[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 135 (Friday, September 19, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1502-E1503]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         THE EVILS OF GAMBLING

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 19, 2014

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I have long been opposed to any expansion of 
legalized gambling and have continually sought to raise awareness of 
the dangerous economic and social costs of gambling. That is why I want 
to submit for the Record a statement I received from one of the 
foremost experts on the dangers of gambling, Tom Grey, and the director 
of Stop Predatory Gambling, Les Bernal.

Statement by Les Bernal, National Director, Stop Predatory Gambling and 
          Tom Grey, Senior Advisor to Stop Predatory Gambling

       Today, we would seek to speak for the ``losers.'' The 
     ``losers'' are those citizens sacrificed by our government in 
     its failed experiment of sponsoring and promoting gambling to 
     extract as much money as possible from the public. ``Losers'' 
     isn't a term we coined. That's the word used by a slot 
     machine designer at America's biggest maker of electronic 
     slot machines, International Gaming Technology (IGT), to 
     describe the citizens who use the machines he makes, many of 
     whom are your constituents. ``When I asked one I.G.T. artist 
     if he ever plays, he acted as if I had insulted him,'' wrote 
     New York Times reporter Gary Rivlin in his cover story on 
     slot machines for The Times Sunday Magazine. ``Slots are for 
     losers,'' he spat, and then, coming to his senses, begged me 
     to consider that an off-the-record comment.''
       Scott Stevens of Steubenville, Ohio was one of these 
     ``losers'' who we speak for today. Yet Scott Stevens was a 
     success by nearly every measure we use in America. Through 
     hard work and sacrifice, Scott became a very successful 
     business executive, earning an upper-middle class income. He 
     was happily married with three daughters and actively served 
     his community in a variety of different volunteer leadership 
     roles.
       But the lives of Scott Stevens and his family changed 
     forever when they intersected with a government program 
     unlike any other. It is a government program that exists to 
     extract as much money as possible from citizens to fund 
     government itself. This program has been called ``government-
     sponsored gambling'' but a growing number of Americans in the 
     public square today call it more accurately as ``predatory 
     gambling.''
       Predatory gambling is when government uses gambling in the 
     form of casinos and lotteries to cheat and exploit citizens. 
     For-profit gambling is illegal unless the government gives 
     its full support, and in nearly every instance operates in 
     partnership with gambling interests whether in the form of 
     state lotteries, commercial casinos or tribal casinos. Scott 
     Stevens knew firsthand about predatory gambling.
       Today, the electronic gambling machine has become 
     government's preferred method of extracting money from 
     citizens. Slots make up to 80% of gambling profits. These 
     gambling machines are literally designed so citizens cannot 
     stop using them, exploiting aspects of human psychology and 
     inducing irrational and irresponsible behavior. Every feature 
     of a slot machine--its mathematical structure, visual 
     graphics, sound dynamics, seating and screen ergonomics--is 
     designed to increase a player's ``time on device''--which 
     means how long a person plays.
       Gambling operators found that their profits were not about 
     the size of the gamblers' stakes but rather the volume of 
     their play. ``If you provide them with the right time-on-
     device, they will stay and play,'' one slot designer said to 
     MIT Professor Dr. Natasha Schull in her recent book on slot 
     machine technology titled Addiction By Design. ``If you take 
     it too quickly and they lose, they're going to leave.'' In 
     the actual language of the casino business, the goal is to 
     get every user ``to play to extinction''--until all their 
     money is gone, Dr. Schull quotes a slot marketing expert. ``I 
     want to keep you there as long as humanly possible,'' another 
     slot operator told her. ``That's the whole trick, that's what 
     makes you lose.''
       The slot machine is designed to be so effective at 
     extracting money from people, wrote Dr. Schull, that it is 
     ``a product that, for all intents and purposes, approaches 
     every player as a potential addict--in other words, someone 
     who won't stop playing until his or her means are depleted.''
       Scott Stevens was one of the ``losers'' who used a slot 
     machine. He became someone who used the slot machine the way 
     its maker and promoter intended: he could not stop using it.
       Aggressively marketed to the public as ``fun'' and actively 
     promoted by public officials, why would Scott ever possess 
     any concerns about using a modern slot machine?
       Citizens like Scott Stevens who use slot machines as 
     intended are the most lucrative ``losers'' of all for 
     government and the gambling operators it partners with. Over 
     the last decade there are 11 different independent studies--
     studies not funded by gambling interests--that show 40 
     percent-60 percent of slot machine profits are taken from 
     citizens like Scott Stevens. Citizens who have been turned 
     into gambling addicts.
       In America today, at least 10 million citizens are gambling 
     addicts; citizens who have become addicted to what is, 
     literally, a government program. We call these millions of 
     citizens who have ruined their lives and painfully wounded 
     their families so our government can extract more money, 
     ``The Expendable Americans.''
       Scott Stevens was an Expendable American. He lost his job 
     because he took company money and poured it into slot 
     machines sponsored by the government. He maxed out his credit 
     cards to tens of thousands of dollars. He emptied his 
     daughters' college savings accounts and his 401k retirement 
     funds. He owed huge debts to the IRS for not paying taxes on 
     what government labeled his ``winnings,'' despite losing far 
     greater money than he won.
       On August 13, 2012, even though he had already given almost 
     everything he had to this public policy, Scott Stevens made 
     one last sacrifice. He drove to a children's soccer park in 
     his town that he raised money to build. He sat down on a park 
     bench. He called 911 on his cell phone and told them what he 
     was planning to do. When the police and ambulance arrived at 
     the park he said, ``You're not here to stop me, you're here 
     to take me home'' and then shot himself in front of them. In 
     the days afterward, a letter arrived in the mail addressed to 
     his wife Stacy. Scott mailed it before taking his own life. 
     It said, in part:

