Barden’s woes

A news report yesterday indicated that Don Barden is still $150 million short on casino financing and unable to pay construction contractors. Doesn’t it make you want to call lenders like Credit Suisse and tell them you will do whatever you can to ensure the unprofitability of a Pittsburgh casino?

It’s still possible that the steel beams and partial structure peeking into the North Shore sky will remain in that form for a long time. Wouldn’t it be a nice monument to the emptiness of greed? Perhaps we could call it the Tower of Grabble.

“Reliable” survey says only 1 percent of Pennsylvanians are problem gamblers

In today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Gary Rotstein reports on a statewide behavioral risk survey in which about 1 percent of respondents admit to being problem gamblers. Just wondering: what is the value of this statistic, considering that most compulsive gamblers are in denial?

Most studies I’ve seen suggest that the rate of pathological gambling disorder (the most serious level) is at about 1 percent of adults, with 3 to 5 percent characterized as “problem gamblers.” And of course the rate increases significantly—typically it doubles—when casinos enter a community for the first time.

So much for self-exclusion programs

I’ve been pointing out frequently in media interviews that Pennsylvania’s self-exclusion program is pointless, because there is no system to keep the “self-excluded” out of casinos. Further evidence of this truth comes from Ontario, where a lawyer has filed a class action suit against the province for doing nothing to keep self-excluded gamblers out of casinos.

Today’s news brings a report from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (just north of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) about a woman who experienced the same failure of the supposedly protective self-exclusion programs in her area. See http://www.saultthisweek.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1086726 for this sad story. Here’s the woman’s comment about that so-called protection: “That didn't work for me. There's an arrogance," she said. "The way I looked at it was, it was just one more joke; it was only a piece of paper and no one really cared."

And getting back to our previous story: this woman also thinks Ontario’s estimates of the number of problem gamblers (at 2 to 3.4 percent) are low. Here’s why:  "In Ontario, most definitely it's higher," she said. "Compulsive gamblers don't tell the truth. For years I never told the truth about it."

And here’s another Ontario story, about a man who previously sued the province and won a settlement, claiming that its self-exclusion provisions failed to curb his gambling addiction: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=599793

Where we’re headed

The Rockefeller Institute has released a report on states’ use of gambling as a revenue source. (If you want to read the 16-page report, send me an e-mail and I will forward it to you.) It shows that West Virginia has had the fastest growth in dependence on gambling revenues in the past decade. Nearly 9 percent of all the money West Virginia raises now comes from gambling. The report has touched off a series of commentaries in the Mountain State about how unhealthy such dependence is. The percentage places West Virginia second only to Nevada. Pennsylvania was at 2.5 percent at the time of the report, but that number is likely to balloon as more casinos open.

Still looking for presentation opportunities

I enjoyed a presentation last week to a North Side Rotary club. Ingomar Methodist Church in the North Hills is planning an educational event on gambling problems September 10, with presentations by No Dice and gambling addiction counselor Jody Bechtold; this will be our first public presentation in the North Hills (unless someone else requests one before then!). Please keep spreading the word about our presentations and “Winners Avoid Casinos” bumper stickers and window clings.

In the sad story department

A public water engineer admits to embezzling $2 million, losing at least $1 million of it gambling, and sends his family a suicide letter: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080614-1317-nv-embezzlement-gamblingspree.html

Other news – or not so news

A New Hampshire businessman writes a superb essay on his trip to the Foxwoods, Connecticut casino and why casinos are a bad idea for his state: http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Tom+Boucher%3A+A+visit+to+Foxwoods+shows+why+casinos+are+wrong+for+NH&articleId=9590a29d-aa56-4d9e-928f-99b1323249a5

Dianne Berlin recently shared this article from the Columbia Journalism Review. It clearly and powerfully describes how casinos have become popular with state governments, posing as an economic development tool. The year of the article: 1994. Not much has changed since then. http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/94/1/gambling.asp