- Today’s NY Times reports that a large casino in Mississippi is closing, resulting in almost 1,000 layoffs, because “there may be too many casinos chasing too few gambling dollars.” So, you know, heads up, Massachusetts.
- Relatedly, Jim Braude takes to the pages of the Globe Magazine to argue that we should think hard about the lottery while debating whether or not we want casinos in Massachusetts.
Tell me you haven’t had this experience: You’re in line at your local convenience store. There are a bunch of people ahead of you, including an elderly woman who leaves with cat food in one hand, stacks of lottery tickets in the other. And what you’re hoping is that the Purina is for the cat, not her…. The state lottery sold close to $5 billion worth of products in the 2013 fiscal year, which means every man, woman, and child in the Commonwealth spent an average of nearly $700…. And guess whom most of the money comes from? People who can’t afford to lose it. In Chelsea, where per capita income is just under $15,000, $41.4 million was spent on the lottery last year. That works out to more than $1,100 per resident. By contrast, in Weston, where the per capita income is roughly $260,000, it’s only $44 for every resident…. Whatever voters or legislators do [about casinos], they shouldn’t just be thinking of the promised pot of gold, but of that old woman ahead of me in line at the 7-Eleven.
It’s absolutely a fair point. The difference, of course, is that the lottery is already thoroughly baked into the state’s budget process, while casinos aren’t yet. Step one would seem to be avoid making the problem of the state’s dependence on gambling revenues worse; we can then think about how to make it better.
You think? Here in New England, we’re looking at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, two giants of the industry, along with RI, a couple or so in ME, NH in the works, and we hope to compete with all of that with a ‘destination casino’ in Everett or Revere. Why would I bother? There are too many, chasing a limited number of dollars, and with each addition, the potential for any one location shrinks. Jim Braude’s piece in the Globe Magazine points out where gambling spending is happening, and those with money are not the ones spending it. OTOH, as long as there are lotteries and casinos, some other suckers will be paying for the cost of government services that I should be sharing responsibility for. If I want to go out to eat, or see a show, I have plenty of other choices. I don’t need a casino to provide it for me.
I’m all for policies that create a standard of living such that people aren’t forced to buy cat food for themselves, but there’s not so much you can do about bad choices. If someone is subsisting on cat food so they can buy lottery tickets rather than real human food, shame on her, not the lottery.
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There are plenty for whom it is not an addiction.
It’s pretty well established that gambling is addictive, so the fact that most people don’t get addicted really doesn’t excuse the lottery for the damage it does to those who do.
David’s crack analogy goes too far for me, but think of cigarettes. Tons of people smoke casually and aren’t addicted, but tobacco companies are still responsible for the millions who do get addicted.
…starting with the first smoke and effects others in the vicinity.
So when some parent goes and gambles away half their pay check and can’t adequately feed their kids, that’s not effecting others in the vicinity?
When an employee or member of an organization starts embezzling money to fuel their habit, which is one of the primary motives for embezzlement, that’s not effecting others in the vicinity?
Does something have to be bad the first time for it to be bad? Or could we suggest that we need to carefully regulate — and sometimes ban — things that may be okay once or twice, but with repeated use could lead to addiction and severe community and family consequences?
Slots are incredibly dangerous and scientists have shown have the same kind of effect on the human brain as crack cocaine when scanned with MRIs.
And, yes, we should be looking at some of the worst practices of the state lottery and ensure they know that when they get someone to “play to extinction” that it’s their whole families who go belly up, not just the person with the problem.
I mean literally in the vicinity of both time and place. If you are in line in front of me buying scratch tickets I am not being physically harmed. If you are next to me puffing on a cigarette I have to inhale your second-hand smoke. If you have had too much to drink or indulged in certain other drugs I would be reluctant to get into a car you are driving. If you have just bought scratch tickets I would happily let you give me a lift home.
The lottery too, though less obviously so.
It’s clear that people will gamble either way, but the state doesn’t need to enable it so much, and make itself dependent on lottery revenue.
May I introduce you to humans?
They’re a funny bunch — thoroughly convinced of their rationality but just look at all the terrible irrational habits they’ve accumulated. The over-eat. They drive so fast that they take enormous life-time risks. They think they can ignore climate change. They know they should get exercise; they rarely do. Some of them indulge in plainly suicidal behavior like smoking. They know better, but won’t stop. They know they should save for retirement but don’t.
Especially amusing is their belief that they’re always capable of making “choices”.
