A recent rise in online gambling has caused some states to allow consumers to purchase lottery tickets online. However, as this article explains, this allows problem gamblers to rack up huge amounts of debt more quickly and more easily.
A recent rise in online gambling has caused some states to allow consumers to purchase lottery tickets online. However, as this article explains, this allows problem gamblers to rack up huge amounts of debt more quickly and more easily.
Amy Ziettlow investigates how the ubiquitous electronic gambling machine absorbs the time and money of many seniors, while exploiting their loneliness, idleness, and boredom.
According to this Washington Post story, a new report reveals that slot machines are manufactured to trick players. The machines often use positive reinforcement, in the form of celebratory sounds, to convince gamblers they have won when they are actually losing their money.
According to the Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling, about 4.4 percent of adults over 21 in Louisiana, or as many as 159,000 people, demonstrate problematic or pathological gambling. The problem is even worse among young adults. About 14.3 percent of adults between 18 and 21 have problematic or pathological gambling issues. That’s as many as 23,000 people.
State lotteries are constantly looking for new ways to get citizens to lose more money more frequently. Below is a Request for Proposals issued by the Minnesota Lottery to review methods to sell lottery tickets at ATM machines.
Lotteries seeking ways to sell lottery tickets at ATM machines
The Carleton University Gambling Laboratory, a think-tank deciphering what makes gamblers keep coming back, says slot machines are nearly four times more addictive than regular card tables. Head researcher, Prof. Michael Wohl, said that’s because players can sit for long periods of time in a relatively low-stress situation and can cash in their winnings without leaving their seats. It’s also due to grave misconceptions about how slot machines work.
“A lot of people think that every time you spin a slot machine you’re getting closer and closer to a win,” Dr. Wohl explains. But that’s simply not the case, he says. He describes them as a mixed bag of marbles. Within it, there’s one “jackpot” marble combined with hundreds of losses. When you play a machine, one of those losses falls out of the bag. But what many people don’t understand is before your very next spin, that dud marble goes right back into the bag. The odds of winning or losing are always exactly the same.”
According to the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse, 80% of problem gamblers in Ontario cite slot machines as their problem. The largest percentage are seniors and low-income earners.
Lotteries tell the public “people are gambling anyway” but there is no question that lotteries are actively targeting and creating new gamblers to get them to lose their money. In this story, the Maine Lottery Director describes the strategy: “While our lottery revenue generation is doing reasonably well, our consumer or customer head count participation is flat to slightly down….the lottery needs to bolster sales to the “Generation Y” segment of the population, 18-to 30-year-olds that embrace the Internet.”
Online lottery sales, meant to draw in younger gamblers, draw opposition
This article provides a window into how casinos like Caesars squeeze the maximum revenue out of customers. The software described here has increased Caesars revenue by $50 million per month (even while room occupancy rate actually declines.) The article concludes: “Filthy, you say? Maybe so. But Rainmaker has more than two dozen customers in the casino business so it’s not out of the question that the company has helped customers to the tune of billions of dollars.”
A look at “The Profit Optimization suite” software used by casinos to squeeze the maximum profits
Free play offers are luring in millions of citizens into Pennsylvania casinos with the promise of free games. It’s a predatory practice used to get people hooked on the machines and to keep playing, and ultimately losing, their own money.
Living within 10 miles of a casino doubles your risk of problem gambling. This is just one of the compelling statistics in the third “Expert Summary” issued by the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions. Another incredible statistic found was that problem gambling is considerably more common than alcohol dependence in the U.S. The prevalence of problem gambling in the U.S is properly highlighted in this article.
New-Expert-Summary-Highlights-the-Prevalence-of-Problem-Gambling-in-the-U.S.