Senator Karen Spilka Hearings on Gambling in Mass State Senate on June 29

Senator Spilka has scheduled a hearing on gambling months ahead of the proposed fall consideration of the issue.

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The following from Bob Massie is self-explanatory and makes a solid case for why gambling should be removed from consideration:

On national news: slots were voted down in Senate committee in Kentucky, despite a desperate plea that slots were essential to saving horse racing, which is a huge industry there.

Slots and casinos were also voted down in New Hampshire.

Twin Rivers racino slot parlors in Rhode Island filed for bankruptcy today and called for a massive government bail-out (again).


From: Bob Massie
Date: June 23, 2009 1:01:54 PM EDT
To: Karen.E.Spilka@state.ma.us

Subject: Information and Request for Meeting

Dear Senator Spilka:

I called your office today because I am interested in the informational hearings that you are conducting on the question of slot machine addiction, economic development, and casino gambling in the state. I certainly welcome a thorough review of this.

I am writing to offer a few thoughts and to ask if I might able to make an appointment to visit with you to discuss this matter at your convenience.

I don't believe I have had the privilege of meeting you, or perhaps it was very briefly. I have been involved in the Democratic Party for a long time and I was the nominee for Lt Governor way back in the last century (1994). I was also part of the group that proposed the successful convention resolution in which the party took quite a strong stand against predatory gambling as something that does not deliver on its economic promises, leads to the destruction of many families, and undermines the basic principles of the Democratic Party and the Commonwealth.

I view this as a question of economic judgment and of political values. The governor, who is a personal friend of mine, has said that he believes in three core principles: 1) that we should govern through wise long-term decisions, not gimmicks 2) that we are "all in this together," and 3) he favors (as you know) reform in various areas, including ethics. Of course the story of ethics and gambling is filled with troubling incidents, since so many people, from Jack Abramoff to Glenn Marshall (of the Wampanoags) to Senator Vincent Fumo (leading advocate for slots) are all in Federal prison. Even seemingly unconnected incidents, such as the brutal murder of Julissa Brisman by Philip Markoff, her alleged killer, have a link to gambling. Markoff's means was Craigslist, but his motive was to make up for his gambling losses. He was, as you know, arrested on the highway to Foxwoods with his fiance, carrying the money he had stolen from his victim.

As you are aware, the Democratic convention in Springfield voted against introducing slot machines and casinos to Massachusetts on the grounds that it did not provide the economic benefits in the long-run and because it was against our principles to raise public revenue by promoting addiction that harms many people, especially women (who are specially targeted by slot companies), and the children and families for which they are often responsible. Many Democrats are hoping that there will be Senators who will review the issues carefully and vote as the party delegates did when this issue comes up again.

Unfortunately, I will almost certainly be out of town on June 29, but perhaps I could be helpful to you and your staff in the next few days by suggesting top scholars and experts from law, medicine, business, and law enforcement. There are brilliant and talented people who have studied this very closely. Professor Natasha Schull of MIT, for example, is coming out with an extraordinary book on the way slot manufacturing companies are using advanced brain science to figure out how to make slot machines as addictive as possible in the shortest available time. You can see her (and hear her explain her evidence very briefly) in this remarkable short video, which is only 8 minutes long. I strongly urge you to watch it. Perhaps it would even be valuable at the hearing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNL3FzU_glU&feature=channel_page

As you know, the pro-gambling groups have spent tens of millions of dollars towards lobbying -- I have watched how they have used the same arguments and techniques in many other states, including Maryland, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Louisiana, and New York. Very often these decisions were made without the kind of thoughtful review that you are pursuing. In Pennsylvania the decision to put 65,000 slot machines all over the state passed by voice vote after midnight on the fourth of July.

The New Hampshire and Kentucky legislatures just voted down slot machines at racetracks because, in part, they felt that that the pro-slot machine advocates had misrepresented the benefits and under-represented the costs.