Some of which I make myself and could do better. In the moment though I can make the right choice and if money’s tight I know which one I will make.
Actually a lot of people have the most trouble controlling their spending precisely when money’s tight. I’d guess that the unbearable feeling of scarcity requires the assuaging that only spending satisfies.
Or consider obesity. Hunger, it turns out is an extremely powerful and largely unconscious force. It renders almost all dieters incapable of losing weight. This is even true of people who really have to lose weight. Study after study points to the failure of dieting. If choice were so easy, it’d be successful at least half the time. It’s no where near that.
We all have the illusion — sometimes a very useful illusion — that we can all make Good Choices. And heavens, we should do everything we can to make sure we do. However, to imagine that one is free of all that and that other people can “choose” to be is to avoid fully accepting what it means to be a human being.
like slot machine designers, design scratch tickets and employ other methods that absolutely play to these kinds of problem gamblers — getting them to spend more and more quickly.
So, yes, the state lottery has an uncomfortably high amount of the blame for when this takes place.
The industry has a term for what happens as a result of these methods. “Playing to extinction.” They like when that happens.
Just wondering.
Yes, there are preferable ways of raising revenue to the lottery, but some of the analogies that have been proffered on this thread are absolutely nuts!
Scientists have looked at the brains of people who suffer from gambling addiction and the brains of people who suffer from drug addictions under a MRI… and they look the same.
The risk of ‘ODing’ isn’t the same, but the risk of screwing up someone’s brain to the point where they can’t make rational decisions anymore — and could ruin their lives and the lives of their family — is uncomfortably similar.
Should the government sell a product that it knows to be addictive, with potentially harmful consequences to those who suffer from addiction? Note that in MA, only the government can sell lottery tickets (with minor exceptions), so it’s as if the government were the only seller of cigarettes, or some other addictive product.
…but it does generate revenue and is harmless to plenty.
for the government to be a monopoly seller of cigarettes, since they generate revenue, and not everyone who smokes will die of lung cancer. Right?
They are a public health threat to the smoker and anyone immediately down wind. If I were dictator and could make it stick I would outright ban them.
Nobody has to smoke, right? Why wouldn’t you let people make up their own minds?
…if I end up being around people who are themselves smoking. I try to avoid such situations but can’t always.
Visiting hospitals and relishing those dying of lung cancer. The increased healthcare costs were worth it to me.
Now, it’s harder to exercise my little pleasure.
I can’t even tell whether you are agreeing or disagreeing with me.
They don’t spin the wheel, but they suffer consequences that can be in many ways far more immediate and far more wide sweeping than second-hand smoking.
The Mass Teachers Association, for example, lost $800,000 because one person on its staff had a gambling problem.
When damage like that happens, imagine how many families just lose a house or a car or don’t have enough money to put good food on the table because they have a parent with a gambling problem?
When casinos create problem gamblers, they don’t give people cancer over 20-30 years. They lay waste to entire families, organizations and communities in just a few — who are the ones stuck left to put back the pieces.
Yes, a problem gambler will negatively impact his family and friends, but more in the way an alcoholic does. Neither addict has a direct health impact on someone else in the room at the time of the activity that a smoker does.
Either it’s OK for the government to be a monopoly seller of addictive products that are harmful to consumers but that consumers are not required to purchase, or it’s not. Basing your position that cigarettes are totally different entirely on the annoying but, let’s face it, fairly minor, second-hand smoke issue strikes me as implausible.
…on how minor second hand smoking is. It’s pretty much the entire public health argument for why the time and place one can smoke is so severely restricted these days, thus admittedly making it easier to avoid such situations. There’s also the game vs. drug distinction which I see as significant.
What’s next, Christopher?
This reminds of folks who say that a woman who is raped while walking on the Esplanade at 2:30a “asked for it” by being out so late.
Also, I’m not sure I can believe this:
The lottery is an expression of policies that work exactly opposite to what Christopher says he’s all for, but the government offering people the opportunity to make bad choices is all on them.
That analogy only works if someone held the woman at gunpoint, took the money from her purse and bought tickets with that money.
Part a:
– A woman is walking on the Esplanade
– A person with a gambling disorder is buying milk in a convenience store
Part b:
– A rapist pulls the victim into the bushes sexually assaults her
– Advertising and payoff structure encourages the victim to blow the rest of his paycheck on scratch tickets
Part c:
– Some still argue that when a woman walks alone on the Esplanade at the time, she is “making a choice” to “ask” that the crime to be committed
– You argue that the person with the gambling disorder is “making a choice” to lose his paycheck.
