Wednesday, October 13, 2010
 
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City hears warning: Video gambling is addictive

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[October 13, 2010]  On Tuesday evening the Lincoln City Council heard from the executive director of Illinois Church Action on Alcohol & Addiction Problems out of Springfield. Anita Bedell addressed the risks that lie ahead if the city allows video gambling to become a part of the community.

HardwareIn 2009 the state of Illinois passed video gaming laws that opened the door for gaming machines that legally pay out money to winners.

The law mandated that existing machines that were "for entertainment purposes only" be outlawed and business owners would be forced to either do away with video gaming or take on the new state-approved machines.

The original plan had been to have the old machines removed from local establishments by the end of July this year and new machines in their place by late summer. However, there was a snafu in the state's bidding process for the master computer that would connect all the machines to the state. Because of this, the new program is on hold until possibly midyear 2011.

Bedell said this gives the city an opportunity to consider whether or not it should pass ordinances banning the new machines.

She said that before the machines are installed, the council can make this decision easily, but if they wait until the machines are in place, then banning them would have to be via a referendum put on a ballot. She said getting video gambling out of Lincoln would then become much more difficult.

Armed with a packet of information that she passed out to alderman and the media, Bedell went through several scenarios of what can happen to people who become addicted to video gambling.

She noted statistics from other states and even Canada and Australia where the machines have been legalized and used and the dire effect it has had on many members of those communities.

She said that the machines themselves have been studied and found to have an addictive effect through their video presentation. It appears that the video displays have the ability to put people in a trance-like state that prevents them from having the willpower to walk away from them.

She referred to the machines as the "cocaine of gambling," saying that while studies show that it generally takes up to five years to become addicted to casino gambling, video gambling can become an addiction in less than one year.

She cited a case in South Carolina where a mother had left her baby in a car to quickly run into a local business, was attracted to the machine and seven hours later came out to find that her baby had died.

She also noted that in areas where these machines are legal, there is an increase in crime, especially fraud; an increase in suicides, as players lose everything they have to support their habit; and an increase in domestic problems such as abuse, child neglect, loss of assets and divorce.

Bedell also explained that current laws prohibit casinos from cashing third-party checks, but the gaming law will actually encourage businesses to do so. This means that payroll checks can be taken directly to a gaming business, cashed and spent without ever making it home to the family.

In addition, she explained that in California it had been discovered that the state's welfare cards, which are equivalent to the Illinois Link card, can be used in these machines.

"I called the Illinois gaming board and was told that in Illinois the casinos cannot take the Link cards in their ATMs, but there is no way to stop that from happening in the video gambling machines," Bedell said.

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Another issue that Bedell raised was the change in the law as it pertains to truck stops.

The law was initially written to coincide with liquor license laws and stated that gambling would only be allowed during the hours when a business has the legal right to sell alcohol. However, the truck stop rule allows those specific establishments to keep their machines up and running 24 hours a day.

Bedell also told the council that the machines would have a strong local following. She noted that there are many people who won't drive to Peoria or St. Louis to a casino but would drive across town to a video gaming establishment. Therefore the patrons' losses that make the machines profitable to businesses and the state would be out of the pockets of local residents.

During the discussion that followed Bedell's presentation, Mayor Keith Snyder commented as he has in the past that the city would receive 5 percent of the "net" revenues from the machines. He said that $5 gained by the city would equate to $100 lost by a player.

Alderman David Wilmert asked if the city could permit the machines with regulations attached to them and was told by city attorney Bill Bates that the city would not have that power. He said that as the state law is written, it is an "all or nothing" situation.

While the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol & Addiction Problems is housed out of Springfield, it is a statewide organization, established in 1898. Their mission for more than 100 years has been to address problems of addiction and work toward prevention. They began as a faith-based organization addressing the problems of alcoholism but have expanded their mission into drugs and now gambling.

Snyder said that on a local level, he had also received letters from Dustin Fulton of Jefferson Street Christian Church and Rebecca Van Nydeggen of The Salvation Army expressing their opposition to the new machines.

[By NILA SMITH]

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