The Public Health Costs Of Gambling, Part 2

This is family policy matter program is produced by the North Carolina family policy Council family research and education organization dedicated to strengthening and preserving the family and here's John Rushton, president of the North Carolina family policy Council is going family policy matters is to have Elaine Meyer back on the program with Elaine is associate director of communications for the mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, where she is also a writer and editor for the 2 x 2 project will be continuing the conversation. We began last week with Elaine about an article she wrote for the 2 x 2 project entitled gambling with America's health, the public health costs of legal gambling. Last week we talked about why we do not hear more about the public health problems surrounding gambling, including the addictive nature of video slot machines which are popular at casinos and why the public health community has started to recognize gambling is an addiction similar to drugs and alcohol this week were to be picking back up with that discussion. Elaine welcome back to family policy matters. It's great to have you with us again, thanks so much for having me Elaine you write an article that gambling availability has other public health ramifications beyond addiction. What are some of the other public health forms of gambling that you have seen in your studies indicate that on people who don't have addiction problems tend to see you have a hard time seeing how casinos might impact then, but first note there are many many other public health ramifications.

One is that addiction is never just a problem for the addict.

It a problem. Five families that become broken by diet lawyers who might be victims of fast. That's one thing that comes up a lot is gamblers who embezzled money from their employers. There been some studies that show that crime goes up, crime rises, including the most comprehensive study that looked at all the US over. I believe 25 years, and Baker even things like bankruptcies leave behind foreclosed vacant homes and that currently has a fax. There's also this issue of greater economic inequality which public health researchers consider strongly associated with health disparities so what happens is a lot of cases politicians avoid raising taxes on other and other sources of revenue.

Instead, they will take gambling taxes and the lottery is particularly bad in this regard is there is a strong positive relationship between lottery ticket sales and poverty rates. So actually the most typical lottery player is a black male high school dropout making less than 10,000 a year. So that all that actually has implications for health, something like that. I think people don't always do when you're looking in your opinion, why don't we hear more about the public-health cost of gambling really important. Rushton and I think there are a few reasons having to do with the influence of the gambling industry and some having to do with that with just the stature of public health in our society. First of all, one reason I think is there just isn't a lot of public health research in this area compared to drugs or alcohol addiction research like what types of populations are most likely to become addicted to gambling either certain environments where gambling addiction is more common.

Things like that and the National Institutes of Health, which are the majority of public health research they'd don't actually have a national center that funds research into addictions that are drug or alcohol addiction. So they have a center for drug addiction, Valley Center for alcohol addictions but if somebody wants to do a gambling addiction study.

They typically have to tie it into drug or alcohol addiction.

I think it I think researchers ask folk with seem to think it would be more useful as that NIH had a broader way to fund addiction.

The second reason I think that the public-health aspect of gambling isn't really widely discussed is that the American gaming Association, which is a trade organization for casinos and like slot machine manufacturers. They fund it will be funded research center called the national Council for responsible gambling and date they will tell you that that honor is independent from them, it had a scientific review Board and that is all true. The thing is about that organization. They fund research into gambling addiction that look mostly at neuroscientific brain activity type studies and correlates into gambling addiction so that tends to focus the research or that tends to focus the attention on the person, the individual and kind of thing in makes it seem that gambling is something ill just in the head of of the addict and made a few studies that look at the relationship between the availability of gambling addiction, but they really have have not done it. Lottery a lot recently we have seen across the nation. Some local citizens will become more frustrated with Emily activities begun to push back against casino expansion in their communities. In the article you talk about citizen opposition to casinos in Massachusetts and New York and we have certainly seen the same thing here in North Carolina were citizens and Kings Mountain, North Carolina. Run along the north a lot of South Carolina border, about 30 miles west of Charlotte or affording a proposed casino above the South Carolina base could call the Indian nation what you think some Americans are saying no and saying no in pretty significant terms to more casino gambling I did not get to cover the North Carolina situation in my article that is interesting. They're accepting so many cases now of active opposition groups against casinos that that it couldn't fit them all into my article but I do think Americans know and this is speculation, but Americans now note 25 years after casinos started really becoming popular. They've seen what casinos do and so in the early 1990s will when basically everything no state. I think just about no state had a casino except New Jersey and Nevada. We didn't know that much and so casino companies were able to comment and say this can bring benefits is as good of a job. Taxes and today were actually seeing like in Atlantic City and Delaware in Connecticut. Huge losses and revenues. Atlantic City is it you know I'm sure I had for casinos closes here thousands of jobs lost, and it Atlantic City itself is really had not historically been a problem in the city that had a lot of problems, but it doesn't clear that the casino economy has not improved any of them. So I think that there is really just this more, you know, people see the history now, and I also think that there is a feeling that promoting a gambling economy is kind of an antithetical to the idea of saving economy investing in the economy.