In both cases, the bottom line in part c is to blame the victim.
I think the analogy works just fine — I think you simply don’t like your role in it.
The verbs in part B are very different – pulls (a substitute for “forces”) and assaults vs. encourages (ie markets).
The rape victim should feel free to walk alone at night without the threat of assault and is not the actor or instigator. The lottery customer is choosing whereas the rape victim’s choice has been taken from her.
I hope, for your sake, that you never end up suffering from an addiction disorder of some sort. Your callousness towards those who are less fortunate than you in that regard is striking.
Plenty of addicts make the choice one day at a time, one opportunity at a time, to NOT indulge their addiction. I feel like I am the one giving them a lot more credit than you do.
That doesn’t make a lick of sense Christopher.
So it’s okay for the state to profit off of a hugely unhealthy and self-destructive activity like gambling, but on the Kennedy-Keating thread you sound like Mrs. Lovejoy about a relatively harmless drug like pot?
One is a DRUG, that directly by consumption inhibits your health and possibly that of those around you. The other, though with problems of it’s own and less than ideal, is a form of ENTERTAINMENT that does not interact with your body EXCEPT for people who take it too far and suffer the effects of addiction. That seems to be the impasse here. I will take playing games over consuming harmful substances any day.
I’m sorry, but your intransigence on this is just plain stubborn.
Gambling addiction is real. The reality of gambling addiction is better documented in the literature than the over-the-top claims of about marijuana. If marijuana is a DRUG, then so is caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, melatonin, and host of other substances that (1) change aspects of the subject, (2) have at least some potential for abuse, (3) are perfectly legal.
Describing the lottery as “playing games” for someone with a gambling disorder is like describing taking a drink as a “harmless sip” for an alcoholic.
You continue to insist that marijuana is a “harmful substance” when used in “normal” amounts. You continue to ignore the real and calculated efforts by lottery designers to exploit the triggers and vulnerabilities of problem gamblers.
This is even more pronounced for slot machines — manufacturers of slot machines have funded research into gambling disorders for a very long time, with the express purpose of exploiting the vulnerabilities that are exposed by that research.
The “impasse”, in my view, is your stubborn resistance to the facts combined with your equally stubborn insistence on repeating weak assertions as truth (“One is a DRUG” … the other is … “ENTERTAINMENT”, “playing games”, “harmful substances”).
…but when I’m the only one making an argument I guess that’s all you hear from me. Reasonable people can disagree, but do you seriously deny the difference in nature between something that is simply an action and something that goes INTO your body? I really get tired with disagreement turning into you don’t accept the facts because I draw different conclusions (though I admit I have made similar comments out of exasperation). What I know for sure is if you were to suggest buying a couple of scratch tickets to see what happens I might take you up on it. If you were to offer me a joint I would run so fast in other direction you wouldn’t know what hit you and probably have a few choice words for you in the process.
That proves there is no reality based commentary from you on this subject. I’d remind you for the tenth time that you can choose not to smoke pot, ever in fact, as I have, and still favor leaving that choice to others. I’d remind you, I think for the tenth or twelfth time, that tobacco, alcohol, and gambling addictions have caused far more death, financial ruin, and human misery than marijuana ever has. But it’s becoming a waste of breath, people are entitled to their prejudices.
…and I believe as I have said also for at least the tenth time that there is sound enough science-based public health and safety concerns to not jump to legalize. The other things that cause more harm have had the opportunity to do so I would submit precisely because they are legal. What frustrates me the most is the blase attitude toward the those concerns, absolutely rooted in reality.
…there is nothing more to be said, but I think we “know” each other as well as we can without having met in the real world to respect differences of viewpoint without calling one side or the other prejudiced as if we’re certain that one can’t possibly conclude differently GIVEN the facts.
I’m sorry to digress, but I can’t help but wonder – If Christopher is running away from Tom and his threatening pot, just what is it that’s going to hit Tom? Is there some kind of Roadrunner/Wiley Coyote dynamic in play?
The notion that gambling does not “interact with your body” is IMHO not correct. Of course not everyone who gambles becomes an addict, but the “thrill of the win” – which every gambler experiences – is biologically based, and is the basis for designing slot machines to be addictive.
Meant to be an uprate, probably shouldn’t be commenting on an exercise bike…
is duly noted. 😉
You are not eating, injecting, or inhaling lottery tickets, poker chips, or slot machines.
