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Social Costs Outweigh Gambling Revenue

This quotation is from Mayor Daley of Chicago and his reaction to the proposal of legalized gaming “Organized crime will infiltrate…be involved in related loanshaking, prostitution, drug activities…and public corruption.” (Chicago Crime Commission,1990) Legalize gambling began with lotteries used to fund useful projects. Lotteries for example, helped pay for construction at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities in the 1800’s. Various types of gambling came and went, including betting on horse races and casino gaming. (Occupational Outlook Quarterly) In addition to these enormous social costs, gambling in the United States remained extremely difficult, if not impossible, to regulate effectively. (Bankruptcy Developments Journal) The amount of family and social costs imposed upon the United States from gambling out weighs the small amount of revenues contributed to the states they reside in. Compulsive gamblers are much more likely to be violent towards their family and friends. Casino claimed that gambling would bring more business to the areas surrounding their establishment, instead one-third of the city’s retail business has closed because of gambling. Organized crime is a common problem with gambling,

Gambling not only affects an individual but their family as well. (Governing) Although a number of states are turning to gambling to raise money for state programs and government services. (U.S News & World Report) On the other hand the United States spends approximately 31 billion dollars a year on families that filed bankruptcies because of gambling problems. (Bankruptcy Development) An increases in bankruptcy filings were observed in the financial services, where planners were faced with clients that had massive gambling debts. A certified financial planner in Toledo, Ohio, “had a client who ran up 40,000 in credit card bills buying lottery tickets,” with family income approximated at only 25,000 a year. The client did not “want his wife to know about his problem, so he tried to withdraw his pension benefits to repay the debt.” (Bankruptcy Development) State lotteries receive money that targets the poor. Billboards are erected in poor areas to promote the Illinois Lottery. For example, “This could be your ticket out,” one proclaimed. (St. Louis Journalism) The sun-times reported that in Belleville, Illinois, an underground gambling operation led to “spouses runni