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11/19/2008: Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 013 CWE November 17 2008.

Gambling

Family Group Doesn’t Realize Gambling a Family Activity is a new effort by gambling propagators to cause people like us to be seen as fundamentalists rather than individuals who work together because they’d like to see mobster-minded governments, who pirate our society, to lose their power. This item was published on 11/15/08 by Online Casino Advisory, Ltd.    

Addiction

Awareness of gaming addictions growing is a CP article in The 11/10/08 Calgary Sun:

…as cellphones, MP3 players and portable gaming systems become staples in the lives of youth, teachers are witnessing a shift in the schoolyard: Technology has become the new playground.

The article makes it clear that this addiction is a world-wide worry in need of more attention from policy makers.  An 11/12/08 CanWest News Service item reports that China could become the first country to classify Internet addiction as a clinical disorder and plans to lead the world by registering the condition with the World Health Organization. (link Times UK - admin)

Parents need to know teens better, runaway’s father advises, is an 11/14/08 Ottawa Citizen article that quotes the father of a teen who died after running away from home over a dispute about video games:

Our generation, I don’t think, understands our kids. It’s a new world that we live in. As parents, we need to understand that world a bit more and maybe take more time and understand why our kids are involved in that world so much.

Pod loyalists-They’d rather fight than ditch an article in the 11/15/08 Globe and Mail, is a confirmation of what we’ve read earlier about technology addiction.

More kids trying to kill themselves is an item in The 11/15/08 Halifax Herald that should make us wonder if it also is related to the new Internet addiction.  

Finance

Greed not to blame for economic crisis, an article by Niels Veldhuis and Mark Mullins in The 11/10/08 Windsor Star, writes that many believe that deregulation and Wall Street greed is at the root of the financial crisis and governments must now step-in to clean up the mess. Reality however is much different. It wasn’t greed or deregulation that fuelled the crisis; the main culprits were lax monetary policy and poor government policy attempting to increase home ownership amongst those least able to afford a home. Now, with $700 billion in “bailout” money at its disposal, the U.S. government wants to solve a problem it had a significant hand in creating, likely making a bad situation even worse.
 Sands set to cut workers at Macau site, an article in The 10/14/08 Toronto Star, reports:

Struggling casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. will lay off as many as 11,000 workers after a cash crunch forced the company to halt construction on multi-billion dollar projects in the Chinese gambling city of Macau, a top executive said yesterday.

The story also says:

Internet gambling software provider CryptoLogic Ltd. threw snake-eyes in the third quarter but is cautiously optimistic for 2009. 

Cyber

Bush pushing to curb Internet gambling, an AP 11/11/08 article in The Toronto Star, reports that the Bush administration is moving in its last weeks to finalize regulations to enforce a controversial law that seeks to block Internet gambling.
Two days later an item in the Wall Street Journal titled Online Gambling Faces New Curbs From the US we read that banks are told to halt money transfers for Internet gambling.    

Lotteries

Every week we find items about lotteries not worth mentioning in the Newsletter. In this week we saw a letter to the Editor in a Newspaper suggesting more small winnings in the 6/49. The author of that letter apparently does not realize that he’s wasting his money by buying lottery tickets. Why not join an investments group and spend his money there?

Too many lotteries discourage givers, an 11/12/08 Edmonton Journal item, gives this as the reason for the troubles of charities mentioned in last week’s Newsletter. 

Alberta

‘Problem gamblers drive revenue spike as fewer place bets’ is a sentence explaining this serious situation in an 11/10/08 item headed Alberta gamers ante up $26 Billion. This article says;

Albertans who love rolling the dice are increasingly scratching their itch by playing table games and VLTs at casinos, and venturing into cyberspace for online gambling, reveals a sweeping new study of gaming habits.

Stories from this province and its neighbour Saskatchewan dealt with fraud, but no item said that a gambling addiction caused the missing money.

Fort Sask bingo bilker sentenced to house arrest, an article in The 11/14/08 Edmonton Sun,
states; ‘A former cashier at a Fort Saskatchewan bingo hall was put under house arrest yesterday after admitting bilking nearly $10,000 in an electronic bingo-card scam’, but we could not find any word about gambling with that money.

Ontario

Bingo going bust without patrons, an article in The 11/10/08 Ottawa Citizen, says, as the province tries to save ’social’ gaming, one watcher says it’s already too late.

After a decade of setbacks, Ontario’s bingo industry has an arsenal of ideas to get people back in the halls, including an unlikely champion better known for his hockey commentary than his bingo daubing. The Don Cherry-approved “Bingo Night in Ontario” saw nearly Ontario’s entire bingo halls link together to play for a $200,000 jackpot this past Saturday. Mr. Cherry was selected to endorse the Ontario Charitable Gaming Association event because of his enthusiasm for the charities that live off the proceeds — and his mother’s love of the game. But not everyone’s buying into the endorsement.

Canada’s Gambling Watch network sees Bingo as just another type of gambling that has led many people to addiction.

Two men flee Paradise Bingo after armed heist an item in The 11/10/08 Windsor Star, tells that the crime happened at Paradise Bingo at 2340 Dougall Ave. around 1 a.m., just after the night’s gaming had concluded. Two men, one of them brandishing a small, semi-automatic handgun, demanded money and left with an undisclosed quantity of cash. Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call  Crime Stoppers.

Bingo’s future a gamble, an 11/14/08 item in The Ottawa Citizen, deals mainly with the charities that used to raise money with bingo. The article ends:

The waning popularity of bingo might force some charities to reconsider how they raise money. And that is a good thing.

Ex-bookkeeper jailed for fraud, is an article in The 11/15/08 Windsor Star. It looks as if gambling is involved. But the item contains no word about that possibility.

OLG to review system after payment delayed is another item in this 11/15/08 paper. We’ve heard this promise before.

Saskatchewan

Two former directors of the Métis Addiction Council of Saskatchewan Inc. are facing fraud charges for stealing more than $500,000 says a story in a 11/15/08 CanWest News Service that contains no word about the possibility that gambling might be involved.

11/11/2008: Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 012 CWE November 10 2008

Oh Canada

Oh Canada, our one-time honest land, now governed by a gambling-financed band;

Their mobster minds now practice piracy, and they refuse to see the harm that Gambling Watch can see!

Please, bring our land back to its honesty. Oh Canada we stand on guard for thee

Addictions

‘Help now available for gaming addicts’, an article in The 11/4/08 London Free Press, has no word on gambling although some of the number of people mentioned (16 M world-wide) must be addicted to gambling. ‘Only 25% of those playing online role-playing games are teens. Gamers; average age is 26’, says the article. The first meeting of this new group was to be held on 11/5/08 in London’s First Baptist Church. We look forward to hearing more about it.

Presentation To Focus On Preventing Teen Gambling is an article in a Manchester, CT paper that we’d like to see in some more of Canada’s papers! Now we see stories about young people addicted to Internet Gaming (not necessarily gambling). One of those is a 6-page study in the 6/8 London Free Press that we can recommend to all our readers.

Cyber

Online Casinos Await Action By New, Friendlier Congress, a Connecticut 11/5/08 item in a USA paper writes: ‘Now it is time for the Democrats to live up to the promises implied to the online casino community’. It is clear that many expect Internet gambling will become officially approved.

Finance

Long odds dim outlook for Las Vegas Sands, an item in The 11/7/08 Toronto Star, contains this line:

Casino stocks have been punished over the past year as a gambling boom in Las Vegas came to an end and tight credit markets jeopardized growth plans.

Trump and Harrahs report loss - casino sector shaky, is an 11/7/08 Reuters article writing honestly about the economic slowdown that continues to savage the gambling ‘industry’.

Lotteries

Why you’ll never see me doing a Lotto 6/49 happy dance is a 2-page article in The 11/7/08 Ottawa Citizen that we’d like to send out to every purchaser of lottery tickets. We totally agree with what the writer says about winners of amounts to which they’re not accustomed!

The Alberta papers report that several charity lotteries are now in difficulty because their tickets no longer sell as well as they used to go. My personal standpoint: I used to support certain charities before they began to raise money by lotteries. That step caused me to no longer support them, and I have never bought any of their tickets.     

