What are the foreclosure experts thinking?

I received an e-mail today notifying me about a training session next Monday to equip community leaders to help in averting foreclosures in their area.  I’ve been curious for quite a while as to whether people involved in helping those at risk of foreclosure acknowledge the likelihood that they have been gambling (after all, most Americans gamble to some extent) and encourage them to avoid gambling so that they can pay their bills instead.  So I signed up to attend.  I’ll let you know what I hear (or don’t hear).

Our first presentation of the fall

Ingomar United Methodist Church will host a special event on gambling concerns on Wednesday evening, September 10, starting at 6:30.  No Dice is the first featured presentation, followed by trained gambling addiction counselor Jody Bechtold and a representative from GamAnon (which helps families addicted by families).  This is our first appearance in the North Hills.  I hope it will be the first of many.  Please encourage your friends in the North Hills to come and check us out.

Australia’s hero speaks truth to power

In Australia’s national governing body, one man stands out distinctively:  Nick Xenophon, a lawyer who ran first for provincial government and then for parliament on the “No Pokies” ticket.  Pokies are the video poker machines that proliferate more heavily in Australia (on a per-capita basis) than anywhere else in the world.

Nick Xenophon has become a truly outstanding voice of conscience on the topic of gambling.  Perhaps when society comes to see gambling as it now views racial discrimination, Nick will get as much space as Martin Luther King in our history books.  His message may not be quite as poetic, but he doesn’t mince words.

On August 24, Xenophon spoke to a conference of the Australasian Gaming Machine Manufacturers Association.  It is truly an incredible speech.  The link by which Dianne Berlin of the National Council Against Legalized Gambling found the speech does not appear to link directly to the text any longer, so I have pasted the full message at the bottom.  Here is an excerpt to grab your interest:

Your machines are inherently unsafe. 

When other products have been found to cause significant harm to a
significant number of users they have been banned.

In 1999, the Productivity Commission found that almost 1 in 20 poker machine
users become problem gamblers.

Could you imagine a restaurant staying in business if even 1 in 200 diners
became ill? 

Now, can you imagine yourself giving a speech like that to a room full of slot machine manufacturers?  And Xenophon concluded by challenging the manufacturers to recognize the harm they are doing to people for profit.  “The charade is over,” he said.  “I am calling you on it.”  May we have a few similar statesmen and stateswomen in America!

Other recent news

Philadelphia editorial writers have increasingly come around to recognizing that Pennsylvania’s slots law was a mistake.  See this editorial on the possibility of Foxwoods giving up its riverfront location, and especially the conclusion: http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/20080826_CASINO_SAGA_CHAPTER_TWO__MOVEMENT_.html

Allentown’s Paul Carpenter documents a customer’s experience of having no recourse after a slot machine mysteriously wiped away a jackpot.  Like many others, Carpenter observes that gambling was fairer when operated by the mob than when overseen by government:  http://www.mcall.com/news/columnists/all-5cheat.6552864aug22,0,5523485.column

Nevada may make lots of money off gambling, but an amazing 6 percent of Nevadans have gambling problems:  http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_10274622

Florida grandma leaves two young kids in the car while she gambles:  http://www.local10.com/news/17236064/detail.html

Texas grandma leaves two kids in the car while she gambles, but the result is different—the older child, age 14, drives off with the car and leaves her stranded.  Grandma gets a year of jail time:  http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=8904208&nav=8H3x

Full text of Nick Xenophon’s speech follows

When I was first invited to speak at this conference, the organisers told me
they saw it as a chance for members of your industry to get to know the new
No Pokies" Senator.

They pitched it as a meet and greet, and assured me that by the end of it I
wouldn't end up as dead meat.

I hope they're right.

So who am I?

Who is this scruffy-looking upstart from South Australia vowing to do
everything in his power to shut down your industry?

Well, let's start with what I'm not.

I am not a zealot.

I am not some religious type who sees the world in terms of black and white,
good and evil.

I am not some supernanny of the nanny state who's here to tell the poker
machine barons to sit on "the naughty chair".

Many of you will be shocked to learn I believe strongly in freedom of choice
and I am opposed to unreasonable government intervention into our lives.

In a moment I will tell you how that fits with my stance on pokies.

You also need to know that I am not some politician who looked for the next
populist issue, and decided poker machines would be my way to gain public
support.

In fact, when I first ran for the South Australian Parliament eleven years
ago, I ran to lose.

Unlike so many of your patrons, I knew the odds...and the odds of winning,
were against me.

But I decided to run as a 'no pokies' independent to make a point.

That point was that your product is an unsafe product.

And I was tired of seeing your unsafe product causing untold harm.

Before politics I was working as a lawyer. It sickened me to see people
losing their personal injury payouts to the poker machines that seemed to
take over every pub in my state in the mid 1990s.

The final straw was when a client of mine who was intellectually impaired
came to me in tears, hurt and confused because his so-called "friends" who
ran the local pub didn't want to be his friends any more.

For months they plied him with free drinks, even to the point where they had
to push the machine’s buttons for him. Their ‘friendship’ also included
giving credit so he could keep chasing his losses.

