Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Questions to include for the next statewide poll on casinos

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5) “Do you think the State Lottery’s current business practices, including aggressively marketing $20 instant scratch tickets and Keno games that run every four minutes for more than 1500 games every week, are predatory?”

6) “A respected MIT professor publicly revealed that electronic gambling machines operate like “loaded dice” and are carefully designed to be so effective at extracting money from people that “for all intents and purposes, approach every player as a potential addict.”  Do you support an intensive and open public investigation about the design, technology and marketing behind electronic gambling machines?”

7) “Do you think the way we raise money to pay for government says as much about our democratic principles and values as the way we spend it?”

To gain a truthful measure of the public’s attitudes, the public needs the truth first.

Les Bernal

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  1. Thanks for posing these questions, Les.

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    p>Your questions get to the heart of what is fundamentally at stake when we consider whether or not Massachusetts (or any state) should sponsor and promote predatory gambling as a revenue strategy.

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    p>Such strategies are found wanting by any reasonable ethical and policy criteria.

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    p>–Leo

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  2. You’ve excellently brushed past the collective BS we always hear about casino jobs and slot revenue and counting license plates in CT – and offered a simple lesson in ethics and current affairs.

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    p>And a hearty YES, BTW in answer to #6!

  3. The prefatory clauses deliberately load these questions and have no place in a poll.  Certainly you would object if a pro-gambling entity conducted a poll saying, “Given that some studies show that casinos could bring X number of jobs and increase state revenue by y, would you favor or oppose allowing casinos in Massachusetts.”  I’ve taken polling classes as part of my polisci major and if I were shown the results of a poll with questions worded as you suggest I would dismiss it out of hand as invalid.  I’m not saying don’t make your arguments; scream it from the rooftops if you want.  The actual questions, however, must be neutral in order for the results to be valid.

    • Here’s the “argument” used in the Globe/UNH poll question on casinos:

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      p>“Supporters argue that this will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues to the State of Massachusetts while opponents argue that casinos will increase social problems from compulsive gambling.”

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      p>It’s not a “neutral” question. The political frame used by the pollster to define predatory gambling opponents is weak. Either delete all the arguments from the question or be certain to accurately represent them.

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      p>The spririt of my initial post was to highlight the leading nature of the Globe poll question by respectfully offering a few of my own.

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      p>Les Bernal

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  4. So, in essence, you are saying that in order to “provide a better compass in determining the right direction for the state” it is necessary to ask biased and loaded questions that presuppose the answers that you’re looking for.

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    p>You may want to commission Fox News for your proposed poll; they are experts in this sort of hyper-partisan, pseudo-scientific enterprise.

  5. I would really like to see the results of a poll like this.
    Are you going to give it an anti-casino gathering?

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    p>The casino resort is not “promoted in the name of getting someone else to pay our taxes”. Some people are promoting it as a way to add jobs and revitalize a dying area.

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    nine out of every ten casino visitors irrelevant to the casino business model

    This is spinning at it’s best. There are many other aspects to a resort casino that bring in money. You’re talking about gambling profits, not business profits. A little misleading.

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    Do you think the State Lottery’s current business practices, including aggressively marketing $20 instant scratch tickets and Keno games that run every four minutes for more than 1500 games every week, are predatory?

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    p>Thanks for asking.  Uhmm, no.  I have never bought a $20 dollar ticket, and can easily say no to Keno.

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    A respected MIT professor publicly revealed that electronic gambling machines operate like “loaded dice” and are carefully designed to be so effective at extracting money from people that “for all intents and purposes, approach every player as a potential addict.”  Do you support an intensive and open public investigation about the design, technology and marketing behind electronic gambling machines?”

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    p>Sure! I think it’s a great idea.  As long as it is accurate and unbiased, unlike your poll proposal.

    • But I also am the type that goes WOOHOO 40 BUCKS!  IM GETTING THE TWELVE OUNCE FILET MIGNON TONIGHT, BABY! as opposed to buying more tickets, so I haven’t gotten the ticket-after.  

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      p>As far as casinos go, I always have had an absolute ball blowing money at Foxwoods.  It’s a casino, not a government bond.  Nobody walk in there fully expecting to walk out with more money than they went in with.  

      • I buy a scratchie, I go right out and spend the money I win and pump some dollar bills into a business.  If I lose, the state gets more revenue.  You mo’ money for the guv peeps should be all over this.  

