[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 172 (Thursday, November 2, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S16632]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SOCIAL ROULETTE

 Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
attached article be printed in the Congressional Record at the 
appropriate place.
  The article follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1995]

                            Social Roulette

       The spread of legalized gambling is the political issue 
     that has yet to roar, but may do so soon--and should. In a 
     decade, casino gambling has spread from two states to at 
     least 35. Gambling is done on riverboats, on Indian 
     reservations, in well-established downtowns. Native American 
     tribes (including some that have rediscovered their existence 
     for the primary purpose of setting up casinos) are the best 
     publicized entrepreneurs in this field, partly because they 
     can operate free of many regulations. Estimates on how much 
     money is involved here are all over the lot, depending on 
     what sorts of gambling are counted in, but a study by U.S. 
     News & World Report concluded that counting state lotteries 
     and the like, $330 billion was wagered legally in 1992, up 
     1,800 percent since 1976.
       Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), along with Sens. Paul Simon (D-
     Ill.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), thinks the country ought to 
     take a long look as it hurtles toward turning itself into one 
     gigantic open town. They have introduced useful bills to 
     create a national commission that would undertake, as Mr. 
     Wolf puts it, ``an objective, credible and factual study of 
     the effects of gambling'' on communities, including its 
     impact on crime rates, political corruption and family life, 
     and also to examine its economic costs and benefits.
       Those pushing casinos into communities make large claims 
     about their economic benefits, but the jobs and investment 
     casinos create are rarely stacked up against the jobs lost 
     and the investment and spending forgone in other parts of a 
     local economy. The Commission's study could be of great use 
     to communities pondering whether to wager their futures on 
     roulette, slot machines and blackjack. The Wolf bill wants a 
     report from the commission in three years; the Simon-Lugar 
     bill wants it in half that time. We're inclined to think the 
     quicker the better.
       The ``gaming industry,'' as it calls itself, is fighting 
     these proposals. One hopes that at next week's House 
     Judiciary Committee hearing on the Wolf bill, gambling's 
     representatives will be asked why they fear a national 
     commission. If all their claims about gambling's beneficial 
     effects are true, a commission would presumably verify them. 
     If critics of gambling are wrong in seeing it as being linked 
     to crime, corruption and social breakdown, the commission 
     would presumably find that out too. Could it be that those 
     with an interest in the spread of gambling fear what a fair 
     study will find?
       True to form, gambling now has its own trade association, 
     and gambling interests--tribal and others--have stepped up 
     their campaign contributions to both parties. To pick a few 
     examples: Golden Nugget, the well-known Las Vegas casino, 
     gave $230,000 in ``soft money'' to the Republican Party last 
     year; Frank Fertitta Jr., chairman of Station Casinos Inc., 
     also gave $230,000 to the GOP; the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe 
     gave $365,000 to the Democrats in the 1993-94 election cycle 
     and covered its bets with $100,000 to the Republicans in 
     November of 1994.
       The country is in the presence of a powerful and growing 
     industry and an important social phenomenon. At the least, 
     the federal government should help the country figure out 
     what is going on, which is why what Mr. Wolf, Mr. Lugar and 
     Mr. Simon are doing is so important.

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