Gambling commission dealt dead man's hand

Hooked on Gambling: Second part of three-part series

A federal commission's study of legal gambling in the late 1990s produced significant recommendations, many of which ended up like poker's dead man's hand.

Dead man's hand is a term to describe the cards Wild Bill Hickock held - a pair of black aces and eights - when he was shot dead in a saloon in South Dakota in 1876.

The commission spent two years and $5 million investigating the social and economic implications of lotteries, casinos and other gaming activities only to have its suggestion for a temporary freeze on further expansion of gambling rejected.

President Clinton urged creation of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, and Congress passed a law establishing the body. The mix of nine members included the chairman and chief executive officer of MGM Grand, Inc., and the founder of Focus on the Family.

The law required the commission to study the effects of problem gambling on individuals, families, businesses and social institutions, and to assess the state and local economic value of gambling facilities such as casinos, race tracks and video poker parlors.

In addition to a moratorium, the commission came up with dozens of other recommendations, including curtailing the growth of new lottery games, reducing lottery advertising and limiting lottery outlets in low-income neighborhoods.

The group's final report, released in June of 1999, expressed concern that the rush to raise government revenue through gambling was creating a generation of young people who give little thought to gambling's down side.

"The commission recommends that all legal gambling should be restricted to those who are at least 21 years of age, and that those who are under 21should not be allowed to loiter in areas where gambling activity occurs," the report said.

Commissioners traveled throughout the country, and held hearings that detailed dozens of hardship stories.

In Illinois, for instance, they heard about a Joliet couple who committed suicide after the wife accumulated $200,000 in casino debt. In other places, they listened to testimony about embezzlement and other white collar crime to finance gambling habits.

But they also found many economically depressed locations were revived by the construction dollars, jobs and taxes associated with new casinos. And that public services like roads and schools were improved from fees and taxes on gambling revenues.

"In Tunica, Miss., the advent of legalized gambling provided jobs for an area of extreme poverty," the commission found. "Many citizens of Tunica have undoubtedly benefited by the increase in the wage base and increased ability of its citizens to purchase homes and other amenities."

In addition to hearings, the commission's staff of researchers telephoned 2,417 adults and 534 adolescents across America and interviewed 530 people in gaming facilities.

The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, hired by the commission to conduct the survey, estimated that 15 percent of gambling revenue in the United States stems from problem or pathological gamblers.

More research on pathological gambling was recommended, but the commission also made it clear the states need to do more to help people addicted to games of chance.