        • That it means something that most progressives (a vast majority) of them are NOT.

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          p>It’s not about the guy who goes in and spends $10. It’s about the 10% of players losing everything and who are the core of the business model for these predatory casinos.

        • A national commission report sponsored by Congress and the President showed that the top 5% of lottery users account for 54 % of total sales (nearly $4000 or more each) and the top 20% provide 82% of total sales ($1600 or more each).

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          p>That means the casual Lottery player, which makes up four out of every five players, is of little value to the Lottery’s revenue scheme – these casual players spend about $75 a year. What would happen if all players spent the same as these casual players? The answer is that sales would fall by 76 percent.

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          p>Despite recent efforts to prosecute predatory subprime lending, clean up casino capitalism that dragged the entire global economy down and pass legislation to stop the predatory financial practices of the credit card industry, the state lottery rolls on unchecked, remaining arguably the biggest predatory institution still standing in America.

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          p>Les Bernal

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          • Okay, so it has a particular revenue scheme.  So does everything!

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            p>Nobody is forcing anyone to buy scratch tickets.  If anything, it’s acting like a tax.  The problem?  You will undoubtedly cite how people in lower income brackets are more likely to be in that fabled 10%.  Thus, the state lottery is acting like a tax on lower income people.

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            p>Newsflash:  we’re raising other taxes on them too.  StopPredatoryGovernment?  

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            p>No, of course not.  Les, you seem to know your stuff, inside and out.  So, I ask a question, with no snark and I want an honest response: if people are responsible for the consequences of their actions, being creatures of free will that we are, if we attack so called “predatory gambling”, where will we draw a line in saving people from themselves?

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            p>We start with the gamblers who have been addicted to a system of gambling…

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            p>Then we move to the smokers who have been addicted by a powerful drug…

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            p>We take away alcohol to stop people from poisoning their livers…

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            p>We ban McDonalds so we can’t get so darned fat…

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            p>Les, the problem with saving people from themselves is that the only person who can save them is the same one who got them into whatever problem they face.  

            • Here’s an excerpt from the book Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America that I think concisely responds to your question:

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              “Viewing the lottery debate simply in terms of paternalism versus tolerance…misses the prominent feature of lotteries as they currently exist. State lotteries do not simply make a product available in order to accommodate widespread taste. Lottery agencies are engaged in a well-focused quest for increased revenues. State lottery agencies have in fact evolved into a new breed of government agency created in the mold of the modern corporation with its eyes firmly fixed on the bottom line. With business-like efficiency these state enterprises have combined their monopoly position, their high built-in profit rates, and the techniques of modern marketing to generate new revenues for state governments. But by choosing to stimulate rather than accommodate demand, they have thrust the state into an unaccustomed role, one that may be inconsistent with other functions of government. To succeed in increasing sales, lottery advertisements must either encourage existing players to buy more tickets or entice non players to begin playing, neither of which is consistent with the traditional government policy of not inducing citizens to gamble.”

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              p>Significantly less people are using Lottery products today so what the Lottery is doing is offer a lot more products at much higher price points to a much smaller amount of people.  The demographic data for Massachusetts is not available on the Mass Lottery website but take a look at the demographics of the Texas Lottery which reflects the trend happening nationwide. After hitting a high water mark of 71% of Texans playing the lottery in 1997, that percentage has fallen to just 38.8% in 2008. However, in that same period of time, total lottery sales have remained almost constant ($3.75 billion in 1997 to $3.67 billion in 2008). That means that the Texas Lottery has been taking a lot more money from fewer people.

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              p>How are these predatory practices consistent with the mission of our democratic government whose mission, as laid out right at the beginning of the U.S. Constitution, is “to promote the general welfare”?

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              p>Les Bernal

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              • which brings me to the casino question.

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                p>Since the casino is privately held and run, and thus not defying the creedo of state or federal government, how is banning casinos to prevent that 10% from blowing all their money at the roulette table anything besides the saving people from themselves that seemingly has no end that I mentioned earlier?

            • How euphemistic, Joe!

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              p>BTW – did you know the Catholic Church is strongly against casinos and/or slots in Massachusetts? I know there are other (important) things you disagree on with the church — and I much appreciate at least a few of those — but here’s a case where the church is right. It’s wrong to prey on on the poor as a means to pay for government. Given that it’s not an economic multiplier and actually hurts the local economy on top of it, I’d think this is a no-brainer.

