Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

In the game of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire", there comes a time when all life-lines are gone.  As a contestant you can no longer poll the audience, call a friend, or chose between two of the remaining options.  The decision comes down to sheer guts or blind luck.  Let's say you, the reader, are there.  Which of the following did Rep. Gary Alexander (R-Olympia), ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, say were key elements of House Republican leaders budget proposal unveiled this past Friday, Feb.17? (1) No Gimmicks (2) More Gambling (3) Limited Government (4) All the above.

If you said (4) All the above, you are correct.

Alexander is sponsor of House Bill 2786 which would authorize electronic scratch ticket machines.  Not to be confused with a bill of the exact same number two years ago that concerned "Emergency Flooding", this year's HB 2786 ironically enough if passed would flood the non-tribal casino market with the pre-cursors to slot machines - an emergency answer, if you will, to help solve the state's existing $1.6 billion revenue gap question.

And you, the audience, are not being asked.

You're not being asked because Alexander and the HB 2786 co-sponsors already know your answer.  I-892 was a failed attempt in 2004 to expand non-tribal gambling via the introduction of slot machines, 19,000 of them, across the state.

Then there are the results just published of a Washington State University survey commissioned by the state Gambling Commission which scientifically designed poll reveals that about 88 percent of Washington's population doesn't want to see gambling expanded in the state.  Nearly 60 percent of the population is concerned - for good reason - that some gamblers commit crimes to get betting money.

Take recently fired Lakewood Police Independent Guild Treasurer Skeeter Manos for example, charged with 10 federal counts of wire fraud, involving the theft of at least $151,000 from a charitable fund intended for the families of four Lakewood officers slain in 2009.  Court documents indicate that Manos withdrew $4,000 at $500 increments at the Lakewood Macau casino alone in addition to other casinos in Pierce and Thurston counties, traveling as far as Las Vegas to pursue his gambling habits - if not gambling addiction.

Manos is not alone.

A Massachusetts firefighter/paramedic was arrested for embezzling $46,000 from his labor union's bank account to feed a gambling addiction at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.

Michael O'Neill, a tax collector, embezzled $225,000 to feed a gambling addiction at the Parx Casino just outside of Philadelphia.

A Graham woman - a former billing clerk for the international shipping company Maersk, Inc - was sentenced to 17 months in prison for stealing more than $260,000 to fuel her gambling and methamphetamine addictions.

A longtime bookkeeper for a small Chicago machinery company is charged with embezzling more than $1.5 million from the business and gambling most of it away on high-end slot machines at Indiana casinos.

But to hear "Alexander and the Republicans" (not a rock group performing at a casino near you) tell it, the Republican budget fix is "an all-priorities budget that funds the core services of government which we believe are education, protecting the public and protecting the most vulnerable."

So flooding the non-tribal casino market with the precursors of slot machines funds education, protects the public and protects the most vulnerable?  Which of these three "core services" does HB 2786 - Alexander's bill - effectively address?  None of the above.

A Washington State Needs Assessment Household Survey reflects a similar pattern locally as that of youth across the nation.  Children - "the most vulnerable" - of compulsive gamblers do worse in school; are more prone to alcohol, drug or eating disorders, more likely to be depressed (1).  Youth, once exposed, are three times more likely than adults to be hooked; 1 out of 6 adolescents are already experiencing gambling related problems; 1 of 10 has engaged in theft, prostitution, selling drugs to finance gambling related debts (2).  Gambling is the fast growing teen addiction, with the rate of pathological gamblers among high school and college twice that of adults (3).  In the next decade there will be more problems with youth gambling than drug use (4).

At the other end of the age spectrum, of special concern among the adults, are the -"most vulnerable" - seniors.  In an article entitled "Older adults vulnerable to gambling addiction" (5), older gamblers' game of choice is slot machines.

"Gaming's appeal can prove overwhelming.  Senior citizens are among those most at risk.  Having a casino in the neighborhood didn't help.  Problem gambling has emerged as a serious public-health concern.  At worst, it ruins educations, careers and relationships, and drains life savings, squandering Social Security checks or retirement savings normally used to pay for medication and food, participants (suffering) significant memory loss, anxiety and alcohol abuse.

"State gambling officials have identified three groups as being especially vulnerable to problems with gambling: Older adults may have no way to recoup their losses if they blow Social Security checks or loot their retirement funds to gamble.  Young people tend to be impulsive and impressionable.  Certain ethnic groups (primarily Asians in Western Washington) may come from cultures that accept gambling as entertainment" (6).

"What does it say," writes Les Bernal, Executive Director of Stop Predatory Gambling, "about the condition of our government (whether it's that of our state or our own City of Lakewood) when the big, bold thinking of today is forming a partnership with the most predatory business in America to perpetuate an illusion of phony prosperity?"

Even with all your life-lines gone, I bet you can answer that one correctly.

Footnotes:

(1) Focus on the Family Research, Ronald A. Reno

(2) "Illegal and Undocumented: A review of Teenage Gambling and the Plight of Children of Problem Gamblers in America", Compulsive Gambling: Theory, Research and Practice, Howard Schaffer (editor), Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1989, p.256

(3) "The Economic Impacts of Legalized Gambling Activities", Dr. John Warren Kindt

(4) "Gambling in Florida: An Analysis of the Economic & Social Impacts", The Executive Office of the Governor

(5) Seattle Times, November 23, 2005, A1

(6) "Older adults vulnerable to gambling addiction", Seattle Times, November 23, 2005, A1, Marsha King