       ``I know you don't believe it but I love you so much! I 
     have hurt you so much. Our family only has a chance if I'm 
     not around to bring us down any further. You're such an 
     unbelievable wife and mother. I know you will hold the family 
     together . . .''

       While millions of men and women like Scott Stevens and 
     their families have sacrificed and hurt so much to provide 
     needed revenues to American government, no one has ever 
     thanked them for their ``service.'' There are no parades with 
     fluttering American flags in the breeze. No yellow ribbons. 
     Our country simply renders them failures.
       Failure is the right description but it is directed toward 
     the wrong participant. Government's experiment with gambling 
     is the definition of failure, representing one of the biggest 
     public policy busts of the modern era. Over the past four 
     decades, government's partnership with gambling has failed in 
     a multitude of ways.
       It has transformed gambling from a private and local 
     activity into the public voice of American government, such 
     that ever-increasing appeals to gamble, and ever-expanding 
     opportunities to gamble, now constitute the main ways that 
     our government communicates with us on a daily basis.
       It has broken its promise to remain a small component of 
     our government and a small part of our society. In the brave 
     new world envisioned by this power structure--where every 
     cell phone is a ``casino in your pocket'' and every bar, gas 
     station, convenience store, computer, and home in the nation 
     is a place to place a bet--the essential driving message from 
     the American government to the American people is ``All 
     gambling, all good, all the time.''
       It has fueled irresponsibility and non-accountability in 
     government by imposing a giant excise tax on the citizenry 
     that politicians never have to call a ``tax.''
       It has failed to deliver on its over-hyped promises to fund 
     education, lower taxes, or pay for needed public services.
       It has taken political power away from the people and 
     handed it over to gambling lobbyists.
       It has perpetrated a phony model of economic development--a 
     model with a jobs multiplier effect of approximately zero, 
     since, in this model, nothing of value is produced.
       It has promulgated the very economic attitudes and 
     practices--short-term is more important than sustainable, 
     wealth can come from ever-growing debt, something can come 
     from nothing, slickness trumps honesty--that led us into the 
     debt bubble and the Great Recession of 2008 and beyond.
       It has caused neighboring states to compete against each 
     other in a race to the bottom.
       It has taken dollars from the poor to fund programs for the 
     better-off.
       It has spread addiction into our population, using the new 
     science of machine design to produce out-of-control behavior 
     that, according to scientists, closely resembles addictive 
     behavior from cocaine.
       It has spread debt and bankruptcy into our population.
       It has led to serious gambling-related problems among young 
     people.
       It has contributed to broken families and child neglect and 
     other social messes everywhere it goes, and has taken little 
     or no responsibility to clean them up.
       It has turned many law-abiding citizens into criminals who 
     cheat, steal, and embezzle in order to continue to gamble.
       It has arrogantly exempted itself from truth-in-advertising 
     laws so that it can use taxpayer money to create and spread 
     deceptive advertising.
       It has corrupted our sense of community and undermined our 
     faith that we're all in this together.
       It has deliberately changed the word ``gambling'' to 
     ``gaming'' in order to make this often destructive activity 
     sound as innocent as child's play.
       It has fueled cynicism about the motives of our government.
       It has repudiated the value of thrift by creating mass 
     incentives to turn potential savers into habitual bettors.
       It has repudiated the virtue of ``love your neighbor'' and 
     replaced it with a government endorsement of predatory 
     practices, or preying on human weakness for gain.