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              if we attack so called “predatory gambling”, where will we draw a line in saving people from themselves?

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              p>Slots double the rate of problem gambling within 50 miles of a parlor or Casino. Why not start there, Joe? It seems a good place to me to start. That’s why I got involved in the first place.  

              • Throwing around that bogus claim that “slots double the rate of problem gambling within 50 miles of a casino” again are we?  Even after I showed you that the study in question found the data inconclusive (and was not even a study that analyzed the impact of slots, but rather casinos generally).  

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                p>Those statistics really are pesky little critters, aren’t they?

  6. I appreciate the consideration you are giving this issue.

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    p>The casino business model only works if our government takes away the freedom of other Americans and traps people in debt. As noted earlier, 90% of the gambling profits comes from 10% of the people – addicted or heavily indebted people. By definition, someone who is an addict or someone who is in deep financial debt is not free.

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    p>By partnering with the kind of business model used by casinos, our government is saying clearly that some people in America are expendable, an action which violates our country’s core democratic principle of equal citizenship.

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    p>In America, we do not have kings or queens because here; all blood is considered royal. Actively stimulating and exploiting the weaknesses in our neighbors to fund public services that benefit all of us is a declaration that some citizens are less equal than others. How can it be considered anything else?

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    p>It’s time we added no taxation by exploitation to the lexicon of American democracy right beneath no taxation without representation.

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    p>Les Bernal

    • When you’re in one stop digging, but those who are indebted do for reasons which passeth all understanding.  I’ve always said the taxation argument is weakest for me.  I think you’re reading way too much into this with regards to inequality.  Nobody is taking away a freedom to choose whether or not to participate, merely providing the opportunity, which does not constitute entrapment.  I suppose we could start running credit checks on people who want to use a casino, but I hardly see how some are less equal than others.  I continue to say post the odds, because the other alternative is to slap some sense into people and say, “YOU IDIOT – IF YOU’RE ALREADY HAVING TROUBLE PAYING YOUR BILLS, WHAT BUSINESS DO YOU HAVE FRITTERING AWAY YOUR MONEY ON THIS!”

      • Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize winning historian of the Civil Rights Movement and biographer of Martin Luther King, has been one of America’s most outspoken voices to stop state-sponsored predatory gambling.

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        p>Here’s Branch in his own words about how state-sponsored predatory gambling defies the democratic principle of equal citizenship. From a Baltimore Sun story dated April 20, 2008:

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        “Basically, I would say a lifetime spent studying Martin Luther King and the civil rights era steeps you in what democracy requires, because that’s basically what the whole civil rights movement is about. What does equal citizenship mean?” he said. “To me, the first rule of the American experience is that we don’t play each other for suckers. The government shouldn’t play its own citizens for suckers – ‘We need public money, and we’re going to fleece people who are foolish enough to go in and pull one-armed bandits.'”

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        p>The 10% of the people who make up 90% of the gambling profits are being exploited by government. They have been deemed expendable citizens – less equal than the everyone else.  

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        p>Les Bernal

    • the the top 10% of earners in the country pay 70% of the income tax dollars?

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      p>I have to tell you Les,

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      In America, we do not have kings or queens because here; all blood is considered royal. Actively stimulating and exploiting the weaknesses in our neighbors to fund public services that benefit all of us is a declaration that some citizens are less equal than others. How can it be considered anything else?

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      p>Grover Norquist should pay you 50 bucks for that line.  

      • One could argue that progressive taxation is a way to keep things a little more equal.

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        p>Also our wealthy fellow citizens are hardly weak and I’m hardly concerned that they can’t defend themselves against being “exploited”.

      • Here’s the difference. Many of the 10% of Americans who pay 70% of the income tax dollars belong to places like this and live in homes like this.

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        p>Most of the 10% of people who make up 90% of the gambling trade’s profits experience this, belong to places like this and live in homes like this.

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        p>You also gave me a good idea for another poll question: “Would you prefer to be in the 10% who contribute 70% of the incomes taxes or the 10% who contribute 90% of the gambling profits?”

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        p>Les Bernal

        • Who are dripping in disposable income.

