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Will they see the error of their ways and reverse their policies? Don't bet on it. In their desperate fiscal situations caused by years of spending vastly more than they took in, most of our provincial governments seem fully prepared to sacrifice public morality and long-term gain for short-term gain and long-term pain.
In recent weeks, the significance of this matter was brought home to me by several developments. First, anecdotally I keep hearing about the large sums of money spent by some church members on lottery tickets. That's troubling, to put it mildly. Second, several provincial governments are toying with the idea of installing video gambling facilities and major new gambling "palaces". That's equally troubling. Third, one of my Trinity Western University students, Pete Law, undertook a research project dealing with gambling. His findings are instructive. I share some of them and some of my own research with you. Anyone desiring information about sources may contact me.
Across North America, the gambling industry has grown so rapidly that casinos now attract more people than professional sports. That's a startling reality, and the end of this cancerous growth is not yet in sight. Dan Miller, British Columbia's Deputy Premier, has defended further expansion by saying that casino gambling provides "an opportunity to build the economy and provide revenue to protect health care and education".
Superficially Mr. Miller is right. In the US, gambling accounts for more than a half-million jobs. In Canada also, many thousands of jobs have been created. Legalized gambling is big business. The new Casino Windsor in Ontario, presently the most profitable casino in the world, took in more than $500 million in its first year of operation. The Ontario government is reaping massive profits. For the 1997-98 fiscal year, Ontario's projected profits from its several casinos should be at least $850 million.
The expansion of legalized gambling has been startling. Prior to 1991, only two American states, New Jersey and Nevada, had legal gambling. Now the number of states with legalized gambling is at least 34. Until 1989, gambling was illegal in all Canadian provinces. Now seven provinces have legalized gambling, and the others may join their ranks.
What are the actual social and economic costs of this new malaise? A University of Illinois study demonstrates that for every dollar of government revenue from casinos, between $2 and $5 will eventually be spent by the governments of that jurisdiction for increased policing costs, counselling for compulsive gamblers, etc. Legalized gambling is a losing proposition. It is therefore not surprising that US President Bill Clinton has established a national commission to investigate the negative effects of gambling on American communities. Yet government pressure on citizens to take up gambling continues and increases.
The social costs of this supposedly glamorous new source of government funds are staggering. Nevada, the mother of all gambling jurisdictions, has the highest suicide rate in the United States. Research suggests that about 40 percent of all white collar crime is related to gambling. Pathological gamblers have become a major problem. Various studies have documented the fact that pathological gambling wreaks havoc on family stability and well-being. Problem gamblers experience high rates of marital and family breakdown.
Sociologist Henry Lesieur, who studied members of Gamblers Anonymous, found that 26 percent of those surveyed were divorced or separated because of their gambling problems; 34 percent had quit or lost a job; and 44 percent had stolen from their places of employment to help pay for their gambling debts. As reported in the US News and World Report, 21 percent had declared bankruptcy, 66 percent had contemplated suicide, and 16 percent had actually attempted suicide. It could not be established how many had succeeded.
In the relatively small state of Maryland, some 50,000 compulsive gamblers are estimated to have cost employers $1.5 billion in lost productivity. Thus, the average compulsive gambler apparently costs his employer about $30,000 in relatively few years. Significantly, according to one study, 66 percent of the pathological gamblers who seek professional help blame legalized casinos for their problem.
How many people become compulsive gamblers? The data are still fragmentary, but what we already know should ring warning bells for our blinkered governments. In a 1989 study in Iowa, hardly a state known for social ills, sociologist Rachel Volberg discovered that 1.7 percent of the adults had a pathological gambling problem. By 1993, after Iowa had legalized riverboat gambling, that percentage had more than tripled to 5.4 percent.
The National Council on Welfare reports that in 1993, 4 percent of all adults were addicted to gambling. The Windsor, Ontario chapter of Gamblers Anonymous reported that its membership more than doubled shortly after the casino opened in that city.
Since we know that low-income people are disproportionately numerous among gamblers, legalized gambling also constitutes a shift of a significant part of the tax burden from the rich to the poor and is thus a very regressive form of taxation. For those governments which unscrupulously promote their gambling activity in the poorest neighbourhoods ("This could be your ticket out"), feelings of righteous indignation seem appropriate.
Christians, as the collective conscience of society, cannot remain silent in the light of these realities. It is time to overturn the money tables, so to speak. Governments which seek to capitalize on human frailty and the temptation to get something for nothing, must be challenged. After all, the biblical instructions are clear. Governments exist to promote what is good, not what is evil. And we do well to remind them.
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