Horseracing

‘Woodbine Racetrack & Slots’ is an invitation in an 11/5/08 US paper to visit Woodbine ‘with its slot machines and video gambling that was introduced at Woodbine in March 2000’. We don’t know if the writer realizes that Ontario does not allow VLT gambling. 

Magna Entertainment eyes racetrack VLT license, an item in The 11/6/08 Toronto Star, writes that Magna Entertainment wants racetrack VLTs for its Maryland Jockey Club.

Scarborough rejects slot machines an item in an 11/5/08 U.S. paper, reports that residents narrowly defeated a proposal to allow the harness racing track to operate slot machines in the town.

‘Scarborough Downs harness racing track could lead the track’s owner to look for a new home for the facility, her lawyer said Wednesday’, is a sentence in an 11/6/08 USA paper.

Finance

Betting firm told to repay cheated an article in The 11/4/08 National Post reports:

With a former Ontario premier and a onetime RCMP commissioner on its board, Toronto-based Excapsa Software Inc. tried to put a respectable face on the murky business of online gambling.

We then read that Excapsa sold its assets in ‘06 and is undergoing liquidation proceedings in Ontario Superior Court, has been tied to a multi-million- dollar cheating scandal involving a popular poker site, UltimateBet.com. The site is run out of the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake, on the outskirts of Montreal, and was bought from Excapsa in 2006 by former Kahnawake grand chief Joe Norton. It would take too much space to give all the information, but we can say that scandals of cheating and poker run into many millions of dollars.

Canada

The Hypocrisy Of Government Gambling a beautiful article in the National Post by Mr. R. Fulford, that we reported in last week’s Newsletter. B. Rutsey, CEO and president of the Canadian Gaming Association responded with a piece called Why the double standard about gambling? The fact that he calls gambling ‘gaming’ is enough to see him as a hypocrite whose statement is not worthy of reading.  

British Columbia

Casino expansion completion may be delayed an item in The 11/7/08 Times Colonist, deals with the schedule for Great Canadian’s View Royal in Victoria. The article clearly shows the government’s intention to expand the province’s gambling:

The $50-million project, which includes a 490-stall parkade and an expanded gaming floor, was to be completed next fall, but a flurry of expansions and construction projects at the company’s other locations could draw resources away from the Victoria work.

‘It’s a wonderful casino’ is a letter in The 11/7/08 The Province about the grand opening of Burnaby’s casino, written by what we hope is a recovering gambling addict. We quote: ‘We are well down the rabbit hole, brothers and sisters, when gambling is advertised as a form of good citizenry. Ching ching, another slot machine gets its wings!’

Ontario

Pizza box ads feed gambling addicts, an item in the 11/3/08 Brunico Communications says that pizza boxes will be distributed to approximately 600,000 Ontarians over the next six to eight weeks as part of a larger media strategy including on-campus posters, 30-sec TV ads, washroom ads, online banners and youth-oriented publications by The Responsible Gambling Council.

Police raid alleged gambling den, an article in The 11/3/08 Hamilton Spectator, reports that the Hamilton police arrested six people Sunday at an east-end bar which allegedly housed an illegal gambling operation. ‘It took one year for Hamilton police to investigate the case of an alleged book-making and illegal poker by two Hamilton bar owners’, said Inspector Dan Kinsella’. Seized were several thousand dollars, plasma TVs - which police say were being used for sports betting - along with thousands of gambling cards.

Students quizzed on problem gambling, an article in The 11/4/08 Orillia Packet & Times, contains information that all parents of students ought to know: We cannot resist a rather lengthy quote:

One-third (37%) of young Ontario adults aged 18-34 play poker for money and 16% believed playing poker is a good way to earn extra money, according to results from a 2006 survey conducted by the Responsible Gambling Council. The Know the Score program visits Ontario colleges and universities targeting young adults. “Our studies show that people between the ages of 18 and 24 are at the highest risk of developing a gambling habit,” said Brittany Stillar, project coordinator with the RGC’. “6.9 percent of people between that age group actually have between a moderate and severe gambling problem.”’

Addiction seminar coming Nov. 20th, an item in the 11/5/08 Sarnia Observer, gives this info: Aamjiwnaang Community Centre, 972 Virgil; it will feature presentations from front-line addictions councilors/ program consultants. To register call 519-344-6770 by Nov. 12.

CAW hopes to get lucky with casino union drive, an item in The 11/6/08 Niagara Falls Review, explains the government’s piracy this way: Creating jobs, stability and economic opportunity in Windsor and Niagara Falls during the rough economic times in the mid-1990s, were the reasons the province opened casinos in both cities.
Gambler sentenced, an item in the 11/6/08 Sarnia paper, reports that a Corunna man who stole his daughter’s credit card to finance his gambling addiction, was sentenced to two years probation. 

He recognized his problem in January, turned himself into police and entered an addiction treatment facility in Windsor. He has arranged to repay the debts, including the money owed on the stolen credit card at a rate of $200 a month. “I am still attending therapy,” he said. With his therapist, Carey is attempting to start a gamblers’ self-help group in Sarnia.

We hope he will succeed!

11/6/2008: Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s e-mailed Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 011 CWE November 3 2008

Addiction

Online world lures young gamers, a story in The 10/27/08 London Free Press, tells that a 15 year old boy left his home on Oct. 13. And his parents, who disciplined him by cutting him off briefly from friends he’d made online, haven’t seen him since. Steve and Angelika Crisp would eventually have returned the gaming console to the Barrie teen, who would resume playing his favourite game: Call of Duty 4, late into the night.
(Brandon Crisp’s body was found  November 5th near his home by hunters. Foul play is not suspected. -admin)

Think you know the gamer type? an article in The 10/28/08 Ottawa Citizen claims positive qualities for those who play video games. ‘They have better family lives, are more social and make more money than people who do not’ according to two new studies.

Finance

MGM Mirage Profit Falls as Gamblers Desert Vegas (Update 1), is a 10/29/08 Bloomberg article reporting that billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, said that third-quarter profit tumbled 67 percent as cash-strapped U.S. gamblers stayed away from Las Vegas.
An article in The 10/30/08 National Post headed Pension funds still gambling on stocks deals basically with the same subject.

Horseracing

Fort Erie betting on help from the government, an article in The 10/28/08 Toronto Star, writes that Nordic Gaming Corporation will submit a conditional application for race dates next year, albeit with an option to withdraw before the meet begins unless the government provides financial support.
One day later the Niagara Falls Review writes in Track gets gloomy update at council :

…Judging by the news delivered to councilors last night by the town’s Economic Development and Tourism Corp. general manager, it could be the final day -ever -for horse racing at the 111-year-old venue.

Fort Erie Race Track owner to apply for 2009 racing days, an article in The 10/29/08 Niagara Falls Review contains these lines:

A $300-million project – billed as the saviour to all that ails Fort Erie Race Track – has been shelved. But the track’s owner is still willing to bring live racing back to the Thompson Road facility next year on condition that it gets help from its partners.

No cash support, no horse races is the title of an article in the 10/30/08 Niagara Falls Review that contains this line: ‘We will apply … we’re looking for help from various stakeholders in the track.’

Canada

The Hypocrisy Of Government Gambling is an article in The 11/1/08 National Post written by columnist Robert Fulford. We cannot remember another article wherewith we totally agreed as we do with this one. THANK YOU, Mr. Fulford!!

British Columbia
New Burnaby casino targets high rollers is the title of the 10/31/08 item in The Vancouver Sun announcing that the old Villa Hotel property in Burnaby becomes Metro Vancouver’s latest and last glitzy casino next week when it opens as the Grand Villa Casino.

The 100,000-square-foot gambler’s paradise with 50 gambling tables and more than 1,000 slot machines is the first phase of a $180-million Gateway Casinos & Entertainment Inc. project that includes a spring 2009 opening of a 200-room Delta Hotel & Conference Centre.

Manitoba
Casino plan finds home - Newest to open near Brandon, an article in The 11/1/08 Brandon Sun, reports that a casino twice rejected by Brandon residents is to be built just north of the western Manitoba city.