[[Page E1503]]

       It has withered our capacity as a people to confront 
     forthrightly our reluctance to pay taxes for the public 
     services we desire.
       It has trampled on the ideal of ``justice for all.''
       It has broken faith with the wisdom and leaders of earlier 
     generations who, seeing the failure of gambling in the past, 
     amended state constitutions to ban gambling activities.
       It has lied to us about how the government actually uses 
     the money it gets from gambling.
       It has lied to us by repeating again and again that luck--
     rather than work--is the key to the American dream.
       This is a critical moment. How our generation responds to 
     the reach and arrogance of the government-gambling power 
     complex will largely determine the legacy we pass on to the 
     next generation. Politically, economically, ethically, and 
     spiritually, the stakes are extraordinarily high.
       Politically: Government's partnership with gambling 
     fundamentally changes the compact between government and the 
     governed. It pits government's interests against the best 
     interests of its people. For government to win, its citizens 
     must lose.
       Economically: No great nation has ever built prosperity on 
     the foundations of personal debt, addiction, and the steady 
     expansion of ``businesses'' that produce no new wealth. 
     Relying on gambling as an economic development strategy is a 
     sign of surrender and defeat on the part of leaders who have 
     failed to lead.
       Ethically: A decent government does not finance its 
     activities by playing its most vulnerable citizens for 
     suckers, thus rendering the lives of millions expendable, 
     exploitable, and unworthy of protection.
       Spiritually: We mock the higher values that any good 
     society depends on--honesty, mutual trust, self-discipline, 
     sacrifice, concern for others, and a belief in a work ethic 
     that connects effort and reward--when government tells its 
     citizens every day that it is committed to providing ``fun'' 
     instead of opportunity; that a rigged bet is the way to 
     achieve the American dream; and that spending one's hard-
     earned dollars on scratch tickets is a form of good 
     citizenship.
       This is America. Surely we can do better than this. Surely 
     we must. The choice is not--it has never been--between tying 
     our future to gambling and accepting economic decline. 
     Government-sponsored gambling is itself a form of economic 
     decline. The alternative is to muster the courage to chart a 
     path to true prosperity. An America freed from the yoke of 
     government-sponsored gambling would be an America once again 
     on the move--an America with broader and more sustainable 
     economic growth, more honesty in government, more social 
     trust, and the rekindling of the optimism that has long been 
     our defining national strength.
       While many leaders on both sides of the political aisle 
     loudly proclaim they are committed to fighting unfairness and 
     inequality of opportunity in America, their support of 
     sponsoring and promoting gambling is actually intensifying 
     the very unfairness and inequality that they decry. Many 
     forces currently contributing to the rise of inequality, such 
     as globalization and technological change, cannot be directly 
     controlled by public policy. But government-sponsored 
     gambling is a public policy--and it exists only because 
     policy makers want it to exist.
       A mounting pile of independent evidence further confirms 
     this reality. Government-sponsored gambling is harming 
     health, draining wealth from people in the lower ranks of the 
     income distribution, and contributing to economic inequality. 
     These are among the findings of Why Casinos Matter: Thirty-
     One Evidence-Based Propositions from the Health and Social 
     Sciences, a report released from the Council on Casinos in 
     September 2013, an independent group of scholars and public 
     policy leaders convened by the Institute for American Values, 
     a nonpartisan New York City-based think tank.
       After four decades of unfulfilled promises, corrupt deals 
     and broken dreams, it is time for our government to end its 
     partnership with organized gambling interests and to embrace 
     a fundamentally different and higher vision of the path to 
     American prosperity.
       In short, after four decades of consistent failure, it is 
     time for our government to get out of gambling and for 
     gambling to get out of our government. Stop Predatory 
     Gambling is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, transpartisan 