The real issue is not whether or not people’s behavior can be controlled. It cannot. People can and will do stupid, self-destructive things. The real issue is whether or not Government should be in the business of promoting bad choices as a way to raise revenue. It should not. We must deal with the real cost of public policy choices and stop implementing regressive (tax) policies that suck dollars of the pockets of those who can least afford it. And, yes, the lottery and casinos both fall into that regressive revenue raising category. Although, I do see David’s point that we are more reliant on the lottery today because it has been in place for so long. Nevertheless, it’s still not good governmental policy in my opinion. We should do away with lottery, casinos, and implement a graduated income tax. We would be much better off.
They could send more winning tickets to communities like Chelsea.
Since the state wants to raise tax revenues by gambling, here’s a better plan:
1. Raise the personal income tax by enough to match the total gross receipts from all current and contemplated gaming sources combined.
2. Announce a new “Tax Game” where lucky taxpayers are randomly selected each month to receive prizes. A “grand prize” will be awarded periodically comparable in size to the after-tax amount of maximum available from the existing lottery.
3. Structure the chances of winning the new game so that they are proportional to the amount of personal income tax collected. The more you pay, the more likely you are to win.
4. All receipts are treated as tax refunds under tax law.
5. Eliminate the current Keno and Lottery games, and kill the contemplated casino bill.
I figure that under my new proposal, convenience stores will be filled with restaurant servers, landscapers, roofers, painters, and other workers who are eager to pay the taxes due on their cash income so that they have a better chance of winning the new “Tax Game”.
Is that it is best to focus on one battle at a time. I think we can build a successful tripartisan (Dems, GOP, and unenrolled) majority that will vote against casinos. I remember during the Milford vote somebody posted here that they befriended a Tea Party Republican over a shared interest in stopping the casino in their town. I think it’s an issue that crosses party lines and could bring a lot of different people together around a simple issue: no casinos in MA. Whether it’s for NIMBY reasons that appeal to more right leaning voters (sense of the commons, pride of community, keeping a community crime greed), or for revenue based reasons that appeal to progressives (it’s a regressive tax on the poor, subsidizing a bad industry, job creation numbers are bogus), there are great common sense reasons to oppose this policy.
I think the lottery is far more entrenched, and viewed by some users as a fun diversion while others clearly have a problem. It is badly in need of reform and revision. A middle ground solution might be eliminating all advertisements and lottery promotion on the part of the state, eliminating ridiculous things like $30 tickets, and gradually weaning ourselves off those revenues so that we can focus on getting a truly progressive income tax and revenue stream flowing. Eliminating KENO, eliminating scratch offs entirely, and buying into regional lotteries like the Powerball would be the next step towards limiting the amount of harm caused by the lottery and the dependency of state government on it. But we can’t consider any of these reforms if we live in a casino state. So let’s beat those first!
are an imbalanced way of raising funds for state operations. It has been shown that those in poorer areas are contributing significantly greater dollars per capita through gambling revenues to state coffers than those from more wealthy areas. Is it because of education levels, desperation for the ‘big prize’ to help financially, or just a more fundamental lack of understanding of the odds against winning and return on dollar gambled? I think all of the above. What the gambling does is save elected officials from responsibility for voting for fees and broad based taxes which would spread the cost of revenue more evenly across the Commonwealth. That should be the argument against it. Replace gambling revenues with taxes that are a more dependable source for budgeting.
Since clearly, as David posted in the OP and I did elsewhere, the Times had a story on a gambling glut. Vegas still has had issues keeping it’s hotels filled night after night, Mohegan Sun is running into financial trouble as well. And we honestly think these are the policies that will save Everett? Eastie? Springfield?
It would accelerate, not reverse, their economic dissent. Wonder how this casino will be repurposed?
I’d like to see a false-colored map showing where the lottery revenues are collected and where they are disbursed. I think such a map would show that not only are the funds raised from the wrong people, but are then transferred out of those poor neighborhoods and into more prosperous areas.
I suggest that we adopt a law forcing lottery proceeds to be spent in the same neighborhoods where they are collected. I predict that the moment such a restriction were passed, political support for the lottery would evaporate.
The hypocrisy of claiming to be “progressive”, while supporting and promoting the lottery’s plundering of poor people and poor neighborhoods, is revolting.
Don’t you understand that those poor communities are choosing to transfer their money to wealthier places? Just like individuals are choosing to transfer their childrens’ food budget to the Commonwealth. It’s all about choice.