On Christmas Eve morning, when virtually no media, citizens or other state legislators were paying attention to legislative business, the Massachusetts Senate approved an amendment during informal session that would allow ATMs inside casinos. This stunning action occurred even though the intent of informal session is to move non-controversial legislation.
Casino ATMs are one of the most predatory and financially damaging business practices used by casinos and they were expressly prohibited when the casino law was signed by Governor Deval Patrick. The ban on ATMs was a core part of the political narrative that Patrick and other casino sponsors sold the public: “We’re going to do casinos right, better than everyone else.”
Why are casino ATMs an issue that you should care about and act on? A leading indicator of someone who is being harmed and financially damaged by casinos is if he or she chases their losses. ATMs are the primary vehicle used by casinos to lure citizens to chase. Their business model hinges on it. Over the last decade there are 11 different independent studies – studies not funded by gambling interests – that show 40%-60% of slot machine profits are taken from citizens who can’t stop chasing their losses.
This is how it works: A citizen goes into the casino and loses all their cash or the “free play” voucher mailed to them by the casino (most often, they lose it all on slot machines which predominate inside casinos.) This is a pivotal moment for the casino…can they get that citizen to chase his or her losses? Slot machine design and free alcohol are two of the critical factors that lure citizens to chase. If the casino is successful, then the next step is the citizen hits the casino ATM to withdraw more money. Most casino ATMs are owned by Global Cash Access (GCA) which then turns around and sells the name, credit info and other information of that citizen back to the casino. Then the casino focuses its most intense marketing efforts against that citizen because they know that if they can get him or her to return to the casino and keep gambling, it is almost inevitable that citizen will keep losing, chasing their losses over and over again. From a casino marketing standpoint, it is the equivalent of painting the citizen in neon orange fluorescent paint with a massive bulls eye on their back.
Removing the state’s ban on ATMs inside casinos does not qualify as “non-controversial” and no such legislation should be moved during informal legislative session. It is a major consumer protection issue that merits bright sunshine.
I ask everyone to please contact your state representative and state senator today or first thing Monday morning and call on them to remove the amendment language approving casino ATMs in House Bill 4110. You can find the contact info for your rep and for your senator here. You can view the full legislative history for House Bill 4110 here.
To learn more about Global Cash Access and their predatory and harmful business practices, I invite you to watch one of their own marketing videos:
Les Bernal
It’s part of the casino industry’s business model to constantly lobby for removal of any restrictions on their operations. They use the leverage of the huge amounts of money that a state will supposedly collect from them to persuade legislatures to let them do stuff they were initially prohibited from doing, or not do stuff they were being made to do. It is not going to stop, ever.
When the ongoing collapse of the industry makes all the profits disappear from the new Massachusetts casinos, we’ll see them asking for corporate welfare to save this “essential” industry and its thousands of workers.
The ONLY one who wins in the casino con is the owner, not the player, not the state, no one except the owner. The legislators who pushed this because they knew that they could make it work for Massachusetts (when it’s failing in New Jersey, New York, and the rest) are as naive as the rubes who flock to Vegas and Foxwoods with the idea that they would be the ones to beat the house and return wealthy.
At least now we have a Republican governor to hang this albatross on.
BS.
This is THE signature achievement of the Massachusetts Democratic Party of the last decade. It is owned, in its entirety, by the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
….but the casual voter will see the casinos failing, film footage of Baker backing casinos in his debates and ads aired by his opponent in 2016 shouting this from the rooftops and there you have it.
The Democratic nominee for Governor did all in her power, as AG, to thwart the anti-casino referendum.
That dog just won’t hunt — it can barely walk. With an OVERWHELMING Democratic majority, the most powerful Democrat in the state having close personal ties to one of the contemplated casino locations, and a Democratic governor lobbying for casino gambling, any attempt by Democrats to duck responsibility for this is pure deceit.
…though that would be in 2018 rather than 2016. He’s hoping and assuming our 2018 nominee will be anti-casino.
everyone owns this mess.
This law was jammed through by Bob DeLeo with help from a complacent Deval Patrick (who, like Barack Obama, naively thought that “compromise” would actually gain something) and a cooperative AG who then became the Democratic nominee.
We Democrats can squirm all we want, but we OWN this one lock, stock and barrel.
As David has reminded us, informal legislative sessions are often occasions for mischief. In this particular case, the mischief involved a complete U-turn of the Senate’s policy position. That doesn’t happen every day.
Let’s review the bill’s history. Allowing ATM’s in casinos was originally proposed by the House of Representatives, which discreetly tucked a provision granting the necessary permission into a much larger bill that it sent to the Senate in July.
The Senate did not agree with the ATM proposal and removed the provision from the bill it sent back to the House in October.
On December 22, the House agreed with the Senate and voted to send the larger bill — without the ATM proposal — to the Governor.