The gambling house will have 300 to 400 slot machines and will be built little more than a stone’s throw from city limits in the Rural Municipality of Elton, said Dave Chomiak, the provincial minister responsible for gaming. As soon as we have this minister’s e-mail address we’ll send him the National Post’s article!

Ontario

OLG’s slot machines income payments to the municipalities amounted to more than $19 million for the second quarter of this year, according to the OLG’s letters to the municipalities. News like this causes us to wonder if Ontario’s citizens are aware that - along with their voluntary payments of ‘idiot tax’ for lottery tickets – (that’s $1.6 billion per year) their casino and racino gamblers waste so much on their gambling? Can we imagine how Ontario’s business records would look if all that money was not wasted on their mobster minded government’s piracy businesses? Would they be patient enough to wait for the next election to kick them out if they suddenly realized what’s really going on?

Racino vote divides town leaders - attracts outside support, a 4 page item in The 10/25/08 Reporter, clearly shows that the opposition to more gambling is still very much alive.

Toronto police arrested 63 people at two illegal gaming houses Wednesday following a five-month investigation is an article in The 10/17/08 Toronto Star. It clearly shows that our so-called legal ‘gaming’ does not prevent illegal gambling.

On 10/28/08 articles in several papers made it clear that the public hasn’t much confidence in the honesty and fairness of the province’s Lottery Corp.

Gaming company backs slots ad campaign, an item in The 10/28/08 Community Report, writes:

New financial reports filed by parties in the struggle over putting slot machines at Scarborough Downs show the Pennsylvania company that would own the machines has poured money into an advertising campaign to convince voters of the potential benefits.
The organization reported that it spent $56,274 from this pool since Aug. 18, with about $34,000 going to various forms of advertising and publicity.

Casino carves up some Halloween goodies, an article in The 10/30/08 Niagara Falls Review, writes that the chefs of the Niagara Falls two casinos use their skills and imaginations to make special Halloween items.

Toronto Man Wins Incredible $4.7 Million Jackpot On Dollar Slot Machine At Woodbine is an item on s 10/31/08 Rogers Broadcasting outlet. It does not give the name of the winner. We’ll be looking for more particulars on this broadcasted news.

Quebec

The 10/31/08 Montreal Gazette has an article saying that a national assembly committee has concluded that lifting the requirement to relocate Hippodrome de Montréal off the island might be a way to help resolve the current crisis gripping Quebec’s horse racing industry. The item makes it clear that so far no real solution has been found to improve the situation of horse racing in this province.

Attractions Hippiques discontinued live racing at Hippodrome de Montréal this summer, and although it has since resumed one day a week, no racing is scheduled beyond Nov. 30.

Singapore sees more bad debts from gambling, a 10/27/08 article by Imelda Saad, on the News Asia channel, reports that more people are falling into bad debt as a result of gambling, and experts say that such cases may rise given the current economic crunch

Australia

A Reuters article in The 10/30/08 Calgary Herald reports that a gambler who lost millions in a $1.16-billion (Can) gaming spree is suing one of the country’s largest casinos, claiming he was targeted by managers despite a known gambling addiction.

We would encourage more Canadian gamblers to sue our mobster minded governments for their gambling debts. It’s our belief that gambling games are a piracy business that ought to be illegal in any decent country!
Think this is Vegas - Think again is a 5-page article promoting trips to Macau. It was found in The 11/1/08 Ottawa Citizen.

10/27/2008: Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 010 CWE October 27 2008

Addiction

Gambling Addictions, is a post in the 10/20/08 Play or Gamble Online blog, written by a lover of gambling who doesn’t see the difference between risky business and real gambling.

Parents fear Internet addiction, an AP article in The 10/24/08 Toronto Star, contains not a word about the online gambling that has attracted and addicted many youngsters!

Internet Addiction - Tips for parents

Health

Suicide prevention mandatory for national accreditation, an article in The 10/21/08 Globe and Mail, reports that, starting in January, Canadian hospitals and nursing homes seeking a national stamp of approval will have to develop suicide-prevention programs. We see this news of great importance because it’s a well-known fact that gambling addicts tend to see suicide as their only way out of their troubles.

Scrabble

Saskatoon man nabs Scrabble title is an article in the 10/20 Calgary Herald. Can some one tell us if scrabble is really gambling?

Finance

In defense of Greed is an article in the 10/18 Vancouver Sun by Niels Veldhuis, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver we wrote about last week. He writes that our financial system is positively fuelled by self-interest. (link: Fraser Institute - admin) Veldhuis:

However, “greed” (or less derisively and more accurately “self-interest”) is not the problem or the reason for the crisis. Wall Street, Bay Street, Main Street, my street and every other street in North America is built on individuals and businesses pursuing their own self-interest.

Self-interested individuals and businesses are the backbone of our economy, vital to economic progress and society’s well-being, and ought to be celebrated rather than be demonized.

Start with the definition of greed, “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. But who exactly should determine what is really “needed,” and by what measure?

Do we all really “need” mobile phones and iPods? Is it “excessive” for a family to have two cars and a 2,000-square-foot house? Do we “need” to eat out as often as we do or buy the latest clothing fashions? What is “needed” is a subjective judgment and makes the definition of “greed” vacuous.

The reality is that “greed” is a contemptuous word that is purposely used to stir emotions and negatively smear the principal tenet of human behaviour, self-interest. Simply put, self-interest is the human desire to improve our situation or the “concern for one’s own advantage and well-being,” according to Merriam-Webster.

On 10/23/08 we saw another item by him that more or less replaced the word ‘greed’ by ‘self-interest’. One item in the 10/23/08 Toronto Star on this subject is called: Need it, make it, lose it, love it. The ‘it’ is money.

Vegas comes up snake eyes, an item in The 10/22/08 Gazette, deals with the present trouble in sin city.

The Las Vegas area has been hit with the largest amount of home foreclosures in the country as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Four years ago, Sin City led the rest of the nation to the top of the housing roller coaster, posting consecutive quarters with housing appreciation gains of 40 per cent and 50 per cent. By 2006, the median home price here had soared to a record $315,000 as buyers armed with sub-prime mortgages snapped up the surfeit of McMansions being built on the city’s outer fringes.

Nevada languishes as America’s foreclosure capital, leading the U.S. for 20 straight months. In Las Vegas, one of every 75 homes received a foreclosure filing in August and median prices crashed back under $200,000 in September.

In August 2008 Nevada gambling revenues were $931 million, down 8.1 per cent from $1.01 billion a year ago.

Crime

Retrial ordered in 1992 murder of bingo tycoon, an item in The 10/22/08 Globe and Mail, will cause us to look back to that time in order to see if bingo’s gambling was related to that killing. If it was, we intend to get back to that next week.

The father and son, both serving life sentences are eligible for bail.

Companies gouged by heftier frauds, an item in The 10/23/08 Gazette, reports that Canada is joining the big leagues in economic crime.

Just over half of Canadian companies polled by Price-WaterhouseCoopers in its latest global economic crime survey reported being victims in the previous two years, with an average loss of $3.7 million, up from $600,000 in the survey done two years earlier.

The article says that accountants do not know the reason for this jump, but we are convinced that legal gambling growth plays quite a roll in this increase. We’ve seen too many fraud stories related to gambling losses!

Horse Racing

Horse lover targets Magna, a 10/21/08 Financial Post item, reports that Halsey Minor has set his sights on the hobbled horse-racing assets of one of Canada’s richest men: Frank Stronach.

Mr. Minor released a letter on Friday that he sent to the board of directors of MI Developments Inc., the real-estate company controlled by Mr. Stronach, offering to buy an estimated $268.2-million worth of loans that MID has given to Magna Entertainment Corp., Mr. Stronach’s money-losing horse racing and gambling company.

The article makes it clear that Mr. Minor sees himself himself as a ‘saviour of sorts’ for the North American horse racing industry. So far we haven’t seen a reaction to this plan.

Ontario

Every third month the Ontario Lottery Corp. sends cheques to municipalities for the cash amounts that slot machines have pirated for them. In this week we saw eight articles that accompanied those cheques, and next week we hope to have the time and space to report the amounts those municipalities received. In this Newsletter we want to talk about a very important question: does that money really do any good for them?

