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By Steve Weatherbe
ALARMED at the provincial government’s promotion and expansion of gambling, a church-led group of Victorians has
taken the Campbell government to task.
The group has extracted a promise that the budget for the “education . . . and treatment” services related to problem gambling will be maintained, at just under $7
million.
Calling itself the Gambling Harm Reduction Coalition, the group comprises
Anglican, Catholic and United clergy delegated by their denominations, plus lay
members of the same religions and the Jewish, Muslim and Unitarian faiths.
The group met with Rich Coleman, the minister of housing and social development,
in November.
The purpose was to discuss the government’s announcement of its plan to become the purveyor of internet gambling. The
announcement also acknowledged that the online phenomenon is the most addictive
form of gambling.
While Coleman agreed to maintain spending on problem gamblers, he also said the
government would be expanding internet gambling by raising the betting limit on
the net from $120 per week to $9,999 per week.
“Only very wealthy gamblers could sustain losses like that for more than a week
or two without putting their family and everything they have worked for at
great risk,” the Coalition insisted in a follow-up letter to Coleman.
Coalition spokesperson Dale Perkins, a retired United Church minister and also a
member of the Victoria Multifaith Society, characterized the government’s role as that of a “pimp.”
The government, he contended, is profiting from the uncontrolled appetites of
problem gamblers, “who provide a disproportionate amount of gambling revenues.”
Indeed, according to Alberta and Ontario studies, between 35 and 39 percent of
gaming revenues come from problem gamblers.
Perhaps the government is moving into internet gambling because it is one of
only two categories of gaming for which the public’s appetite is increasing. Perkins contends that the government is as addicted to
gambling as any casino habitué.
As the B.C. Lottery Commission website reveals, it is the biggest winner. From
$2.5 billion gambled last year, the provincial government raked in $824 million
for either general revenue or special funds.
It passed on another $146 million to charities and $63 million to local
governments. On top of that, the commission itself got $203 million to run the
show; various vendors, from race track operators to lottery kiosk owners,
collected $579 million; and prize winners took home $647 million.
Gambling is actually on the decrease in B.C., as it is across Canada, and in the
U.S., Great Britain and other countries. Paradoxically, access to gambling, and
ways to do it, have increased.
While 94 percent of British Columbians gambled in some way in 1993, only 73
percent did so in 2007, according to an Ipsos Reid study commissioned by the
B.C. government the following year.
Fully 29 percent of British Columbians gambled weekly, the same study indicated;
23 percent did so by buying lottery tickets.
The next most prevalent form was private card gaming at five percent, then
casino betting at three percent and two percent via the internet. Only private
club gambling and internet gambling increased.
Overall, 4.5 percent of British Columbians are problem gamblers – that is, people who gamble to the point of risking their financial security or
family relations. Some 12 percent of casino goers and 6.7 percent of lottery
players are problem gamblers.
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Internet gambling has the highest prevalence of problem gamblers: 29 percent.
Electronic machine players come second at 25.2 percent, and poker tournament
participants weight in at 24.8 percent.
“The province is in a conflict of interest,” Perkins insists, because it must regulate gambling operators with whom it is in
competition. It is also pledged to address and reduce problem gambling, which
provides a sizeable lump of the revenue stream.
“The Liberals are also in conflict with their own promise to reduce gambling,” Perkins further asserts. “Gambling puts phenomenal tensions on families.
It becomes a dark, dirty secret, and causes marital breakup, bankruptcies,
poverty and death.” The Canadian Safety Council says 200 Canadians kill themselves annually over
gambling losses, and five times that number are hospitalized.
Howard Blank, the vice president for media, entertainment and responsible gaming
at Great Canadian Casinos – the Richmond-based operator of casinos and racetracks in B.C., including
Greater Victoria and Nanaimo, Washington, Ontario and Nova Scotia – says the firm is committed to minimizing problem gambling, while respecting the
rights of Canadians to make choices.
Casino staff are trained to recognize emotionally-stressed players, and to offer
them the help of in-house counsellors and government addiction agencies.
Education about the house-favouring odds is also a big factor in the whole
industry’s effort to reduce problem gambling and its social impacts.
“People used to think, when slot machines first came in, that all they had to do
was get on a machine that hadn’t paid off for a long time,” says Blank.
“But slot payoffs are completely randomized: one might pay off three times in a
row, and another not at all for a day. So we took steps to educate people about
how they really worked.”
B.C.’s betting establishments offer “voluntary exclusion,” whereby a gambling addict, in a moment of sobriety, can get himself banned for
up to two years.
Blank says 98 percent of players see gambling as entertainment, and set limits
for themselves. He disbelieves reports of research indicating that the few
problem gamblers account for a big share of the betting. “If that were true they would have to be millionaires,” he says.
February 2010
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