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Casino Junkies

"…America is back to betting. It hadn't paused very long. Sept. 11 may have dented air travel to spots like Las Vegas, but neither that nor the economic downturn could stop the U.S. gambling industry (lotteries, casinos, bingo, pari-mutuel tracks) from posting a 5% increase in revenues last year, to an estimated $64 billion, even after a decade of explosive growth. According to Christiansen Capital Advisors LLC in Limerick, Me., Americans today lose more gambling than they spend on movie tickets, theme parks, spectator sports and videogames combined. Merrill Lynch figures illegal betting is a similar amount again.

"… There's a reason governments around the world are embracing this vice: to tax it. And few nations are traveling quicker down this path than the U.S. Windfall: American government received $27 billion in `gambling privilege taxes' in 2000, calculates Christiansen Capital, a 45% increase since 1997. Two-thirds was from state-sponsored lotteries. Gambling now generates far more public revenues than either tobacco or alcohol.

"…Video lotteries are the `crack cocaine' of gambling, says the Illinois-based Reverend Tom Grey, a Methodist who is spokesman for the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. Seven years after they were legalized, South Dakota has 8,000 of them, one for every 94 people in the state. Attempts to ban them are defeated at the ballot box for fear of tax increases.

"Powerful lobbies and prodigious levels of campaign donations have gathered around gaming.

"…In the current two-year election cycle, equipment supplier International Gaming Technology and its subsidiaries have given $1 million to politicos, says the Center for Responsive Government in Washington.

"…At the state level, it's no different. In California, for example, gaming interests and Indian tribes combined are up there with real estate developers as the largest sources of political fundraising.

"…At Caesars in Atlantic City a Keno cart sits seductively next to the breakfast buffet; ATMs are at the elbow; alcohol is on the house. `Loyalty' cards encourage bigger bets and return visits, translating into free rooms, gambling chits or even a `spiral cut ham.' It works.

"…The National Center for Addiction & Substance Abuse, run by old Washington hand Joseph Califano, is quietly making gambling a health care issue. Last year it hosted Dr. Alan Leshner of the National Institute on Drug Abuse saying scientists were discovering there was little difference between so-called psychological and physical addiction; the brain waves and dopamine spikes in a drug addict and a gambling addict are strikingly similar. Dr. Steve Hyman, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, reported that between 9% and 30% of people suffering from substance abuse also qualified as pathological gamblers.

"…Were legal gambling stopped cold tomorrow and public budgets held steady, every U.S. household would have to cough up $254 to make up the difference. If we were betting types we'd say that isn't going to happen."

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