It basically at its predatory toward citizens rather than encouraging of it citizen will in the research.

We chose gambling that exists, the more individuals are all going to gamble on the more individuals would gamble, the more likely the those individuals or to become addicted gamblers and even develop a pathological problem gambling is one of the things that may be contributing to this is that they're just more and more and more citizens, particularly in these communities that have gambling and easy access to gambling that are being torched by a gambling addiction and whether or not they are dealing with the gambling addiction themselves or if someone was in their family or friend available, more more people are being torched above the effects of gambling addiction and so are think good people are becoming more more sensitized to and understands all of the false claims that are all familiar about the hundreds of thousands of jobs with the casino is going to produce within the communities, and old economic benefits really. Not only don't take place. But they're all these other homes would come along with a particularly interesting porch of your article deals with how some anti-gambling groups are comparing gambling addiction to cigarette addiction in arguing the gambling should be regulated or in a similar fashion to cigarettes and tobacco. Tell us more about that and how it is being used in at least one lawsuit against the gambling industry software say just about the tobacco industry.

They ended up having to settle for billions of dollars for making deceptive claims in their advertising to addict to encourage people to buy cigarettes and for basically lying about the addictive effects of cigarette so a few lawsuits that have been filed allege that that is what she knows have done through offering very sophisticated Lee engineered slot machines and also aggressively marketing the people who have a clear gambling problem. For example, frequent customers who spend a lot of money at casinos, allowing them to take out credit there offering to fly them to various casinos or giving them complementary food and drinks and things like that to keep that ending money.

Some lawsuits allege that casinos have a duty to care that they're violating when they do that now until five. Those arguments haven't won in court, but there is this new case that you touched on that it was filed by an attorney in Indiana and he's representing the family of a man who is a distant businessman in Ohio and in kind of an upstanding citizen, from what I understand, and he became addicted to gambling and eventually it led him to lose his job because he embezzled six or $7 million and he ended up committing suicide. So this personal injury lawsuit. This just like the tobacco lawsuits so it's alleging that they had to casinos and the machine companies are liable for his death and I think this would be the first lawsuit through their initial motion that might try to throw it out.

This would be the first to try product liability claims which we always could be very interesting and also the last thing I'll say is that this organization I mentioned earlier called the public health advocacy Institute filed a friend of the court brief in Massachusetts, which is looking at, which is facing a lot of casino opposition and they had actually said they think legalize gambling causes the same devastating effects of the public health of cigarettes and that the gambling industry is mirrored the tobacco industry's energy of creating scientific doubt where no doubt truly exists so it's kinda interesting. These these parallels will be very interested to follow the progression of this and potentially similar future action in the courts with gambling devices and potential product liability issues only. Importantly, we're really on top of this week, listeners go to get a copy of your Oracle gambling with America's health, public health, cost of legal gambling so they can go to 2 x 2 project.org and that that you asked to project.org and then it/gambling � public � health grooming repeat that the 2 x 2 project.org and THC. The number to the X number two project.org and we certainly know that many of our listeners will be interested to visit your website and read your report and one more about this.

This is initiated the nuclear family policy Council cares deeply about. We have been working to educate lawmakers and the public on the million of negative forms associated with gambling and particularly as we have the prospects of yet another Indian gambling casino cropping up in our state's top Indian nation is successful with their approach with which we certainly hope they're not, but I think that this information is is really informative and very important for all folks, particularly in those communities understand so we will definitely encourage them to listen to this show as well as avail themselves of the information on the 2 x 2.

Project.org: thank you so much for being with us on family policy matters and for sharing your insights on the public health also gambling with John.

You and the opportunity and for the work that you're doing a gambling little pleasure in man.

We appreciate you are caring enough about this if you spend your time and energy are looking into and publishing such a worthwhile and important report so probably Martha, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. Before we close our like to invite you to follow the North Carolina family policy Council on Facebook. Just login and find us@ncfamily.org again of the MC family.org.

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