October 21, 2002

That sucking sound is gambling's economic drain
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___ARLINGTON--Government could stimulate economic recovery by making gambling illegal, a legal policy professor told a national gathering of anti-gambling activists.
___"Gambling is a catalyst for economic downturn. If you want your 401(k) to come back, recriminalize gambling," said John Kindt, professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
___Government could "pump prime" the economy by banning gambling, releasing into the consumer economy dollars that go to the gambling industry, said Kindt, who holds four graduate degrees in business and law.
___"It's time to wipe the slate clean. Recriminalize gambling, just like we did in this country 100 years ago," Kindt said, citing findings from a 1999 U.S. Gambling Commission study.
___That study confirmed the proliferation of gambling in recent years led to increased addiction, bankruptcies and crime.

See related story: 'Follow the money' to track down crime

The gambling commission called for a moratorium on gambling expansion and urged that "convenience gambling"--video gambling machines in stores--be made illegal.
___The commission's study also confirmed gambling benefits the owners of gambling establishments at the expense of local economies, he added.
___The United States is experiencing the "third wave" of gambling expansion, Kindt reported.
___The first wave was the period of state lotteries in the original colonies to the Jackson era. The second was the period of westward expansion after the Civil War.
___Each ended when citizens demanded anti-gambling laws.
___Legalized gambling eventually resulted in higher taxes, loss of jobs, economic disruption of non-gambling businesses, increased crime and high social welfare costs, he said.
___Gambling drains the productive economy, keeping money out of grocery stores and retail businesses and concentrating it in the hands of an industry that produces no product, Kindt said.
___"For every $1 that gambling contributes in taxes, it costs taxpayers at least $3," he said, pointing to the social costs of law enforcement, welfare programs and lost productivity in the workplace.
___If gambling were recriminalized, those social costs would drop, tax revenues from consumer goods would increase and money would be pumped into the productive economic sector, Kindt concluded.
___Tom Coates, executive director of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Des Moines, Iowa, also highlighted the social and economic costs of gambling expansion.
___Personal bankruptcies in the United States rose from 241,431 in 1980 to about 1.45 million in 2001, he noted. Based on his experiences in counseling people with credit and debt problems, Coates noted a clear correlation between the expansion of gambling and the "explosion of personal debt."
___Casinos, in particular, create a "fantasy world" that encourages personal irresponsibility, Coates said. And unlike "destination gambling" sites in Las Vegas, most local casinos "prey on the native population," he added.
___"Casinos thrive in an atmosphere of 'no more delayed gratification,'" Coates said. "They encourage people to mortgage their future."

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