But on December 24, in a very lightly-attended session (the State House News Service report suggests that only two Senators were present), the Senate insisted on including the same provision that two months earlier it had insisted on excluding.
Such is the power of the gambling lobby that it can cause a Legislative chamber to execute a policy 180 in only a few weeks’ time.
Unless I’m missing something about the history, it looks like Stephen Brewer was responsible for these shenanigans. Good to know who in the legisture is owned by the casinos.
This is exactly what all of the antis predicted. The law was lauded as model gaming bill, with best practice-policies for almost all aspects of the law. Now, years before the casinos will even be open, we’ve seen several attempts to chip away. Here are the few I can recall, though I’m sure there are more:
1. The above referenced ATMs.
2. Crosby’s call for elimination of restrictions against those with criminal records working in casinos.
3. Crosby’s call for increasing threshold (doubling!) for withholding income taxes.
4. Wynn publicly stating that they’re going to have to lower the gaming tax rate. And he still got the license!
This isn’t a case where some Governor comes along 20 years later and makes adjustments either. We still have the same Guv, SP, and Speaker as when the law passed!
One of the big reasons for the casinos was jobs. It turns out that it won’t help a large swathe of people who have criminal records. I’m curious to see where the casino supporters who were all about the jobs will fall on that.
This seems to be a large bill with a lot of opaque language.
…here.
You can see it if you search the bill on line by clicking the “Amendments” tab for H.4110.
…which helps to discourage citizens from following.
You can find the Senate’s Christmas Eve amendment here. As rickterp notes, it was filed by Senator Brewer, who did not seek re-election and is leaving in January.
The part of the amendment that allows ATM’s in casinos is pasted in below.
Here is the sentence in chapter 167B that the amendment would strike out:
Repeal of ATM casino ban is in bold.
Banking Laws
Mr. Brewer moved that the bill be amended by striking out, in line 15, the figure “1206” and inserting in place thereof the following figure:- “1026”; and
by striking out, in line 75, the words “federal Community Reinvestment Act of 1977” and inserting in place thereof the following words:- “community reinvestment act in section 14”; and
by inserting after section 27 the following section:-
“SECTION 27A. The second paragraph of section 3 of said chapter 167B, as so appearing, is hereby amended by striking out the last sentence.”; and
by striking out, in lines 359 and 360, the words:- “; provided, however, that “financial institution” shall mean a bank for the purposes of the first, second and third paragraphs of section 3 and for the purposes of section 4”; and
by striking out, in line 834, the words “; provided, however, such” and inserting in place thereof the following words:- “. If, in the opinion of the commissioner, there is an unusual demand by depositors for withdrawals, the bank shall upon the commissioner’s order require such a depositor to give written notice of the depositor’s intention to withdraw the whole or any part of such deposits or to apply for a loan secured by such deposit. Such”; and
by striking out, in lines 1140 and 2212, the word “consistent” and inserting in place thereof the following words:- “not inconsistent”; and
by adding the following section:- “SECTION 65. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the Massachusetts gaming commission shall prohibit a gaming licensee from (i) installing, owning or operating an automated teller machine in the gaming area, as defined in section 2 of chapter 23K of the General Laws, or (ii) allowing another person to install, own or operate an automated teller machine in the gaming area, as defined in said section 2 of said chapter 23K. For the purposes of this section, the prohibition shall include, but not be limited to, an automated teller machine or electronic branch of any state or federally-chartered bank, state or federally-chartered credit union or foreign bank.”
. . . that makes it less effective than the sentence in section 27. Is that what’s going on here?
I alerted by State Senator (Will Brownsberger) on this and he’s been looking into it. It looks like this change might actually strengthen rather than remove the ATM ban. The ATM ban that was removed applied only to state-chartered banks (so, Bank of America would be free to put an ATM into a casino under the old language). The new Section 65 includes a ban on ATMs associated with any state-chartered, federally-chartered, and foreign bank or credit union.
Let’s keep contacting our State Senators on this, but this might actually be an improvement to the law. I’m still angry that this was done in such an irregular way and am inclined to be wary of this change for that reason, but there’s room to hope that this might actually be a stronger ATM ban.
The ones that allow credit card cash advances, charge high transaction fees and sell the information they get about casino patrons? Are they banned by Section 65 or are they instead given a favored position by being the only ATM’s that are not banned because they are not really banks?
(And yes, all this sure is a good reason for sunshine.)
Global Cash Access is not a chartered bank. They provide non-bank ATMs so they could operate exclusively under this new language. The section is practically tailored for GCA.
Section 65 bans all ATMs from any “gaming area”, not just ATMs of financial institutions.
Section 65 expressly prohibits only ATM’s from chartered banks, credit unions and foreign banks from being located in gaming areas. The Gaming Commission would have discretion as to other ATM’s, like those operated by Global Cash Access.