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          p>I’ve looked over the chart links you provided and can’t clearly determine who this top 10% is.  If 10% of the people are making up 90% of the profits, and these people are poor, addicted individuals, it seems to me the numbers don’t add up.  Where are these people getting all of the money from.  The money tree they planted behind their foreclosed mobile home.

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          p>That’s an awful lot money coming from people who have none.

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          p>Could you clarify those numbers for me so I can understand your point.

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          p>Thanks.

          • You just asked the the most important question to which every public official and citizen should be demanding an answer.

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            p>What is the casino business model? Who are the 10%? How much do they lose? Does the casino know who the 10% are? What kind of marketing practices are used to target that 10%?

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            p>One telling quote comes from Harrah’s executive Rich Mirman in the book Winner Takes All by Wall Street Journal reporter Christina Binkley found on Pg. 192:

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            “I’ve worked in subprime-lending marketing. Casinos at least are open about what they do.”

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            p>To fully answer your question will require me to write another new posting. I’ll get to work…

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            p>Les Bernal

            • that those 10% are the most vulnerable among us, the poor and addicted individuals who have been victimized by predatory gambling.  I was trying to confirm that through your links and couldn’t. Now your saying you don’t know who they are?

              • As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle:

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                “The new casino industry is creating new poverty among a vulnerable customer population by increasing the number of cash-broke gambling addicts. The 2006 state Problem Gambling Prevalence Survey maintained that the typical problem gambler was an unemployed, middle-aged man. But the ethnicity was a rainbow: 37 percent of California’s problem gamblers were Latino, 11 percent were black, 10 percent were Asian, 3 percent “other” – and just 39 percent were white.

                Casino operators do extensive studies on their customer patterns, and keep the results close to their vests, but the fact that some of the busiest bus lines heading to casinos originate in San Francisco’s Chinatown speaks volumes. The attorney general’s 2006 gambling study reported that 36 percent of Chinese Americans in San Francisco were problem gamblers. That’s compared with 2 to 5 percent in the overall population.”

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                p>And another from a prominent University of Buffalo Study:

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                “A strong effect of neighborhood disadvantage on pathological gambling was found. Respondents in disadvantaged neighborhoods have much higher rates of pathological or problem gambling than those who do not live in disadvantaged neighborhoods.”

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                p>Les Bernal

      • You should be very, very glad that the top 10% of this country pays more than 10% of this country’s taxes. You (along with me), would probably be living shoeless and unedumacated if it didn’t. We live in a country that, long ago, decided those with more should have a greater responsibility in funding this country — right around when we decided we wanted to provide every person with at least something close to equal opportunity to succeed.

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        p>Predatory gambling, which disproportionately impacts poorer and middle class families that can least afford it, hurts that attempt at equal opportunity. It goes against what we’ve sought to do as a country — find fair, equitable, efficient (for there’s a big bureaucracy in overseeing slots or even the state lottery), consistent revenue streams that don’t cannibalize the lifeblood of our economy — our small businesses that keep our communities afloat. Gambling, and slots in particular, fly in the face of all those goals, they strip the ability for our country to attempt to offer equal opportunity to kids from all families. Simply put, we can do better. At the very least, we can stop this state from instituting the worst, most addictive form of gambling — saving thousands upon thousands from falling into a new, damaging addiction – perhaps even a friend or member of your family.  

  7. than keno parlors in every corner store, scratch tickets in the gutter and that independent treasurer’s crappy odds.  When the mob controlled the daily number the payouts would be twice as high as the state gives you now.  Currently the average payout is a little over 4 grand when the odds are 10,000 to 1.  No casino would dare have that kind of a payout.  

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    p>Addicted gamblers are getting screwed all right, by Tim the Treasurer and his con game.

    • The State Lottery is one of the most predatory institutions in America. Most people have never even played Keno so they have very little understanding about the product. Here’s how the game works. (scroll to the bottom of the screen)

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      p>Here’s a high profile story about Maggie Rizer, a New York supermodel whose stepfather embezzled $7 million from her and lost it all on state-managed Keno machines (it’s called Quick Draw there). Most of it was lost in a small 20 seat bar room over a three year period. Don’t you think the Lottery knew something was wrong when a such a tiny place was producing so much money?

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      p>As you pointed out, casinos do provide higher payouts. But as you probably know, they raise the payout to increase the amount of wagering. When people experience the buzz of winning they become more likely to put their winnings (and a lot more) right back into the machine.

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      p>Les Bernal

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