Let us first tell you why we want to write about that. On Saturday morning we found two lengthy items – one about a gambling addict and the other about a ‘racino’ discussion – indicating that Canada’s Gambling Watch Network is not the only group that is totally opposed to what our governments are doing gambling-wise.

Every thinking human knows that our lives are full of uncertainties. In the last few weeks our politicians have often used the word ‘gambling’ to indicate that they were not sure of the outcome of their decisions. That is one reason why it was so stupid for them to legalize what they call ‘gaming’. The money our municipalities get for the slot machines’ profit would have been spent in better ways if those addictive machines were not there! It would have gone to local businesses, to the maintenance or to the improvement of houses, to better education of children, to medications that prevent sickness, to charities, to whatever!

Nova Scotia

Gambling season begins for homeowners on price caps is one of the times that the word gambling is used to describe the financial uncertainties in peoples’ lives.

Touchpoint talks about the Nova Scotia provincial study on gambling. (2007 Adult Gambling Prevalence study -admin) It says:

According to the study “2.3% (or approximately 18,000 adults in Nova Scotia) self-reported ever having a problem with the amount of time or money spent on gambling, with 1.4% (equivalent to 11,000) reporting current problems’. Our co-worker Bernie Walsh writes this about it: ‘At least these Government officials see the real truth and serious truths about VLT gambling mostly but gambling in general.

10/21/2008: Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s e-mailed Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 009 CWE October 20 2008

Youth

Youth Gambling Naturally Follows Competitive Sports Culture is a very worrisome item from a radio discussion. If it is true, it is more than time that we all work together to get our present culture changed!

The national fixation with sports was addressed by one caller, He asserted that sports had been a dominating force in his life, to the point that he learned simple mathematics in the second grade by using his knowledge and affinity for sports scores. “I was best at multiples of seven because of all the football I watched.”

The aura of competition penetrates all aspects of growing up. Grades are sought on a competitive basis, sports heroes are worshipped, and gambling becomes just another expression of competitiveness.

Kids calling in remembered gambling for one dollar. They were too young to have any more money, and a dollar still seemed significant. Besides, it was as much about victory as the amount won. Sports gambling combined competition with the hobby they followed voraciously.
One young adult called in to discuss his teenage gambling. He said he enjoyed himself, until he lost several games in a row, overextending himself. He learned a lesson, and was careful not to repeat the experience.

Like a child who shocks himself on an electrical outlet, or a young adult who maxes out his first credit card, this was a learning experience. Yet, there are no advocates proposing that electricity or credit cards be banned. Problem gambling and compulsive gambling can be viewed the same way.

Those who continue to shock themselves after the first result obviously have a mental difficulty, and the electricity is not blamed. The students involved did not seem to blame gambling, but rather regarded the incidents as learning boundaries.

Ben Simrin, host of the radio show and a student at Berkeley High School, closed by saying, “The problem is that gambling is an extension of America’s competitive nature.Whether it is comparing salaries with friends or sporting the newest Lexus model, Americans have always enjoyed competition. From my perspective it seems like a mixed message: to discourage teenagers from college sports gambling after we’ve been raised to believe that a little competition is a good thing.”  Youth Radio

Gambling’s Mobster Origin

The story of the death of one of Las Vegas founding mobsters in The 10/14/08 Casino News Media reminds us of the sad fact that the piracy character of gambling has shown itself as highly contagious in both the USA’s and Canadian’s greedy governments.   Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. 

Frank Rosenthal - wiki
Washington Post obit

Cyber

Internet gamers Scrabble for title, an item in The 8/16/08 Calgary Herald, states that many of the city’s most promising young competitors, some of whom started playing Scrabble online, will be competing for $10,000 in prize money.   

Sport
Long-shot bet wins $573,000, a 10/16/08 Windsor Star article, shows that sometimes a lifetime of cheering for the underdog pays off.

When the final gun went off, Stephens’ Browns had won 35-14 and the celebration was on. But it wasn’t until Tuesday morning when Stephen contacted the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation in Toronto, that he learned how much he and best friend and fellow student Jihane Belanger had won. They were the only players to successfully pick all the winners and all the long shots, beating 16,000-1 odds.

Finance

AMZ May Raise $100 Million for Casinos as Global Economy Slumps, a 10/17/08 item by Bloomberg, contains this sentence: ‘Right now there’s a proliferation of gaming in Asia that’s extremely attractive to us’.

In defense of Greed is a 10/18/08 well-written article by Niels Veldhuis of The Fraser Institute.

Alberta

Casino wins - house loses, an article in The 10/13/08 Edmonton Sun, reports that gamblers bring in millions for Enoch Cree Nation, but residents live in poor housing conditions. In spite of the fact that this year alone more than $4M of River Cree Casino’s earnings were allocated for the housing needs of Enoch Cree Nation members - that included building new houses, repairing and maintaining existing homes, providing emergency shelter and covering administrative costs - more than 400 people are on the band’s waiting list to get homes. Some of them have been waiting for 20 years. At the same time, 110 homes in the village are boarded up waiting to be condemned, the chief said.

Ontario
Fort Erie To Get Speedway What About The Ponies? - an item in the 8/16/08 Canadian Gambling News & Issues, talks of a major motor-sport speedway:

Foreign investment of approximately $200 million will come from an investment consortium that is led by Kuwaiti Islamic investment bank Bayt Al Mal Investments. 623 acres of land between Bowen Rd. and Gilmore Rd. has been purchased, and that is where the 65,000 seat complex is supposed to be built. The complex may include a theme park, hotel and automotive research facilities, according to Fort Erie Mayor Doug Martin’.)  The rest of the article is full of unanswered questions about this supposed coming investment.

Follow the Leader - Archive for the Scarborough Leader is an archive to the paper, including letters to the editor on the matter of slot machines at the town’s racetrack. We see gambling not as productive but as a piracy business taking money away earned by generally hard working people.

Quebec

Mafia assets stay in Crown’s hands, a 10/16/08 CanWest News Service article, reveals that the police’s Project Colisee, a Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation into the Rizzuto Mafia organization, found involvement in illegal gambling, drug smuggling and trafficking.

Reputed patriarch of Canadian crime family walks free is the heading of an article in The 10/16/08 Globe and Mail. It reports that the 84-year-old grandfather and stalwart in one of Canada’s most infamous crime families – that also involved in illegal gambling - received a suspended sentence Thursday and three years probation.

Nova Scotia
Agencies get funds to help fight gambling addiction a 10/15/08 Chronicle Herald article, reports that seven projects intended to help problem gamblers throughout the province will divide up $200,000 from the Nova Scotia Gaming Foundation this year. Our co-worker Bernie Walsh, who heads a Nova Scotia anti-gambling group called the Video Online Lottery Terminators Society, said he supports efforts to help problem gamblers. But it’s not enough, he added.

There are at least 35,000 addicted gamblers who are having problems, let alone their families, so that doesn’t go very far.

Walsh is also a former gambler who went bankrupt because of his VLT addiction.

Over the years, a lot of the research money has gone to universities to do non-essential studies, like trying to link the connection between smoking and gambling and drinking and gambling, and shying away from the real problem which is the VLT itself.

He wants the province to pull the plug on all VLTs.

That it’s more than time to pull the plug is shown by an article in The 10/17/08 Chronicle Herald with the title: Murder suspect’s VLT time didn’t break law. It tells of a murder that – if we understand the case correctly – is related to VLT gambling.