They'd even picked him up from his small unit to take him to their venue..
all so he could gamble away everything he had.

Almost 30 thousand dollars later, his money was gone and so were his
friends".

I know that one dodgy pub does not make an unsafe industry, but an unsafe
product does.

So I ran.

And against the odds, even though I received less than 3 per cent of the
vote, thanks to improbable preferencing from both sides of politics, I was
elected to the upper house of the South Australian parliament.

Once there, I worked hard to make things as hard as I could for your
industry.

In 2006, I was re-elected.

This time the electorate knew who I was and what I stood for.

And this time, I received over 20% of the state-wide vote.

During my time in the South Australian upper house I helped reduce the
number of poker machines in South Australia by more than 2,000, which was
about 15 per cent.

People said this was an achievement.

But in my heart, I knew I needed to achieve much more.

Because, you see, the state governments of this country are also addicted to
poker machines. Each year they rake in nearly four billion dollars in taxes.

They don't want to see this problem fixed.

So they pluck the odd feather from the golden goose.

But they are never going to willingly kill it.

I knew I had to try something else and then on September 11th 2007 I read
the then opposition leader Kevin Rudd’s statements on poker machines.

He said, and I quote: “I hate poker machines and I know something of their
impact on families.”

What Kevin Rudd said helped me decide to run for federal parliament.

The High Court decision on 'workchoices' - a policy incidentally I was
opposed to - had given the then federal government unprecedented powers.

I believed if I could get to Canberra I could achieve what state governments
never would... an end to the misery your industry causes.

Your machines are inherently unsafe.

When other products have been found to cause significant harm to a
significant number of users they have been banned.

In 1999, the Productivity Commission found that almost 1 in 20 poker machine
users become problem gamblers.

Could you imagine a restaurant staying in business if even 1 in 200 diners
became ill?

Poker machines make half their profits from people who are addicted.

People with an addiction do not exercise free choice.

Free choice is when you can rationally weigh up the costs and the benefits
of your actions, and then you choose.

The people who make your industry so wealthy can't do this.

They are addicted.

They are so addicted to your product that they will jeopardise their own
financial well-being and the well-being of their families.

They are so addicted to your product that they will steal from their
partners, their bosses, and their children, just to churn money through your
machines into the coffers of State Treasuries and your bank accounts.

And I know from families that I have sat down and spoken to, that the most
tragic manifestation of their despair can lead to seeing suicide as the only
way to break free from their addiction.

You call it 'entertainment' or 'gaming'.

I call it obscene.

For a long time I have quoted figures, studies and reports that show the
destruction that your industry wreaks on individuals and in communities
across this country.

Figures like, up to 250,000 Australians hooked on the pokies, each affecting
on average seven others.

And even the industry’s own figures, which we were never meant to see, in
Tattersall’s own words “we derive enormous value, 57% of revenue from a very
small group of customers, namely the 15% who lose $100 plus per visit.”

But recently I've realised, my relying on figures has played into the
industry’s hands.

I quote an expert, and then your industry drags out some other expert to try
and muddy the waters.

You do this because you don't actually want to win the argument.

You know you can't.

Ultimately you know your position is untenable.

So instead you try to keep the debate going for as long as you can. Then you
can suck every last dollar from those addicted, until finally common sense
prevails and you are shut down for good.

And I mean 'for good' in every sense.

I hope the federal government joins me in my efforts.

I want to work with the PM to achieve his goal to wind back your influence
and to tackle the damage caused to families.

But the PM must lead by example.

So I say to Prime Minister Rudd, "Kevin, if you really hate poker machine's,
lets work together. And let’s start by taking the poker machines out of the
Labor Club in Canberra"

After all, how can you be opposed to something your own party profits from?

I understand that the PM has a really tough job ahead of him. He’s said the
right thing, and I believe he is absolutely sincere.

So many in the community are with him, and even more will join him, if he
follows those fine words with decisive action.

But of course there is a long history of pokies funding his party.

If there is one person who has the moral authority and suasion to break the
link between pokies and Labor, it is the PM.

He should intervene because poker machines are about addiction.

First there are the clients who are slaves to addiction, sitting in darkened
rooms mesmerised by the lights and sounds and the promise of some kind of
escape.

But this promise of escape, so often becomes a descent into a personal hell.

Then there are the State governments who are so disgracefully addicted to
poker machine taxes.

It is the most regressive form of taxation around, because as you all should
know, most of the people losing money... simply can't afford to do so.

Often, it's not even their money.

I also believe there is one more group of poker machine addicts.

A group rarely talked about.

And that group...is you.

The manufacturers, the owners, the operators, of the machines.

You are smart businesspeople.

How can you pretend for a moment that you don't know the damage your product
does?

And how can you pretend for a moment that a poker machine addict's money is
better spent making you rich, than feeding their children.

The charade is over.

I am calling you on it.

I am not willing to accept that you don’t see the harm that you do.

I honestly believe that you know the harm you do... yet you choose to do it
anyway.

And that may be the saddest part of this sad, sad, situation.