Stacking the decks

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

If there is one thing gambling operators know, it is to make sure the odds
always favor the house. 

Unfortunately, big gambling interests are now translating this business
approach into a political strategy.

With massive campaign contributions, they are trying to stack the
political deck in favor of legalized gambling expansion. Gambling
interests have contributed more than a million dollars to federal
candidates and to the Republican Party in the 1997-1998 election cycle. 

But the gamblers are making their biggest investments in state races:

* In South Carolina, video gaming interests are leading the charge to dump
incumbent Republican Governor David Beasley, a gambling critic. Led by
Fred Collins, who has just under 4,000 licenses for video poker machines
in the state, the video poker lobby has contributed more than $400,000 to
Beasley's opponent, Democrat Jim Hodges, and spent huge additional sums on
independent attack ads.

* In Maryland, slot machine interests have donated more than $500,000 to
the Republican National Committee. Incumbent Governor Parris Glendening
has blocked the introduction of slots at racetracks and other sites around
the state. Hilton Hotels, which owns a Maryland race track and Bally's
Entertainment, gave $250,000 to the Republican National Committee shortly
before the RNC began running a new series of attack ads against
Glendening.

* In Missouri, the casino industry has poured $8 million into a referendum
campaign to support a measure that would permit "riverboat" gambling
facilities to operate on "artificial spaces that contain water and that
are within 1,000 feet" of a river. If the measure fails, 11 of 15 casinos
would lose their permits to run "games of chance," including slot
machines.

The electoral battles come at a critical juncture for the gambling
industry. Over the last dozen years or so, downtrodden and
deindustrialized states and communities across the United States have
decided to place their bets on gambling-led economic development,
legalizing forms of gambling ranging from video poker to full-fledged
casinos. 

Casinos have rushed to legitimize their newfound social acceptance,
seeking to replace the term "gambling" with "gaming" or
"gaming-entertainment," terms meant to equate gambling with other forms of
entertainment and to portray gambling as an activity with which the whole
family can be associated. In June 1995, 14 large gambling operations
created the American Gaming Association, which is now run by Frank
Fahrenkopf, former chair of the Republican National Committee.

But in recent years, opponents of the industry have organized broad-based
populist coalitions. These conservative-liberal coalitions have been
extraordinarily successful, registering more than two dozen wins in
gambling expansion referenda.

While many gambling opponents are motivated by its perceived immorality,
the overriding argument against gambling, says Tom Grey, field coordinator
for the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, is that gambling is
"not good economics, not good politics and not good for the quality of
life." 

While casino and other gambling interests allege that gambling creates
jobs, opponents retort that money spent on gambling is merely diverted
from other forms of entertainment, meaning there is no net job creation.
Unlike other forms of entertainment, however, gambling creates serious
"externalities." 

More than 5 percent of gamblers may become addicted where gambling is
prevalent. Problem gamblers impose large social costs, through running up
debts, committing crime -- including not just theft and embezzlement, but
child and spousal abuse -- and taxing the criminal justice system. Robert
Goodland, author of The Luck Business, estimates the cost of each problem
gambler at well over $10,000.

Legalized gambling also works as a tax on the poor. Poorer people gamble
with proportionally higher stakes than wealthier gamblers.

If the political game weren't rigged, the growing grassroots movement
against gambling would already have won, at least, an effective moratorium
on legalized gambling expansion. But when citizen interests face off
against concentrated corporate power, it is never safe to bet against the
corporations.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor.

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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