Gambling:  The Morph From Vice to Entertainment

by N.D. Grover

The gambling industry, as we know it now, has undergone a magical transformation from a “vice” industry on the level of prostitution and illegal drugs to a mega billion dollar a year “entertainment” industry in a relatively short period of time.  Other than hiring a higher class of con man to run their gambling empires and dressing up the package, what the gambling industry is offering is really not much different than it was when the mob moved into Las Vegas and took over the town. As a matter of fact, what the industry is offering now is much more addictive and potent than when the mob was running the industry in the middle of the last century.

The gambling industry has spent billions of dollars on marketing gambling as entertainment.  The public image of gambling as a vice has been chipped away with a massive and clever advertising campaign, building of beautiful “destination” casinos and recruitment of movie and sports stars to change the image of gambling. The industry has even changed the name from “gambling” to “gaming” in the attempt to make it seem less unsavory.

The gambling industry has also spent billions of dollars more on creating new technologies designed to encourage the gambler to spend even more money during their visits to these entertainment venues. Casino design to get more people to come into the casino in a specialty in itself.  Slot machine technologist and designers are making fortunes designing machines that will keep the gambler at the machine longer and spending more money.  Casinos have many people on staff whose job it is to recruit players to come to and to return to their casinos. Restaurants are designed to entice people into the casino, but service in these restaurants is geared to get the gambler back into the casino as quickly as possible. The majority of rooms in Atlantic City are “comped” rooms used to entice the gambler to stay and gamble at their casino.

Everything in a casino from the placement of parking lots to the towels used in the hotel rooms has been carefully scrutinized so that the gambler feels comfortable enough to stay in that casino and not want to leave. It is difficult to find really bad customer service in a casino, not that it doesn’t happen, but the industry understands that if a gambler is happy, he spends (loses) more money. 

The gambling industry can only do this because people lose money.  The mega casinos in Las Vegas were not built by the gamblers who won. Casinos are built and paid for with the money that gamblers leave behind when they go home from their little entertainment adventure. Net revenues from casinos are the amount of money that gamblers lose after accounting for the money gamblers paid for the enticements to get them to gamble in the first place. It’s a really neat trick how the gambling industry has duped the public into believing that the gambler is getting something for his money. The industry has even devised the scheme of “comps” and made the gambler believe that they have “earned” these comps.  The reality is that comps are merely rebates of a small portion of the amount that gamblers have lost given back to the gambler in order to entice the gambler to return to the casino and lose even more money. 

The casino industry likes to allow people to win every so often because they know that the majority of the time the gambler is going to put the money right back into a machine. The casinos will tout how much their players “win” every day. “Four Million Dollars paid out this month.”  What they don’t say is that probably only $83 dollars of that $4 million ever left the casino.  The casinos never say, “We paid out $4 million dollars, but took in $8 million in the same time period.” In other words, the casino did not give out $4 million, they made $4 million. No other industry is allowed to use such deceptive advertising and while restrictions are some tighter on the industry in places such as Las Vegas, many states have little or no restrictions or regulations of the gambling industry within their borders. Part of this is due to the explosion of Indian Gambling venues.

The passage of the Indian Gaming Act in the 1980’s, allowed for the expansion of Tribal Gaming.  The Act’s original intent was to provide authority for the Indian tribes to operate bingo venues on tribal lands. The originators of the IGA apparently did not foresee the metamorphosis from bingo halls to mega casinos.  The inherent problem with Indian Gambling is that each tribe oversees and regulates the casino operations under their jurisdiction.  There are over 220 tribes that operate casinos in the United States, with Oklahoma having the most at over 83 casinos.  Therefore, there are at least 220 regulating agencies for the 350+ tribal casinos, and the states in which these casinos are located have little to no authority to regulate any of the operations within the jurisdiction of the tribes. 

Local governments have bought into the hype of using revenues generated from gambling to pay for public needs. Rarely in the consideration of using these funds are the social costs of generating these revenues factored in. Although the gambling industry loudly denies the statistics that show the industry in anything other than a flattering light, studies, not paid for by the gambling industry, indicate that when casinos are built in an area, the area can expect that crime, bankruptcy, gambling addiction, infrastructure needs and social program needs will increase.  If gambling is just “entertainment” why do communities not see these negative effects from a bowling alley or amusement park. No study has ever shown that putting in a ski lift has increased the attendance at “skiers anonymous” meetings. Attendance at a movie theater has never been shown to be a factor in a bankruptcy.

It is estimated, that there are currently over 2 million compulsive gamblers in the United States, with up to 10 million people who can be considered “problem” gamblers.  Teen gambling addiction is becoming epidemic in the United States. If any other entertainment product caused as much damage as gambling, it would be banned outright.  If 10% of bungee jumpers were seriously injured, the government would ban bungee jumping.  Medications that have been proven to help millions of people have been taken off the market because they injured a couple of hundred people.  The gambling industry should be held to the same standards as any other product that is sold to the American people.

The principality of Monaco is totally reliant on gambling revenue to meet all of its needs, however they had the foresight to pass a law that none of their citizens are allowed to gamble in their casinos. They saw the damage that gambling can do and did not want to have to pay the costs of tending to their own citizen’s needs who became addicted to gambling. 

While each individual has the responsibility to evaluate the use of their “entertainment” dollars, the gambling industry is using high tech psychological methods to override the rational thinking processes of the individual who hopes that they can change their lives by being the one who beats the odds. The majority of gamblers do not become addicted, but gambling is not merely “entertainment” either. Gambling could be just “entertainment” if the industry implemented harm minimization technologies to assure that gamblers remain aware of the amount of time and money they are spending instead of devising and utilizing any trick or technology known to get the gambler to stay longer and lose more.  The gambling industry should be required to manage their “product” with the same scrutiny that most other industries have to endure in the United States. Requiring such oversight will not eliminate all of the negative effects of gambling, but certainly will decrease the number of people who suffer from the negative consequences of gambling.

Copyright 2007

All materials remain the property of the author.