Local Telephone Numbers to call if you suspect that you or someone you love has a gambling problem:

• Gamblers Anonymous and Gam-Anon Family Groups: 315-482-9445
• Northern NY Center for Problem Gambling:
  315-788-7241
  

The Bet's Off Bulletin The National Coalition against Legalized Gambling — this is a pdf file

Summary of PER CAPITA CASINO COSTS and BENEFITS

BENEFITS

• Net increase in business profits $0
• Net increase in tax collections $0
• Distance consumer surplus for Non-Problem, Non- Pathological Gamblers $34

TOTAL $34

COSTS

• Crime $46
• Bus. & Employment $51
• Bankruptcy $4
• Suicide $??
• Illness $8
• Social Services $27
• Direct Regulatory $10
• Family Costs $1
• Abused Dollars $44

TOTAL $190

Cutting the Cards and Craps: Right Thinking about Gambling Economics, Earl L. Grinols21 December 2001  Page 14

The National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion — this a pdf file

Within the 35-mile feeder market around a casino, gamblers:

• will spend 10 percent less on food and 25 percent less on clothing
• 37 percent will dip into their savings to pay for gambling
• crime could be expected to increase by 10 percent within the feeder market within three years of the casino's opening.
• Bankruptcies could be expected to increase at a steady rate as the casino drains money from the economy
• Studies show major companies are reluctant to locate in areas with casinos.
• For every three (video slot) machines, you'll be losing two jobs from the feeder market economy. This is due to the $100,000 per year per machine that will not be used elsewhere in the economy.

Dr. John W. Kindt, professor of commerce and legal policy at U of Illinois at forum in Owensboro,KY. Kentuck Baptist Convention

January Newsletter from Tom Grey, Field Director, The National Coalition against Gambling Expansion — this is a pdf file

View and listen to Rabbi Dr. Twerski addresses compulsive gambling in general, as well as its incidence and impact in the Jewish community. Recorded live at Cong. Beth Abraham in Bergenfield, N.J. on 12/18/05

A list of Abramoff business associates (this is a pdf document)

Legislative Panel Kelli Sobonya of West Virginia
"For gambling to win, someone has to lose. Over $3 billion is spent on gambling in WV every year. That is nearly the size of our entire state budget. With all the forms of gambling, if it is so good for our state, why are we last in the nation in per capita income?"

2005 Conference Presentation Sobonya Speech

Download Detecting Fraud in Charity Gambling

Gambling in America: Final Report of the Commission on the Review of the National Policy Toward Gamblin

Download the 2005 Minnesota Gambling Report

During the 1940’s, Governor Luther Youngdahl rid Minnesota of slot machines and the social ills that accompanied them. It doesn’t sound like it was an easy accomplishment but one man stood up to this popular habit that was proliferating throughout the state and took a courageous stand. Yet while Governor Youngdahl won his crusade against gambling, he really didn’t change people’s hearts.

Gambling in Minnesota was big business back in 1946. “One-armed bandits” were popular with Minnesotans then and remain so today. It’s been nearly sixty years since those illegal slot machines disappeared from our state’s landscape. But it appears that some elected officials once again want to see a proliferation of these machines. It is the vigorous and divisive public policy debate surrounding gambling expansion in Minnesota that launched this report. At last count, there were nearly twenty different proposals introduced this legislative session to expand gambling in Minnesota.

Why is a conservative, free-market think tank publishing a special report on gambling in Minnesota? Because it appears that there is no end in sight to our state’s growing addiction to readily available gambling and its perceived benefits of easy money.

Furthermore, we believe that a major public policy decision of this magnitude should be made only after carefully considering the serious costs associated with casino gambling. . .