‘I can’t believe they say this stuff’ is the introduction by a former gambling addict to a press release from the NS gov’t that contains this paragraph:

Nova Scotia has one of the lowest rates of at-risk gambling in the country and fewer people are gambling overall, according to the 2007 Nova Scotia Gambling Prevalence Study released today, Oct. 16. Press Release, Nova Scotia Dept. of Health Promotion and Protection

2007 Nova Scotia Gambling Prevalence Study (text). Available in .pdf at search Gov’t of Nova Scotia

10/17/2008: Gambling Watch Canada Network Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 008 CWE October 13 2008

A new feature

In our August 18 Newsletter we started a new feature that we intended to update every month. The Internet problems we had since then caused us to not live up to this promise. Since that date is nearly two months ago, we now added 2 times $18.20 to the amount we mentioned than. Those of us not dumb enough to spend money on what we call the ‘voluntary idiot tax’, have saved an average of $7.236.40 since the lottery craze began! Another bad thing for our country’s financial situation is that a few folks dumb enough to spend money on lottery tickets have become millionaires! Will they really learn to use that money properly?

From now on we intend to publish this new feature monthly.

Horseracing

‘Still no word on whether Fort Erie will Race In 2009’ is an item in the 10/9 Canadian Gambling News and Issue, and the 10/11 Niagara Falls Review confirms this by having an item that is headed with ‘Thrilled by interest but no deal ready to be confirmed’.

‘Woodbine selections’ is a 4-page article in the 10/11 Toronto Star giving information on that day’s races.

Crime

‘Montrealer joins long list of fraud convicted’, an AP 10/8/08 item reports that a Canadian woman has plead guilty in New Hampshire to defrauding elderly Americans in an international telemarketing scheme about supposed lottery wins.

What happened to $3.9 million? is a question asked in The 10/11/08 Vancouver Sun and not yet answered by the RCMP and a Port Alberni stockbroker. What makes us interested in this case is that the investment company’s majority shareholder had been banned from Britain’s racing courses after amassing $4.5 million in betting debts!

Finance
Canadian casino firm eyes Hong Kong for US$ 1b share offering, an article in The 10/6/08 China Morning Post, talks of a planned US$ 4.2 billion ocean-front casino resort complex in Vietnam and is considering a Hong Kong share offering and an entry into Macau’s booming market for high-rolling gamblers. 

Asian Coast says the Ho Tram project will include twin casino hotels offering 2,300 rooms, 180 gaming tables and 2,000 slot machines.

Credit default just gambling not insurance, an opinion article in The 10/11/08 Courier-Express, asks this question: ‘Should the government bail out those who bet on the Yankees?’ The answer it gives is: ‘if the country goes into recession or depression, we’ll deal with that, and work our way out. But we do not see the sense, moral, political or financial, in bailing out gamblers’. 

Seniors

Fixed Income Seniors Targeted by Land-Based Casinos is an item in the 10/8/08 Online Casino Sphere.

With a worldwide economic crisis looming over the gaming industry, casino marketers are targeting senior citizens on fixed-income budgets more than ever. The industry is taking advantage of their most reliable customers, the poor and lonely elderly of the United States.

Alberta

Two charged in fatal shooting at casino, an item in the 10/9 Edmonton Journal, reports:

Following a six-week investigation, RCMP arrested Adam Michael Brown without incident in a northeast Edmonton home Wednesday. The 20-year-old is in custody facing first-degree murder and attempted murder charges. The same charges were laid against Alexander Edward Colin Reid, 20, who turned himself in to police around 7 p.m. Wednesday. The charges against both men are connected to the Aug. 30 shooting of Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, who was found shot to death on the Enoch reserve west of Edmonton.

Thieves get lucky at casino, a 10/11/08 Edmonton Sun article, reports that bad guys at the Jackpot Casino in Red Deer stole a quantity of gold bars from that establishment. The RCMP was unable to track down the culprits.

British Columbia

‘Two million dollars worth of construction and renovations are underway at a local bingo hall to make room for 75 new slot machines’ reports a 10/7/08 article in The Terrace Standard, showing that BC’s piracy-mended government is still expanding its gambling.

Saskatchewan

Casino patrons’ conduct puts lives at risk on road is a letter to the Editor in the 10/6 Star-Phoenix by a visitor to the Dakota Dunes Casino who saw many gamblers drinking there and later passing him above the speed limit on his way home.

My wife and I enjoy an occasional trip to a casino and recently went to the Dakota Dunes, because it is close by.

We got on the road around 7 p.m. and found that ours was one of a long line of vehicles heading to the same location. We drove the posted speed limit of 100 km/h, but were continually passed as though our vehicle was at a standstill.

While at the casino we observed that the majority of people there were drinking while gambling. We are not prudes and have no problems with this, as long as the drinking is done in moderation. But there were a lot of people well over the limit.

We were quite concerned on our way home at midnight, when people were passing us on the highway. That area has a lot of deer on the side of the road and no one seemed to take that into consideration as they drove.

Not only were there deer to worry about, but the oncoming traffic at midnight was unbelievable. I’m guessing that the majority of people driving out there at that time of night are not sober. That road should be patrolled by police. Something must be done before someone is killed.

Brian Worrell
Saskatoon

Casino employee who uttered bomb threat sentenced, a story in The 10/8/08 Leader Post, reports that Christopher G. MacGregor, 34, pleaded guilty to false messages for a 9-1-1 call he made early on May 18, telling the 9-1-1 operator that a bearded man had told him a bomb had been planted inside the casino that could blow up half a city block.

The 9-1-1 call was traced to an address belonging to MacGregor, a card dealer who had been suspended from the casino after an allegation he had stolen cigarettes from another employee. Zielke said MacGregor had been kicked out of the casino for causing a disturbance about 20 minutes before the 9-1-1 call was made.

Ontario

One year later lease talks continue, a 10/6/08 Niagara Falls Review item reports that the talks to keep Casino Niagara at its Falls Ave location are still ongoing -more than a year after Premier Dalton McGuinty told the OLG to make a deal to extend the casino’s lease.
Heist suspect was a gambling man, a 10/8/08 Toronto Star story:

The 37-year-old investment firm vice-president was charged with 10 counts of robbery last Friday after he turned himself in, this the day after security camera images and a $10,000 reward were made public. All of those charges relate to Toronto robberies. Charges from other jurisdictions are pending’. We quote: “He had gambling debts,” one long-time friend told the Star. “He spent a lot of time gambling on the Internet.”

Which would answer the core question: Why?

Slain father lived secret double life, police probe finds, an item in the 10/9/08 Toronto Star, reports that Chi Ngu Ngo, an Aesthetician devoted to his children, appears to have links to the world of drugs and gambling.

Scarborough’s response to a proposal of slots at the raceway fills a 7-page list. Please take the time to read them all! 

Atlantic Canada

‘Mask wearing VLT protester ejected from gambling conference’, a 10/6/08 Halifax radio article, reports that protesters are not accepted by this conference. The next day’s Halifax reports the same thing.                                     

Horrifying tales of problem gambling an item in The 10/9/08 Chronicle Herald, quotes Jeffrey Derevensky, a McGill University psychiatry professor and a clinical consultant speaking at the Responsible Gambling Awareness Week. He works with people engaged in risky behaviour and said problem gamblers can experience enormous damage; they lose their homes and families, turn to crime to finance their habit and, most devastating of all, find sanctuary in suicide.  

Nova Scotia

‘The students union at Cape Breton University is supporting an online poker tournament that offers a chance to win free tuition’, reports a 10/7/08 Chronicle Herald article that shows once again that gambling has become an acceptable activity in that province.

Lottery pension bailout could cost NS $8.8m, the heading of a Chronicle Herald 10/11/08 article, is less threatening than it sounds says the lottery Corp’s Vice President.

Prince Edward Island

Police investigating possible theft from PEI harness racing group, a 10/11/08 CP item in the Amherst Daily News says ‘Police are currently waiting for Harness Racing P.E.I. officials to prepare a package of financial statements to use in their investigation.’

Beyond our border

September revenue up at MGM Grand Detroit, down at other two casinos is the heading of an article in The 10/8/08 Detroit News.

10/7/2008: Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s Newsletter

Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 007 CWE October 06 2008

Finance

Magna shares take a hit as Russian sells stake to creditors reports that a Russian billionaire disclosed yesterday that the global financial crisis has forced him to sell his 20% stake in Magna to creditors that helped fund his $1.54B U.S. deal. Magna is of a great importance to Canada’s horseracing lovers. 

