The Other Side of Gambling

Maryland faces overwhelming social costs if it allows slot machines to appear, a large number of speakers told anti-gambling activists at a national conference in Linthicum which took place yesterday.
Making a comment to the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, state Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. referred to a research study which results clearly outline the economic costs of gambling to be serious. Moreover, they exceed the benefits so widely promoted by the gambling companies.

With reference to the report by Earl Grinols, an economics professor at the University of Illonois at Urbana- Champaign, the casino- style gambling costs a state’s economy $219 per adult annually. Obviously such costs are much higher than the benefits estimated as to $46 per adult. In other words, new jobs, tax revenue and other advantages that gambling provides us with, will not exceed the overwhelming social costs.
Curran, who conducted a 1995 research study according to which gambling would cause damage to Maryland said that legislators have to examine the issue carefully, and have a look at it from a perspective. In other words, they need to look beyond the tax revenues that gambling promoters say slot would bring to the state treasury.

Another study was conducted by William N. Thompson, a professor of public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. According to this research, social costs in Maryland, if slots are introduced, could range between $571 million and $674 million a year. Those estimates are based on the state’s population size and what it costs society, on average, for each new problem gambler and pathological gambler.

A conception introduced by John Warren Kindt, a professor of business administration at the University of Illonois at Urbana-Champaign suggests that every $1 in tax revenue generated through money spent on gambling is more than offset by $3 in social costs.
“This is not a close call,” said Kindt, who also made a speech at the conference. “Any economists will tell you the only people who are going to get rich out of this are the gambling [companies] and the people they cut in on it.”

Needless to say, the research studies conducted by Grinols, Kindt and Thompson were criticised by Gambling industry which claims that they overestimated the social costs and exaggerated the impact that gambling may have on society.
The social cost of gambling was the most important issue examined during the two-day national anti-gambling conference, which ended yesterday.
Those who attended had an oportunity to listen to various conceptions concerning gambling and gambling companies. There was a panel of lawyers who told about a growing number of lawsuits being brought against gambling companies.
Generally speaking, they are seen as a threat to society. The suits against them argue that gambling companies are consciously and deliberately selling a dangerous product, just like tobacco companies.
The conference also focused on Internet gambling, compulsive gambling, casinos run by Indian tribes and effective political strategies to block casino-style gambling from coming into a state.
The conference was organized in Maryland, because this site is seen as a key battleground to stop the spread of gambling nationally, said Rev. Thomas A. Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling.
As he said, a tough fight is expected to start next year, since the General Assembly again takes up the controversial issue of legalizing slot machines at horse racing tracks or other sites.