Clinton, Dole Let It Ride, but Critics Say Gambling's Spread Is a Bad Bet

By RONALD BROWNSTEIN

Sept. 23, 1996 12 AM PT

Talk about moral confusion.

In Los Angeles last week, Bob Dole derided Hollywood and President Clinton for not banging the gong more loudly against drug abuse. The president, Dole declared, had demonstrated “moral confusion” when he made light on MTV four years ago of his youthful experimentation with marijuana, rather than urging his listeners not to light up themselves.

Fair enough. But what about Dole’s own moral confusion? Only a few hours after demanding moral messaging in Los Angeles, Dole flew to Las Vegas for a campaign rally and fund-raiser in a gambling casino. What kind of message does that send at a time when the explosive spread of state-sponsored gambling is leaving its mark in crime, family dysfunction and addiction--especially among the same young people whose rising drug use Dole laments?

“It’s just incredible,” said Bernie Horn, political director for the Washington-based National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. “He doesn’t seem to see any of the anti-family significance of casino gambling. He acts like he’s going to a bowling alley.”

Not that Clinton is much better. To his credit, he has launched a major offensive to discourage young people from smoking. But even though recent estimates suggest that the percentage of teenagers who display at least some problem with excessive gambling is roughly comparable to the share who smoke (about one-fifth in both cases), Clinton has somehow lost his voice about the risks to young people from the spread of gambling.

Though Clinton signed recent legislation that anti-gambling forces pushed through Congress to create a national commission to study the industry during the next two years, the president did nothing to help the bill when it bogged down in the Senate. Nor did Dole raise a finger, though he formally supported the commission too.

For Clinton and Dole, money may be blocking their view: Though Dole has raised more money from gambling interests than has Clinton, other Democratic campaign committees have collected more than the GOP from casinos in this election, according to an analysis by the Campaign Study Group, an independent campaign research organization.

More charitably, Dole’s and Clinton’s silence may reflect a lack of awareness: Only as gambling has spread beyond its Las Vegas beachhead have its risks become so clear.

Even without leadership from the top, this mounting pile of evidence is helping a diverse grass-roots alliance slow the dice man’s advance--a march that appeared irresistible only a few years ago. Opponents are on a roll in defeating state ballot initiatives meant to authorize yet more gambling. But six more fights are on the card for this fall, and once again the two sides are lacing up their gloves.

Like drugs and prostitution, gambling has always been with us, and it’s not going to disappear. The question isn’t prohibition but whether government should actively encourage its citizens to plow their paychecks into wagers that are, by definition, likely to lose.

During the past two decades, state after state has turned to gambling as a silver-bullet solution to fraying local economies and sagging tax revenues. Twenty years ago, only Nevada permitted commercial casinos and just 13 states had lotteries. Today, 37 states conduct lotteries. Twenty-three states allow some form of casino gambling, such as riverboat or Indian reservation gaming houses, with full-fledged casino strips operating in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, N.J., and along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.

These magnets have had the desired effect of sucking coins out of people’s pockets. Twenty years ago, Americans wagered about $17 billion on legal gambling; in 1995, the figure was a breathtaking $550 billion. Some of that comes from high rollers in black tie and Armani who can afford their thrills; but the football-sized casino floors in Las Vegas and Atlantic City are filled mostly with people in short sleeves who live paycheck to paycheck--or from Social Security check to check.

“The people in there are not wealthy,” said Wendy Holibaugh, a Christian Coalition activist from Westchester County in New York who turned out for a session on gambling at the group’s recent national convention. “So where’s that money coming from? That’s the rent check; it’s the next refrigerator; it’s the kid’s tuition.”

For politicians, gambling has often seemed a kind of perpetual-motion machine, a cost-free way to fund vital services. But it has become increasingly clear that gambling imposes its own hidden costs. “People in office don’t have the courage to raise taxes or cut programs, so they bring in an operation to prey on their own people,” said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who led the fight to create the federal gambling commission.

One University of Illinois professor has calculated that for every dollar in tax revenue gambling brings in, taxpayers have to spend at least three dollars--on regulation, infrastructure, the criminal-justice system and the social problems that gambling exacerbates.

Those problems are formidable. Big losses often claim small victims. In the first two years after casinos opened in Gulfport, Miss., domestic-violence cases increased by 69%; crimes against children and families exploded by 343% in Atlantic City from 1977 through 1994. Pickpocketing, robbery and assault also thrive in the casinos’ shadow: Violent crime jumped 64% in Gulfport after the introduction of casino gambling. In Deadwood, S.D., annual arrests are up 262% since casinos were legalized in 1989.

Perhaps most ominously, recent studies show that teenagers, as with drugs, are more likely than adults to get hooked on gambling. Howard J. Shaffer, director of the division on addictions at Harvard Medical School, says research shows that about 6% of teenagers have a serious gambling addiction, with 10% to 14% more showing some symptoms of uncontrollable betting on sports or lotteries or cards and dice.

“Gambling is every bit as pernicious and insidious as drugs and alcohol and tobacco,” Shaffer said. “Perhaps more so, because on these other [addictions], at least there are some messages to the contrary, meaning you shouldn’t do drugs, you shouldn’t smoke. But we have government promoting, monopolizing, advertising and encouraging gambling as a patriotic activity with very few messages to the contrary.”

Armed with this evidence, opponents have defeated the industry in 35 of the past 37 state legislative and ballot-initiative fights over expanding gambling, according to the national anti-gambling coalition’s count. In California earlier this year, a referendum to authorize video poker and slots in Palm Springs failed to get enough signatures to reach the ballot.

Of the six initiatives still slated for November, the key tests are in Michigan and Ohio. In Michigan, ordinarily thoughtful Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer has obediently lifted the barkers’ megaphone, leading the drive to approve three land-based casinos in his struggling city. But in Ohio, the battle over an industry-sponsored initiative to authorize eight dockside casinos in Cleveland, Cincinnati and other cities is taking on a very different complexion.

The reason is Republican Gov. George Voinovich, who has taken the point against the casinos. Working with grass-roots religious activists, Voinovich has organized a panoramic anti-gambling coalition that includes the state Chamber of Commerce, social conservatives and the state associations of police chiefs and school boards. He’s assumed the lead in trying to raise at least $1 million to offset the $5 million to $8 million that gambling interests are expected to pour into TV ads.

In an interview, Voinovich said defeating the initiative was “more important to me” than this fall’s state legislative contests or even carrying Ohio for Dole. “If I really look at my job and what I am confronted with every day,” he said, “what’s really falling apart in this country and our state is the family. And I look at casino gambling as anti-family.”

Voinovich offers both a model and a reproach for Dole and Clinton. The two national rivals have no problem planting themselves squarely on the side of traditional values when the target is a phantom menace like gay marriage. But does anyone seriously believe that homosexual weddings are a greater threat to American families than the casino industry’s drive to take cash off the kitchen table in every state from sea to sea?

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Playing Field

Legalized gambling spread rapidly from the early 1970s--when casino gambling was legal only in Las Vegas--through the early 1990s. But in the past few years, opponents have repeatedly rebuffed efforts by the casino industry to expand its reach into more states. Twenty-three states allow some form of casino gambling. Six states will vote this fall on gambling-related ballot initiatives.

States that allow casinos on Indian tribal lands only:

Arizona

California

Connecticut

Michigan

Minnesota

Montana

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Oregon