Horseracing
Horseracing firm seeks extension, an article in The 10/3/08 Montreal Gazette, reports that Attractions Hippiques, the private operator of Quebec’s four horseracing tracks, will request today in Superior Court a 120-day extension of its creditor protection.

The protection was due to expire Oct. 7 after a previous extension was extended from July 24. The company, which entered creditor protection at the end of June, says it’s confident that with extra time, a plan of arrangement acceptable to its creditors can be worked out.

On 10/4/08 a 3-page item on Canadian Gambling  News And Issues is so wordy that the article says: ‘the betting card is next to impossible to figure out, because of the distances and the class of the races’.

Cyber

Cryptologic Helps Casino Sites to Be More Secure, an article found on 10/1/08 Casino Bonus News, writes about a partnership settlement between Cryptologic and Ethoca that will result in less fraud. What we would like to see is no Online gambling at all. It causes many people – young and old – to become addicted gamblers. Cryptologic is an original Canadian manufacturer of Internet software now situated in Ireland. A 10/2/08 CP item says that it obtained its first licensing deal in Russia.

Lottery
Another scandal:

A Windsor woman accused of stealing her aged husband’s winning lottery ticket was arrested by the OPP yesterday along with her daughter, who claimed the $3.5-million prize,

is the opening sentence of a 10/2/08 article in The Ottawa Citizen.

Mary Patricia Moore, 59, and daughter Bobbie-Jo Arnold, 39, are charged with fraud over $5,000, possession of property obtained by crime, false pretences and uttering a forged document. The two women were to spend the night in a Windsor jail and appear in provincial court this morning for a bail hearing, said OPP Staff Sgt. Mike Guilfoyle. A special team of OPP officers who probe “suspicious” lottery wins began investigating Ms. Moore and Ms. Arnold in late April, Staff Sgt. Guilfoyle said’. A day later this paper reports that the Ontario women were granted bail in the lottery theft case.

Winning ticket rejected - OLG vows investigation, an item in The 10/3/08 Windsor Star, is of special interest to our Editor. Every morning I see table after table in the nearby mall in use by obviously addicted scratch ticket users who are still being fed with more tickets by lottery staff. I’m still hoping that some reporter will talk to them. Occasionally I have a conversation with one of those ‘players’ who says he knows no better way to spend his money! We’ve seen no further news about the promised investigation.  

Gambling related Crime

Gambling on Taking Cash Given by Casino ATM Leads to Arrest, an item in the 10/2/08 Online Casino Advisory, writes that records show that at a Gary Indiana casino hundreds attempted to take advantage of the malfunctioning ATM to get cash from invalid, closed, or overdrawn accounts.

Alberta

A good bet is the heading of a short item in The 10/4/08 Calgary Herald by Jake McArthur.

The last time I looked, that dump known as Black Bear Crossing was within walking distance to the new Tsuu T’ina multi-million dollar casino. Perhaps Peter Manywounds could clean up some of those tax-free, smoke-permeated dollar bills that flow into the casino daily and look after those folks still living in that hellhole.

British Columbia

128k stolen from dying kids, an article in The 10/3/08 Vancouver Province, reports that a founding member of the Help Fill A Dream Foundation pleaded guilty to stealing more than $128,000 from the children’s charity. We’ll try to keep our eyes on this case to find out if gambling was involved in losing that money.

Ontario

Missing man a gambler police say an article in The 10/1/08 Toronto Star, reports that Chi Ngu Ngo has been missing since last Wednesday, that his cell phone is turned off and his car is also missing.

In Gambling has many facets good and bad we read that Roger Horbay of the Game Planit Interactive Corp, a company that provides a variety of different products and services to both prevent consumers from developing gambling problems and assist those who are problem gamblers, states gambling’s economic impacts are really cleverly disguised by the province. Bill Rutsey, president and CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association denies that gambling is being abused and causes serious social and economic consequences. The fact that Rutsey calls gambling GAMING is enough to totally distrust him. 

Quebec

‘When financial markets operate like a casino, we all lose’ is the heading of a letter to the Gazette’s Editor from Phyllis Vineberg that appeared in The 10/2/08 Montreal Gazette.

Prince Edward Island

On Monday, 9/29/08 The Guardian reported that the provincial government has decided not to fund new grandstands for the Summerside Raceway, and in the 10/1 paper we’re told that horsemen are shocked by this decision. One idea mentioned is that the ALC might give the horsemen help in this case. We doubt that horseracing is really a sound business!   

Nova Scotia

Clark guilty of hoops fraud, an article in The 10/3/08 Chronicle Herald, reports that Gerald William Clark has admitted to defrauding two not-for-profit basketball associations of close to $150,000. It seems that no gambling was involved in this fraud.  

Atlantic Canada

‘Gambling Awareness Week will bring an interactive community education display to the Mayflower Mall, Sunday’ is a line in The 4/10/08 Cape Breton Post. We wonder if that week will really warn against the dangers of gambling. It is a sad fact that this part of Canada  has absorbed a lot of gambling’s culture by having so many Video Lottery Terminals.

9/29/2008: Gambling Watch Canada Network Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 006 September 29, 2008

Horseracing

In Ontario it is very obvious that lovers of horseracing are worrying about their future. On 9/24/08 an article in the Niagara Falls review urges the province to get active on the $300-million redevelopment proposal surrounding the Fort Eie’s track property, owned and operated by Nordic Gaming Corporation. Two days later this paper mentions that track again, and on that same date the Toronto Star publishes a six-page article giving the horse names and the amounts of the purses of Woodbine’s  thoroughbred selections. On 9/27/08 the Canadian Gambling News and Issues writes that Fort Erie’s Future Is In Doubt Again while the Niagara Falls Review says that the anxiety is growing over Erie’s racetrack’s future.

On 9/28/08 an article in the Edmonton Sun reports, Things looking up for harness racing in Alberta

Finance

Even Las Vegas hit by downturn, a 9/25/08 Windsor Star item, states that Las Vegas these days has resorts that are discounting and even giving away room nights just to attract enough people to keep their roulette wheels and slot machines spinning.

Canada

Canadians losing more to gambling, 9/27/08 Canwest News Service;

Canadians contributed five times more to government coffers through gambling last year than they did 15 years before, a new Statistics Canada report shows, with residents of the Prairie provinces spending the most. Revenues from lotteries, casinos, slot machines and video lottery terminals soared to $13.6 billion in 2007 from $2.7 billion in 1992. The 2007 revenues were up from $13.3 billion in 2006. The average Canadian spent $524 courting Lady Luck last year, ranging from a low of $121 in the territories to a high of $890 in Alberta, followed by Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Alberta

Bookkeeper jailed for $48,000 fraud is once again an example of crime caused by what our governments call ‘gaming’. It reports that Brenda Westerson, 47, wrote fraudulent cheques to feed a gambling addiction before and after her employment at Superior Power Products. The motivation for the crime was to fund her serious problem with her VLT addiction. She’ll be jailed for one year and is ordered to make full restitution, noting she has not yet paid back any of the stolen funds.

Alberta gamblers biggest spenders in Canada is an item related to the Canada section. It reports that Alberta gamblers spend an average of $890 a year on everything from scratch tickets to bingo cards, the highest amount in the country, well above Canada’s $524 average.

British Columbia

Slot machines in question, an item in The 9/25/08 Vernon Morning Star reports that the city council has adopted a bylaw that would limit the number of slot machines in the community to 300, although plans for the new Lake City Casino outlet, which is under construction, called for 400 machines. The B.C. Lottery Corporation, which owns the machines, isn’t sure if it will only install 300 slots or go ahead with 400.

Ontario

Casino Windsor gets a sparkling update as it becomes part of the Caesars chain an item in The 9/21/08 Cleveland Plain Dealer, reminds us of the fact that the Ontario Lottery Corporation, a government entity, spent more than $400 million into the Windsor casino as a dramatic reaction to competition from across the river in Detroit, where three casinos opened in this decade.

‘Rama band loses fight to keep 250M casino profit’ is an item in The 9/23/08 Windsor Star.

The Mnjikaning (Rama) First Nation did not have a valid contract entitling it to an ongoing 35 per cent share of profits at the casino, said Ontario Superior Court Justice Arthur Gans. The judge ruled in favour of the Chiefs of Ontario, which represents more than 130 native bands in the province, that these funds were to be shared among all First Nations.

