An article in the Valley Journal explains why the gambling revenues expected with the introduction of Class II are not evenly distributed over all tribal casinos and the benefits expected are often not realized.
2015 Class II gambling hurts low-income tribal members
The general manager of Henderson, Nevada’s Stetson Saloon and Casino has some advice for player club members: casinos don’t really care how much you win or lose. What matters to them is how long you play the games and how much you are willing to play. They care less about sending free slot play to frequent players (why waste it on people who are coming anyway?) and concentrate more on sending promotions to less frequent players. The manager of this casino also freely admits that, “the longer you play, the more money you are likely to lose.”
Researchers now believe that the very data casinos use to track customers betting habits can be used as a tool to reduce the problem of gambling addiction. Addiction scientists can use customer tracking information to create computerized models to spot and warn people with high risk profiles. But the reality is, it is merely window dressing, with casinos having little incentive to intervene with their most lucrative customers.
2013 Researchers Bet Casino Data Can Identify Gambling Addicts
With state legislatures across the country considering legalized gambling expansion, the need for unbiased research is crucial. While other fields, such as alcohol or tobacco rely on academia for fact-based evidence, many gambling researchers remain beholden to industry funding, resulting in flawed and influenced findings. The research produced by independent studies, while likely more valid, may be perceived as incomplete or inferior due to lack of funds and access to data.
How casinos are layed out, from the positioning of the tables, down to the lighting and carpet patterns, is no accident. But nothing is more directly related to end-of-the day profits than the strategy of the carefully placed slot machine. With slot revenue now accounting for 85% of profits, the slot machines of today are continuous and uninterrupted, allowing for minimal effort on the players part resulting in maximum financial loss.
2014 Slot-machine science How casinos get you to spend more money
Gambling Watch UK confirmed that recent research, focusing on problem play and problem players rather than on problem products, was conducted by companies having a history of contracts with the gambling industry. Research conclusions were purposely complicated and muddled, resulting in lack of any corrective action and sustaining the status quo.
For more than 25 years, the casino lobby has told the American people that casinos are the engine to help Native American tribes prosper. Now The Economist, the world’s leading international magazine, spotlights how casinos have actually made tribal members poorer.
2015 How cash from casinos makes Native Americans poorer
One of the many negative effects of the predatory marketing and addictive offerings used regional casinos is it leads ordinary citizens to commit gross acts of family neglect. Children left unattended in casino parking lots while an adult is inside gambling is a common example. This story from The Baltimore Sun reports on another form of family neglect: senior citizens being neglected by those charged with their care because of commercialized gambling.
2014 Quest to Legalize Sports Gambling Could Destroy Professional Athletics
This story by David Frum, former advisor to President George W. Bush and current Senior Editor with Atlantic Monthly, spotlights how casinos hurt local economies: “The towns and cities that turned to gambling to escape their problems may discover that they have accepted a sucker’s bet: local economies that look worse than ever, local residents tempted into new forms of self-destructive behavior, and a dwindling flow of cash to show for it all.”