… the phrase “but not be limited to” somehow would limit the universe of “persons” that are expressly prohibited from installing ATMs.
That doesn’t make sense.
“But not limited to” means, as hesterprynne observed, that others are at the discretion of authorities. The cited suppliers were explicitly prohibited. The phrase “but not be limited to” allows others to also be prohibited.
IMHO, there is no discretion and the last sentence does nothing to change the general rule, which is that no ATMs are allowed in gaming areas. Period.
The last sentence provides examples of persons that are prohibited, but does not exclude anyone from the prohibition (hence the use of the verb “includes”) and requires no further action on the part of the gaming commission, the legislature or anyone else to define prohibited persons. The “shall include, but not be limited to” construction is there to not force the drafter of the statute to list every possible type of person that the law is intended to apply to, but yet still provide some context.
To say what you think it says, the bill could have said “the prohibition shall include all automated teller machines or electronic branches of any bank or credit union.” When they start talking about specific types of banks, it allows for exclusion of other types. The “not limited to” does as Tom and Hester say — it gives regulators leeway to include others, or not. The word “include” does not mean what you say it does.
The “include, but not be limited to” phrase refers back to “prohibition.” It’s telling us that what’s prohibited goes beyond what’s specifically named here. And if you read back up to the first sentence, you see that anything that’s covered by that “prohibition” is beyond the MGC’s authority to allow, no matter what other powers it may discover in the enabling legislation. So this paragraph is saying, “These specific things aren’t allowed, but don’t get any clever ideas about how if there’s something we haven’t named but looks and quacks like the things we did name, you can sneak that in just because we didn’t include it in our list.”
If there are specific kinds of ATM-like things that aren’t specifically called out here, and ought to be, perhaps we could get a list of them together and ask about getting them included? But really, this looks to me like a standard attempt to cover the bases: standing alone “includes but is not limited to” language isn’t a red flag.
My reading of the change is that it bans anyone (including Global Cash Access) from installing an ATM in the “gaming area”. Presumably this means any room or area of a casino that has a table game or electronic gaming. It would appear to allow an ATM to be installed, for instance, in the lobby of a hotel attached to the casino assuming no electronic gaming equipment is present in the lobby.
The sentence that is being struck from Section 3 of Chapter 167B says: “No electronic branch shall be located upon premises where there occurs legalized gambling, other than a state lottery.” This language is ambiguous as it does not define “premises where there occurs legalized gambling.” The amendment removes the ambiguity by referencing the definition of “gaming area” in Chapter 23K, Section 2.
the amendment makes clear that ATMs can’t be on the gaming floor. Current law prevents ATMs from being anywhere on the “premises where there occurs legalized gambling.” The current law isn’t a model of clarity, but it does seem to extend beyond the gaming floor itself. So the amendment seems to me to allow more latitude to install ATMs near the gaming areas. I think it’s fine to clarify the law, but it should be clarified in a better way.
Adding Section 65 seems to have just moved where the ban happens in the language rather than removing it. Am I correct on that?
kept ATM’s out of any “premises where there occurs legalized gambling, other than a state lottery.”
The new language only keeps ATM’s out of the “gaming area,” which is only a part of “the premises.”
The reality is that the ATM will just be in the adjoining hotel or restaurant, instead of being on the actual casino floor. If someone runs out of cash, they will be forced to walk back to the hotel or restaurant. I’m not getting a sense that banning ATMs from the entire casino-related development (hotels, restaurants, stores, etc.) has any chance of passing.
…was a suggestion of mine all along for keeping cash from being too readily available on site.
What was the vote and how many were present? If it went through without objection it meets the numerical definition of non-controversial. Was a quorum even present? If not is there a procedure whereby a Senator who opposes the measure can challenge the use of informal session for its passage?
there is no vote, it just passes. It’s only meant for non-controversial legislation, like sick leave bank for employees and other stuff that has no opposition.
Or, apparently, if you are our current leadership, major changes to signature legislation.
but if anyone objects during the informal session the legislation will not pass. This is extremely rare because leadership is usually careful about not taking up things people will object to.
Would be interested to know if there is a procedure for challenging a previous passage during informal session.
… just the beginning. The greed on exhibit here is par for the course in Vegas, Macau, and probably CT, but it has no place in the Commonwealth, if indeed that’s what we really are any longer. Thank you legislators for showing who’s now the boss in Massachusetts.
as they only work as long as there is money in the bank. How about the credit card cash advance machines? There you can really work some damage.
Check out the sales job by Global Cash Advances to casino operators — no more tiresome “unsuccessful ATM withdrawals”:
Emptied your bank account? No problem! Now, thanks to the flexibility offered by GCA Parasitic Industries, you can conveniently max out your credit cards, without leaving the casino!
I can see the advent of casinos leading to an increase in the required numbers of welfare case-workers. Jobs!