(Ottawa Citizen)

‘OLG Slots at Western Fair Raceway (in London) celebrates ninth anniversary’ is an article in the 9/26/08 Sault Ste. Marie paper. (CNW Group) It talks of complimentary cake and coffee on the gaming floor at 11 a.m on Sunday and;

…the 311 direct jobs with an annual payroll of more than $14 million, which helps to support the community through the purchase of goods and services. As the host community for OLG Slots at Western Fair Raceway, the municipality has received more than $31.6 million in non-tax gaming revenue since the facility opened.

Casino scam spanned Canada-US border, an article in The 9/27/08 Brantford Expositor, reports one of the criminal consequences related to gambling: cheating.

No one knew about the Tran Organization; it then gives a 2-page story about the gang that cheated loads of money.

‘In Brantford, they got away with just $70,000 before the police shut down the operation, but at Casino Rama the gang took more than $2 million. In the U. S., the take was more than $30 million.’

Quebec

When the Montreal Gazette reports on the figures given in the Canada section, it adds that Quebecers spend $450 on average per year.

I cannot resist quoting some more of this article:

The average Canadian spent $524 courting Lady Luck last year, ranging from a low of $121 in the territories to a high of $890 in Alberta, followed by Saskatchewan and Manitoba. “This is a massive amount of money, but when you really get down to it, it’s also a massive amount of harm that’s being done to individuals, families and communities,” said Doug Little, an Ottawa resident who wrote a book chronicling the gambling addiction that cost him his marriage and job more than a decade ago. “Of that $13.6 billion that’s made … it’s actually the losses of the gamblers. That’s the reality.”

I’m tempted to add my ‘AMEN’ to this.

New Brunswick

Horsemen offered piece of VLT program, an article in The 9/23/08 Telegraph Journal, writes that the NB government is betting the province’s harness racing industry can become sustainable and self-sufficient with the help of revenue from 150 video-lottery terminals. News like that makes us wonder if that province’s politicians have forgotten that VLTs belong to the most satanic gambling devices. They are well-known like that by people who have lost relatives to suicides related to gambling with these instruments!    

The next day this paper in The future’s a gamble notes that ‘gaming bar’ owners worry about their businesses after harness racing industry gets 150 of their very addictive VLTs.

Another day later this paper writes that the Exhibition Association of the City and County of Saint John sees this Video Lottery plan as A window of opportunity for new recreational facilities for the community. And it could be great news for the recreation file for the city and surrounding communities!

On 9/26/08 the Times & Transcript in Slots or VLTs What’s the difference? reports that the opening of Casino New Brunswick in Moncton in 2010 will inject 600 slot machines into the province’s gambling mix, that the government has also announced that it will cut the number of video lottery terminals across the province from 2,650 to 2,000 by 2010, and that, according to a top industry representative, the average player could never tell the difference between the two gambling machines.

 Beyond our Border

Detroit casinos tie up smoking ban in state House, an item in The 9/23/08 Michigan Live LLC, writes that a prohibition on all indoor workplace smoking failed Tuesday to gather the 56 House votes necessary to send it to Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who would sign it into law. A day later this paper reports that Detroit’s new mayor said a smoking ban should include an exemption for Detroit’s three casinos.

International
Online gambling takes its toll, an article in the 9/23/08 Aftenposen, a Norwegian paper says:

Top community officials are among those who unwittingly lent large sums of money to finance a Norwegian bishop’s son’s gambling debts’. The bishop’s son, meanwhile, is just one of thousands of Norwegians who have a serious problem with online play. Online gambling has left thousands of Norwegians with heavy debts.

9/26/2008: Gambling Watch Canada Network Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 005 CWE  September 22, 2008

From the Editor

I owe an apology to the regular receivers/readers of our Newsletters for the absence of our communication for some weeks. What started as an interruption of our internet connection was lengthened by some personal difficulties caused mainly by failed efforts to catch up publishing the news gathered during those days. Now I decided to let that news rest until some volunteer tries to catch it up. Now we only plan to publish the more  important gambling news items that arrive from week to week.

Addiction

Casino gambling not only for fun, an WIVB 9/17/08 article out of Buffalo , contains the tale of an Ontario single mother who crossed the border and got involved in gambling. She lost $80,000 in one year, her house, the equity in it and almost ended up on the streets. She said her addiction ruined her relationship with her family.

Crime
Cheating Became Big Business For These Casino Thieves, a CasinoGamblingWeb.com 9/18/08 article, is the story of a husband and wife who started a cheat scheme so big that the investigation into it becomes the largest in U.S. history.

The cheating involved high tech communication devices, dirty dealers, and the brains to know how to put it all together. Quoc Truong and Van Thu Tran were the masterminds to what turned into a million dollar operation. The couple traveled through casinos in Canada and the U.S. working their scam to perfection. They paid off dealers, and anyone else who they felt could help them steal more money. In the end, they and dozens of their family members and associates all were busted by authorities in Canada and the United States. It was a Canadian who sold out eleven more people that were indicted in the scheme in California last week’. The investigation is still ongoing and is still netting arrests.

On that same day the London Free Press revived an old story about a company that seems to have been damaged by its leader’s gambling debt. Questions about Vanier delay fraud trial verdict

Vanier is subject to a judgment of $441,000 from MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas for unpaid gambling debts and a Los Angeles firm has sued him for US$27.5 million relating to an office he had planned to open there.

The outcome of this case is postponed again.

Police bust Etobicoke counterfeit cheque operation is a 9/19/08 Ontario story showing that all gambling promotes crime.

Police have busted a counterfeit cheque operation that cost victims across North America as much as $2.1 million. Victims received the fake cheques in the mail – disguised as lottery winnings or investment offers – with instructions to cash them and wire the bulk of the money to a phony company, say the OPP. Victims were left on the hook for the missing money when the bank realized the cheques weren’t real. Police identified over 1,200 victims in an investigation that included the OPP, the Vancouver Police Dpt and the United States Postal Service.

Cyber

New Online Casino Games Featured at All Slots, a 9/15/08 Online Casino Advisory, Ltd article, reports that all Slots online casino has released several new games which figure to be winners as well as generating winners. Among the three new games are Sir Winsalot Video Slot, Deuces Wild Level-Up Poker, and First Past the Post Video Slot.

Finance

An AP article that appeared in The 9/18/08 Calgary Sun reminds us of the fact that the life of every human being is subjected to all kinds of chances. The AP titled it: ‘AIG gamble could pay big time for Yanks’ and it deals with just one thing that might have effects on millions of US citizens. All humans are continually subjected to all sorts of chances that are beyond our control, and the fact that our mob-minded governments added what they hypocritically call ‘gaming’ to these chances is a criminal piracy that for many years was forbidden. It’s still a sad fact that too many of us fall for that piracy by being idiot enough to buy lottery tickets and visiting casinos. If our present national government was really conservative it would have outlawed that ‘gaming’ years ago!

Markets are like casinos, an item in The 9/20/08 Toronto Star, opines that today’s investors act like gamblers.    

Horseracing

The 9/15 Toronto Star carried a 5 page item on Mohawk Standardbred selections.
Loans tighten reins on racetrack firm, an article in The 9/16/08 Toronto Star, reports that “Magna Entertainment needs a deal by Oct. 31 so it can find money or reorganize to stay alive.”

The company, which has major interests in horse racetracks and corresponding gambling and broadcasting assets, is on the brink of collapse unless it can raise cash for operations or restructure.

Magna gets OK to use 2 million to promote slots, a 9/17/08 Baltimore Sun item, state that the owner of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park has secured permission from its parent company to use up to $2 million to encourage voters to authorize slot- machine- gambling in Maryland this November, company officials announced.

Racinos give horse industry ray of hope, a 9/19/08 Business Edge item, confirms that the many gambling opportunities of these days cut 35 to 40% in betting at racetracks across North America.   

Ontario

Cashing in on casino addicts, a 9/15/08 item in The Hamilton Spectator, writes that the question is how much responsibility should the province take with problem gamblers, when it owns the casinos and racetrack slot machines which are managed by the OLG.

