Welcome to Gambling Watch Global Community Blog,

a source for latest news, developments and reputable documentation and research on gambling. You'll find many helpful resources and links for anti-gambling advocates.

3/2/2009: Letter to the Belleville Intelligencer

Re: Setting the record straight on racetrack and slots by Kelly McDougald Chief Executive Officer Ontario Lottery and Gaming

Interesting numbers from OLG. Lets see if I understand.

Ontario horses get 20 %, so far some 2.7 billion dollars. Municipalities get 5 %, so far some .48 billion dollars.

Gamblers lost 100 % to the tune of 12.72 billion dollars.

So humans get a nickel, horses get 20 cents, OLG gets the rest.

But, there is no mention of pari-mutual betting, no mention of lottery, no mention of Nevada tickets, bingo dollars etc…

Does anyone one know how much gambling money is leaving your community?
Doesn’t anyone think community money should go into community business first, so spin-off effects will benefit the community first?

We read that OLG benefits with 6 billion dollars of Ontario citizens losses. Put another way, this means that an average wage of about $30,000 earned by 200,000 Ontarians is lost to Ontario business.

Wow. 6 billion dollars. Six thousand million dollars could be $1,000.00 from 6 million people.

Alas, we are told 5 % of the population blow 35 % of the losses, the next 15 % blow 45 %, 80 % only contribute 20 % of the losses.

So, in those years some 430,000 (2004 report) Ontario citizens have become gambling addicts. Ontario refuses to track gambling suicides, the Canada Safety Council estimated 200 per year. (2004)

We read of dollars gambled by white collar workers in positions of trust. We read of courts being backed up by too many gambling cases. We read of gambling fraud, and jailed gamblers, even read that 32,000 are in jail for gambling fraud in California, which is a state with about the same population as Canada.

OLG has about 20 court challenges so far, half settled out of court, and subject to non disclosure. You can bet they will all be settled quietly, with non disclosure. After all what does a crown corporation charged with raising money for public health have to explain to Ontario citizens?

Set the record straight ?
There is something sad about government success which depends on addiction and losses of its citizens.