     network of individuals and organizations from diverse 
     backgrounds, political convictions and religious faiths 
     dedicated to this fundamental national reform. We are 
     committed to end the unfairness and inequality of opportunity 
     created by government-sponsored casinos and lotteries.
       We are part of the most diverse movement in the nation, an 
     affirmation that most Americans share basic principles and 
     values regardless of their position along the political 
     spectrum. Today, we also provide a voice to all of these 
     citizens from coast-to-coast who have bravely and selflessly 
     fought in recent decades on behalf of our core belief that no 
     taxpayer dollar should be used by government to lure citizens 
     into gambling away their money and becoming slaves to debt; 
     no agency or entity of government should depend on gambling 
     to fund its activities; and no legislature, whether in the 
     name of economic development or raising revenue, should pass 
     laws to promote or sponsor gambling.
       Some of you may ask what if government stopped sponsoring 
     and promoting gambling? A better question that leads to a 
     more revealing answer would be how did our nation educate 
     children prior to introducing the lottery? Did not our 
     parents as stakeholders fund government to provide the 
     educational pathways to citizenship and potential prosperity? 
     After World War II, how did America pivot from waging battle 
     to creating jobs for a prosperous peacetime and enabling its 
     citizens to become economic winners? Did not our government 
     invest in not only roads and our infrastructure but more 
     important, in breadwinners and families?
       Already underway is a reclaiming of America from the 
     devastation and heartbreak of government-sponsored casinos 
     and lotteries.
       It began in earnest with the establishment of the National 
     Gambling Impact Study Commission by Congress in 1996 and its 
     subsequent report in 1999 provided citizens with clear cut 
     recommendations. The bipartisan commitment and courage by 
     Congressman Frank Wolf, Congressman John LaFalce, Senator 
     Richard Lugar and the late Senator Paul Simon to determine 
     the truth about government-sponsored gambling, sustained and 
     nourished the bottom-up growth of a national citizen movement 
     opposing this dishonest and harmful public policy. What began 
     as a diverse national coalition of groups and individuals, 
     ultimately led to the organization of Stop Predatory 
     Gambling, where today empowered citizens are challenging the 
     gambling promoters with ever increasing intensity at the 
     local, state and now, with the push for internet gambling, 
     the federal level.
       Perhaps the most visible challenge in 2014 is happening at 
     the ballot box, that sacred public place where citizens can 
     vote out of their best hopes or their worst fears for a 
     common future. Citizens in Massachusetts have inspiringly 
     waged a relentless fight against government-sponsored casinos 
     for almost four years running. These citizens succeeded 
     against overwhelming odds to achieve the first ever ballot 
     question in a major state attempting to repeal state gambling 
     laws in modern American history. Regardless of the outcome, 
     the repeal drive signifies the unavoidable rising tide 
     bringing a surge of major national reform on this issue.
       Over the long-term, the most profound and lasting change 
     may happen in our justice system. The family of Scott Stevens 
     is ensuring he is no longer voiceless by bringing the facts 
     of their story to federal court. Such litigation is bolstered 
     by the rapidly-growing awareness of gambling addiction as a 
     major public health issue, evidenced by the national story 
     published last week by The Columbia University School of 
     Public Health about the massive public health impacts of 
     government-sponsored casinos and lotteries. It spotlights how 
     predatory gambling is harming millions of Americans and the 
     communities they live in.
       It's inevitable that government-sponsored gambling will be 
     phased out in most places across the United States. It is not 
     a question of if but when. It's inevitable because we are a 
     people who believe government should promote fairness and 
     equality of opportunity for all. The speed of reform is up to 
     all of us because it is we who will decide how many more 
     ``losers'' like Scott Stevens we are willing to sacrifice 
     from our own families and communities. Please join us in this 
     good fight. Thank you.

                          ____________________