Haven’t we argued enough times that our mob-minded governments are totally at fault? The article writes that Paul Isaacs and his mother have filed a $3-million negligence suit against the OLG and Falls Management Company, which operates Casino Niagara and Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort.

Regulate gambling properly and reap the economic rewards is a 9/15/08 Welland Tribune article making this suggestion on Cyber gambling (including poker). 

Court ruling a blow to Rama, an item in The 9/20/08 Orillia Packet & Times,  reports that a Superior Court ruling dismissed a Chippewas of Rama bid to retain 35% of net revenue  from Casino Rama.

Quebec

Note from Sol Boxenbaum: Because I will testify as an expert witness on November 13/ 08 I am not allowed to be in the courtroom during testimony from other witnesses. I am however receiving feedback on a daily basis and will keep you updated.

Gambling was like a drug, a Loto-Québec plaintiff says’ is the title of an item in The 9/16/08 Ottawa Citizen reporting that after years of legal wrangling, the hearing of a potentially crippling class-action lawsuit against Loto-Québec has opened in Quebec City with the testimony of a former journalist, Mr. Nelson Labrie, 69, who squandered more than $360,000 in video lottery terminals. Mr. Nelson Labrie, 69, who worked for newspaper Le Soleil for more than 25 years. 

Mr. Labrie is part of a group of pathological gamblers who filed a class-action lawsuit against Loto-Québec seeking compensation for addicts, estimated by the plaintiffs to number 119,000 in the province.

Suit against Loto-Québec makes little sense is an opinion piece in the 9/17/08 Gazette that assumes the powers that be do enough to prevent gambling addiction. A day later the paper published a letter from Phyllis Vineberg, a Montreal mother who lost a son to his gambling addiction and who is in favour of the ongoing court case.

GWG reacts: Letter to Montreal Gazette

Gambling ‘like drug,’ court hears at start of suit against Loto-Quebec (September 15, 2008)  

Anti-VLT activist Phyllis Vineberg - whose son Trevor committed suicide in 1995 after he had spent $100,000 on VLTs - will follow the trial very closely.

“We often talk about second-hand smoke, now it’s time we start talking about second-hand gambling. Too many families have been torn apart by this,” Vineberg said.

“Gambling is not a game, it never was and it will never be a game,” she added, waiting outside the courtroom where she is set to testify later this fall.

Saskatchewan

First Nations spar over proposed casino is a 9/16/08 item of Saskatchewan News Network,

 A battle is brewing among First Nations over a proposed new casino for North Battleford and the millions in expected profits. The Battleford Tribal Council (BTC) wants to replace the existing Gold Eagle Casino and has sent a letter to North Battleford city council detailing its plans. But Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) vice-chief Morley Watson says the BTC is getting ahead of itself. “We have to build a new casino in North Battleford, but for any tribal council to say they want to build it is very, very premature,” Watson said.”Boy, they haven’t let us know and we have the agreement with the province. I’m not sure what they’re doing or what they’re thinking.”

BTC is suing the FSIN after the federation gave control of Gold Eagle profits last year to a new tribal council.

Newfoundland

Gambling in court, a 9/17 Editorial in The Telegram, writes that St. John’s lawyer Ches Crosbie is seeking to have a class-action case registered, arguing that the ALC is engaging in deceptive trade practices by not disclosing complete information about the VLTs and heir profits while the ALC is trying to head the lawsuit off at the pass. It argues that, as a provincially owned lottery, the ALC is specifically exempted from the province’s deceptive trade practice laws.

Nova Scotia

The title Highly visible advertising has embedded gambling in our culture, of a 9/18/08 item in Metro Halifax shows that this province isn’t better of than our others.

United States

Win big in Vegas? Fill out IRS forms is an item in The 9/15/08 Montreal Gazette informing Canadian gambling winners in the US that they might get their paid taxes back.

International

Estonia’s addiction to gambling brings cash and death, an article in the 9/18 afp:

There are more than 90 casinos in Tallinn, where the population of 400,000 people has now been boosted by gamblers from across Europe who are spreading an addiction to the poker tables and fruit machines to the locals. Some addicts have committed suicide after losing their money. Last year one man drowning in gambling debts killed his wife and children before hanging himself.

9/6/2008: Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s weekly e-mailed Newsletter

Volume 10 Issue 004 CWE August 25, 2008

OUR INTERNET DISRUPTION

When one of my family members told me that she had a good telephone connection with ROGERS at a reasonable price, I thought it would be good for us to follow her example and I ordered a new connection with that company. At that time it was unknown to me that our Internet provider ISP has its internet connection through Bell Canada and that my telephone connection with Primus also was dependent on Bell Canada. When the Rogers’ technician arrived at my house to make the connection, he got to work immediately, and only after he had broken my ( to me unknown) connection with Bell he told me that I lost my Internet connection. I did all that could be done to reconnect the Internet, but after a busy day of trying to change things, I could only apply for a telephone connection at Bell Canada and wait for a full week to get connected to the Internet again.

I am sure that you will realize how difficult a week I have had. There was no way for me to connect with the many people that get our Newsletters and explain what our problem was. This morning my Internet connection was re-connected, and what follows this explanation is the short Newsletter I made ready day by day before the interruption. Now my first effort will be to gather the news items I have missed during the past week, and to compose the next Newsletter based on whatever I find. If one of you happened to download a news item, please share it with me to save some of my time!

Greetings from Johannes Deviet, News Gatherer and Newsletter Editor of Canada’s Gambling Watch Network’s Newsletter.

Finance

According to the StatsCan’s monthly report, trips to Canada by U.S. visitors continue to fall and nowhere has that been felt more than in communities such as Windsor where the retail, hospitality and gaming industries continue to rely heavily on same-day visitors from across the border

is a part of an 8/19/08 Windsor Star item; Caesars Windsor brings back U.S. visitors. But in the same issue another article is titled Casino bucks travel trend. It reports that Windsor casino, since it changed to ‘Caesars Windsor’ attracts more U.S.A. and Canadian people who chose to waste their money on casino gambling.

Young millionaire launches tour is an interesting Calgary Sun item that might many young lottery tickets buyers cause to spend their money in better ways.(archived) Press Release: 23 year old millionaire launches 50 city book tour

Lottery

Debut cancer lottery’s sales hit doldrums is a pessimistic Ottawa Citizen 8/18/08 look at the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation’s Answer to Cancer fundraising lotto.

Horseracing

Ninth time lucky for equestrian an item in the 8/19/08 Windsor Star, tells that Equestrian Ian Millar, when competing in his ninth Olympics and tying the world record for most Olympic appearances , won his first Olympic medal, silver in the team event. The Ottawa Citizen of that date writes that this win throws a spotlight on the Ottawa region which is called a ‘powerhouse’ in the $12.5B horse industry.

Western Canada
Reserve casino urged to butt out an 8/18/08 Calgary Herald item writing that two Calgary gaming companies want the province to close a loophole in the smoking ban that permits gamblers to light up on First Nation casinos, appears a day later in many other Western Canada papers.

British Columbia

In an 8/17/08 Columbian (Washington State) article we read that Vancouver doesn’t accept a US Gambling study and that the USA Federal Government could make a yes-no decision in the coming months, but it faces no statutory deadline.

We don’t know if that will make any difference to Vancouver.

Nanaimo mayor has mixed feelings over expanding casino, an 8/18/08 Daily News item, reports that Mayor Gary Korpan is torn about the proposed expansion and relocation of the Great Canadian Casino to a site next to the Port of Nanaimo Centre. We read that in 1998 he called government’s promotion of gambling “acquiescing to evil.” Can’t he see that his province’s piracy evil has grown much bigger since then?

Ontario

See the Finance section for some news on an Ontario Casino that changed its name.

Gamblers sought for study, an 8/19/08 Windsor Star article, writes that University of Windsor Psychology professor Alan Scoboria is looking for participants to join a study entitled Thoughts About Gambling. It will be based on interviews with people who have not experienced financial or emotional difficulties due to their gambling in the past year.