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Leading national spokesman for Casino Industry would oppose casino locating in his own community
"People have the right to go to the ballot box and determine what they want the quality of life to be in their own area. Now if someone were to come along and tell me that they were going to put a casino in McLean, Virginia, where I live, I would probably work very very hard against it. I just don’t – what’s the old saying, ‘NIMBY, not in my back yard?’ Now I may be in favor of gaming, but I just don’t want it located in a particular area." American Gaming Association CEO Frank Fahrenkopf - the leading national spokesman for commercial casinos, speaking in Cleveland, Ohio, Oct. 24, 2006 |
Jefferson City is a unique and wonderful place to raise a family, which a casino will destroy.
Children of compulsive gamblers face abuse and neglect -
National Gambling Impact Study Commission June 1999 pg. 7-28
Children of compulsive gamblers are often prone to suffer abuse, as well as neglect, as a result of parental problem or pathological gambling. The Commission heard testimony of numerous cases in which parents or a caretaker locked children in cars for an extended period of time while they gambled. In at least two cases, the children died. It was brought to the Commission’s attention that cases of parents leaving their children in the Foxwoods casino parking lot became so commonplace that Foxwoods management posted signs warning that such incidents would be reported to the police. The well-publicized murder of a seven-year-old girl in a Nevada casino during the formation of this Commission has brought significant attention to the issue of children abandoned by their parents inside gambling establishments.
The family costs related to gambling include costs of divorce, separation, spousal abuse, and child neglect and abuse. Children of pathological gamblers report reactions of depression, anger, and sadness. Research by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that 53.5% of pathological gamblers reported having been divorced, whereas only 18.2 percent of non-gamblers were divorced. (Gov’t Accounting Office, 2000, p27)
Gambling is associated with “abused dollars,” money that is lost gambling that was acquired from family, friends, employers, under duress or false pretenses, or from theft that is not reported out of concern for the person. (Gambling in America p145)
The location of the casino could destroy Jefferson City’s historic landscape . . .
especially if built in view of the State Capitol building, Lewis and Clark Monument, Veterans Memorial, Law Enforcement Memorial or other historically significant structures which have received no guarantee of protection by the Jefferson City City Council.
The presence of a casino could reduce contributions to local charities
Charitable Bingo funds will be lost to the big casino as will expendable funds by individuals to contribute to worthy causes.
The consensus of pastors in Des Moines, Iowa was that casinos had a detrimental effect on charitable giving. (Bowers – 1995, p 1M, 7M quoted from Gambling in America p145)
Casino gambling undermines the core values of the community –
Many problem and compulsive gamblers are otherwise highly responsible, well-educated, respected, professional people until they are drawn into the fantasy world of casino gambling.
- Jefferson City has experienced casino-related crime from Boonville – four murdered at Modine Manufacturing.
- An Illinois woman who lost more than $30,000 at a casino suffocated her 7-week old child to collect insurance money to continue her gambling habit.
- A woman who stabbed her 83-year old husband 75 times in a church parking lot in North Kansas City, Missouri because he refused to give her more money to gamble. The couple had just left Harrah’s casino before the murder.
- Two former employees of a Westport, Missouri bank pleaded guilty to embezzling $1,580,000 that financed among other things, gambling sprees.
- A 19-month old baby died after being left in extreme heat inside a car while the mother gambled at a hotel. [Note: A small child was left in a car at the casino in Boonville, Missouri, as well, but was observed and rescued before suffering harm – ER]
- Four southern Mississippi counties on the Gulf Coast each reported two bank robberies in 1990 and 1991 just before the casinos were built there. Robberies reached a high of 30 in 1997.
- An Olathe, Kansas woman attempted a bank robbery as a means of resolving her $100,000 - $150,000 in gambling debts. She was arrested after an 8-hour hostage situation on New Year’s Eve.
- A woman lost her life savings and her hopes for her dream house when her builder stole her money and gambled it away. (Kansas City Star. January 14, 1999)
- The National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported that among those who did not gamble, only 7% had ever been incarcerated. In contrast, more than three times this number (21.4%) of individuals who had been pathological gamblers had been incarcerated. (Gambling in America, p168)
- The percentages of pathological gamblers who engaged in behavior that was found to be “due to gambling” were: wrote bad checks, 54.4%; stolen from work, 37.1%; arrested, 41%; filed for bankruptcy, 25.7%; missed work, 71.4%; lost or quit job, 27.1%; suicidal ideation, 77.5%; and suicide attempts, 18.75%.
Casinos create a health hazard to patrons
The connection between casinos and elevated alcohol consumption, drug use, and other potentially harmful activities has been an often-observed aspect of gambling. (Feigelman, Wallish and Lesieur – 1998; Kaplan & Davis, 1997; Smart & Ferris – 1996; Steinberg, Kosten and Rounsaville – 1992, among others.)
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