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| Rolling the Dice with Quality of Life
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Will New Mexico Follow The Fate of Other States That Have Lost to Gambling?
Recently, the University of New Mexico and the state Department of Health did a study on the effects of gambling in the state, which found that already 40,000 New Mexicans are pathological gamblers-that's 5 percent of the population of our state hooked on gambling. Terrence Brunner, a gambling expert and executive director of the Better Government Association (BGA), visited Albuquerque recently and says New Mexico is in danger of following Illinois and New Jersey into the over-whelming economic and social costs of widespread casino gaming.
In 1996, professors William N. Thompson and Ricardo C. Gazel of the University of Nevada Las Vegas conducted a BGA study on the effects of riverboat gambling on the state of Illinois. Thompson and Gazel found that the social costs of one pathological gambler is $10,000 a year; this includes the economic cost of debt, insurance, crime, incarceration and clinical treatment. At this figure, which Brunner said is quite moderate New Mexico can expect to spend $400 million a year in social costs.
BGA is a citizens' watchdog that conducts public policy research. Though the group does not openly dispute the morality of gambling, like many anti-gambling and Christian coalitions do, BGA does argue that it is immoral for a government to set up a tax system that depends on people losing their money.
Summing it up, Brunner said the chief economic analyst of the Nevada Gaming Commission told him: Gambling's nothing but a very regressive tax on the poorest people in society.... The people who are hooked are the politicians; they're hooked on the money".
In Wisconsin, Thompson and Gazel did a study of Indian gaming, and they concluded that there was no net economic impact-none whatsoever. Brunner said: AII that was happening was poor people, the players, were losing their money, the poor players-the Indians.... They're paying your taxes" With local players instead of new tourists, Brunner says, there is very little, if any, job creation; gambling simply initiates a massive transfer of money from the Bʙ_M -NW@}*jS] UiԞHqܵGzmC:tШ!Z Ncƒ}FNѺ¯d:EhzܜOϊystms vAegCH'5D!=y#9O4·ykjn@1mr7ȄnL}jI9(OP-.p>E\A90[\s.Le_71kMxGL&5ACm2 w=idgL8K[rơ == u!n/!t F%sVE$QO0^*VͲa5%$nx]:A^D\YNve5>H~ɱQe413$>*^*q
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