Probably the best overall source of the information -- a compilation of brilliant pieces of research from around the country and around the world -- was edited and published this year by Professor John Kindt, a professor of law and business at the University of Illinois. You would be amazed at the range, depth, and quality of the studies he has compiled. Volume I, which is a summary, is called Gambling: Executive Summaries and Recommendations and was produced by the US International Gambling Commission, a non-partisan, independent, academically rigorous team of researchers from around the nation working over ten years. There work is particularly important since many of the studies that are produced have been paid for by the predatory gambling industry -- slot manufacturers, casino owners and operators, international gambling cartels, etc -- and their work is seriously tainted.

Just to give one example from the research that Kindt compiled: once installed in a state, a functioning slot machine tends to kill one net job every year from then on Why is this? Because on average one slot machine pulls around $100,000 out of the local economy and redistributes it to the owners and shareholders of the slot parlor or casino. Yes, some money comes back in the form of pay-outs and wages, but not much. And if you consider the multiplier effect -- how many different ways $100,000 generates activity if it passes through many hands in a local economy (often estimated at three times, or about $300,000 of economic multiplier for every $100,000 spent), you can see that removing that money -- from $100,000 to $300,000 and sending it to build another casino in Macau or in to boost the stock of Harrah's, etc -- would stifle jobs. Besides, how many local restaurants can compete with $3.00 steak dinner or a free all-you-can-eat buffet? So if Massachusetts approves 25,000 slot machines that would mean 25,000 lost jobs over time -- about the number of working people in my home town of Somerville (population of 70,000)

I know that this is often presented as a winner for jobs, but if one takes a quick peak outside Massachusetts you can see a lot of evidence to the contrary. Most of the jobs are one-time construction jobs -- when the building is built, they are done. Many of the jobs that are then available are of mixed value with little opportunity for advancement. You may be aware that the Twin Rivers slot parlor and tracks filed for bankruptcy today in Rhode Island. It was originally presented to the state as a way to preserve jobs at the tracks and generated unlimited free dollars.

The slot owners then tried to close the tracks (and fire all the track workers) because racing is a money loser, compared to a slot-machine, which is basically an addictive reverse ATM. Now they want the state to buy the facility in order to bail them out from the huge debt load.

With regard to preserving jobs at tracks, here in Massachusetts you are probably aware that the Federal government set aside millions in retraining money for workers at the greyhound tracks, but that the owners of the tracks told the workers to refuse the money because slots at the tracks in Massachusetts were a done deal. This story came out about four months ago - I still find it shocking, since the workers, yet again, are being used as hostages or pawns. I can send you the citation if you like.

As you know, there is a lot of contradictory -- and deliberately misleading -- information out there. The pro-gambling people have a lot of slick material to hand out, but I can tell you, as someone who earned a doctorate from Harvard Business School 20 years, most of the numbers are inflated or fake. They usually count benefits without costs.

I know that the budget circumstances you face are crushingly difficult, and that you all have really hard choices to make. This is why we are a dangerous point as many self-interested parties seeking private enrichment through the public purse dangle the old promises of "get rich quick" or "something for nothing" in front of everyone from the governor to the unions to the legislators to people who are struggling to make ends meet. That is why your effort to sort out the wheat from the chaff -- to dig past the multi-colored charts and the glitzy promises -- is so important.

This is one of the most important decisions the Massachusetts Senate has been asked to make in many years. No state has ever introduced slot machines and then been able to get rid of them. It is not only the people who get addicted to them -- the state does too. The short term gain (licensing fees, construction jobs) fades away and the the state is left hold a heavy bag of long-term pain -- broken promises and broken people.

Thank you for taking the time to bring thoughtful people in to examine this issue from all sides.

Please let me know if I or the very large network of people who are opposed to predatory gambling in Massachusetts could be be helpful to you.

With respect and warm regards
Bob Massie

PS Please do watch the video - I think you will find the scientific evidence very interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNL3FzU_glU&feature=channel_page