this background noise was effective.

I signed up for a Wheeling Island players card.  The staff person explained the point system for earning rewards at the slot machines.  For every $7 I put into the machines, I earn one point.  Various point levels qualify for rewards; at 1,000 points I would be eligible for a free night stay in the casino’s hotel.

Now let’s do a little math.  To reach 1,000 points I would have to put $7,000 into the slots.  Assuming a 93 percent payout rate, which is about as high as the slot machines go, I would lose 7 percent of that amount, or $490.  No wonder Wheeling Island can afford to give me a free night in its hotel.  Actually, the casino is even more generous—they give me triple the points on my first three visits to get me hooked.

Finally, back to that “music.”  Last weekend my two sons watched part of a billiards tournament on ESPN.  It took place at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut.  Sitting at our computer across the room, I turned and asked the boys, “Can you hear the background noise?”  Sure enough, an attentive listener could hear the same sounds as at Wheeling Island, echoing constantly in the background.

 

Ad wars

 
I often say the only local businesses that profit from a casino’s arrival are pawn shops and check cashing stores.  But actually there’s one other beneficiary:  the billboard industry.  Pittsburgh is now graced by large billboards advertising the Meadows (on Route 51 a mile southeast of the Liberty Tunnel entrance), Wheeling Island (at the tunnel’s south portal), and Mountaineer Casino (on the Boulevard of the Allies approaching the ramp to the Liberty Bridge).  Casino Niagara has advertised on Interstate 79 north near the Ohio River bridge.  I’m sure there are many more such billboards around town.

Like Coke and Pepsi, the casinos show no love for each other in their advertising.  Alongside an exit ramp in Wheeling, a billboard for the Meadows reads, “You could have been in our casino 38 minutes ago!”  Trumpeting West Virginia’s authorization of table games, Wheeling Island has placed a billboard for its poker room on route 19 immediately adjacent to the Meadows.

 

Our presentations debut

No Dice’s new presentation had a successful unveiling in January.  I gave two Manchester Citizens Corporation staff a sneak preview, receiving valuable feedback, and hope to have the opportunity to share our work with the MCC board in March.  Then on January 30 John Schnatterly and I presented to our first sizable audience—30 staff at Allegheny Center Alliance Church.  The reception was very favorable and I am hopeful that presentation requests and our “Winners Avoid Casinos” campaign will begin to grow by word of mouth.

 

Gold star of the week

Special thanks to Pat Evey of Christ United Methodist Church in Bethel Park, who has taken the time to reconnect No Dice with longtime and prospective supporters within the western Pennsylvania Methodist conference.

 

Pitt School of Social Work shares good sense

The University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work held a media conference on January 22 to share the results of its study on the local human services community’s readiness to respond to the social impact of casino gambling.  Not surprisingly, readiness levels are very low.  One key reason is limited funding.  The study authors compared typical gambling addiction rates and estimated costs of gambling addiction with the amount of state money appropriated for compulsive gambling treatment and found that the state has provided barely over one-thousandth of the funds that will be needed.

I commented briefly during the media conference’s question period, noting that the recommendation of greater state investment in prevention was unlikely to succeed because the state is now addicted to gambling revenues.  I ended up doing three impromptu interviews and showed up on WPXI-TV that night.

 

Also in the news

A 70-year-old man from Millcreek Township (near Erie) will be going to prison five years after robbing a bank on November 8.  Prosecution and defense lawyers agreed that gambling losses were the primary motivation for the robbery. http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080131/NEWS02/801310421/-1/NEWS02

 

“Pokie” players are achieving record losses in the Australian state of Victoria; a poll found that 90 percent of Victorians believe there are two many pokies in Victoria.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23134331-661,00.html