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8/18/2008: Volume 10 Issue 003 CWE August 18 2008
A new Feature
It is our intention to inform our readers about once a month how much has been saved money-wise by those people who don’t regularly buy lottery tickets. Here is how we have figured that out, based on the figures provided by Manitoba’s statistics: 74% of people buy regularly lottery tickets and spend an average of $18.20 that way every month. That means – if you were at least 18 years old in 1975 and belong to that 74% who buy lottery tickets every month - that you have spent more than $7,200 since then just on lottery tickets (also known as voluntary idiot tax). If you think this is an over-statement: this writer asked a fellow customer in a grocery store the other day how much money he spent on lotteries. His answer was: $42.00 a week!
Religion
In an 8/9 Sioux Falls article with the title: ‘Gambling has social cost’ I found a statement I had never seen before. It’s from the U.S.A. United Methodists and says: ‘Gambling is a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic and spiritual life, and destructive of good government’. Doesn’t that deserve our joint ‘AMEN!’
Addiction
‘Gambling addicts “become something else”’ is an interesting article in the Champion, a publication of the Metroland Media Group Ltd. It tells of a professional woman who overcame her addiction with the aid of Burlington-based Alcohol and Drug Addiction Prevention and Treatment (ADAPT), a regional service that offers free individual and group counselling. Celebrating its 10th year in Halton in 2008, ADAPT also has a gambling counselling component.
The woman is quoted saying: “I’m in a good spot now. Even if someone drove me up to Mohawk (Racetrack), I don’t think I would go in.” She also says she’s bothered by the multitude of Ontario government television ads that promote gambling and lotteries. “The government is too busy shoving happiness down your throat. It flabbergasts me.”
The article also tells of a man who went bankrupt twice, and although he believes he overcame his addiction, still gambles occasionally.
Finance
‘Gambling’s woes more than a wager gone bad’, an AP item in a Crain Communications Inc 8/11 paper, contains this line: ‘The high-flying gambling industry, long thought to be recession-proof, is having its wings clipped, and its woes may say as much about the economy as about the industry’.
The Great Canadian Gaming Corporation announces its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2008 as showing a steady growth.
‘Slump unlucky for U.S. casinos’ is an 8/12 Calgary Herald report telling that Gambling revenue on the Strip dropped 3% to $486.4M US in June, resulting in the first fiscal-year decline in 6 years, according to Nevada Gaming Control Board data released Monday. In Atlantic City, gamblers bet 6.6 % less, or $438.7 M in July, the 14th decline in 16 months, New Jersey’s Casino Control Commission said.
Sports
In ‘Let the Games of chance begin,’ an 8/10 AP item in the TorStar reports: ‘The popular Chinese gambling enclave of Macau opened its own Olympics yesterday as the territory’s sports-book company began accepting bets on soccer and basketball events to be held in the coming weeks’.
Lottery
The 8/12 Windsor Star in ‘Lottery tickets prove lucky for two players’ writes that 2 local women are richer following two recent OLG draws: one won $100,000 six months after she turned 18, the other got $81,393.50 ‘playing’ the 6/49.
Cyber
The Online Casino says that Extra Cryptologic is one of the most flourishing software providers for online casinos and poker rooms; it has been leading the industry this year, getting a sequence of thriving contracts with industry giants such as 888.
Horseracing
‘Final Slots Cup Elims To Be Drawn Monday’, an article in the 8/16 Standardbred, says that the 13 Slots Cup Earnings vary from $18,000 to $3,000. The Slots Cup standings are coming into leg five at Grand River. On August 30 the top nine money-winners will advance to the $88,600 Slots Cup final at Hiawatha Horse Park.
British Columbia
‘The effort to move bingo to the Treasure Cove Casino out of downtown Prince George has been advanced to the public hearing stage’ says the 8/12 Prince George Citizen. It will take place on 8/25 at a regular council meeting allowing members of the public to voice their opinions to city council on the issue.
The 8/13 Vancouver Sun is one of the papers reporting that community group ‘Hastings Park Conservancy’ has long objected to the installation of slots at the racetrack and launched a court action to have the enabling bylaw quashed by the court, but lost. They appealed to B.C.’s Supreme Court and lost again. The group, led by David Bornman, did appeal to Canada’s Supreme Court, but it refused to hear the case of residents fighting the one-armed bandits. The matter in question was a gleaming new casino festooned with big-screen TVs, a show lounge and no less than 600 slot machines at Vancouver’s Hastings racetrack.
Saskatchewan
‘Who wins in gaming’, an 8/11 Lloydminster Meridian Booster article, reports that the government is boasting that benefits go to its residents thanks to record-high revenues from the Gaming Corporation, but the executive director of the Thorpe Recovery Centre thinks the money could be put to better use by some of it providing easier access to recovery centres for those with addictions.
‘Casino part of liquor tax pilot program’, an 8/14 item in the StarPhoenix, writes: ‘An agreement that sees the equivalent of the provincial liquor tax collected at the Dakota Dunes Casino and then remitted to the Whitecap Dakota First Nation, could be a harbinger of things to come in more of Saskatchewan’s First Nations casinos’.
An 8/14 article in the 8/14 Leader Post titled ‘Bingo hall won’t host inquest’ explains this change by writing that the brother of the man who died 3 years ago is a traditional healer whose beliefs keep him from entering gaming venues.
Manitoba
In ‘Dangerous dreams’, an Editorial in the 8/11 Winnipeg Free Press, the writer(s) warn the government against the increased dangers of addiction for gamblers caused by the expansion of the number of VLTs and slot machines in the province.
Quebec
‘Class-action lawsuit claims Loto-Quebec downplayed dangers of VLTs’ is an item that came to us when we were finishing this Newsletter. It writes that after several years of legal wrangling, the trial phase of the case will finally begin in Quebec Superior Court next month in Quebec City. We sigh: FINALLY! We hope to report more next week.
Nova Scotia
In ‘Casino profits up’ the 8/12 Halifax Herald says the Halifax & Sydney casinos raked in $3.1 M in the quarter ending June 30, up from $1.5 M in that period last year; they actually took in less total revenue, dropping to $11.6 M this year from $11.7 M in ‘07.
‘Cutting more than 100 people from the payroll at the NS casinos helped the British Columbia-based owner boost its bottom line this year’ is a 6/13 Halifax Herald sentence.
‘A would-be candidate for mayor of Halifax aims to make Nova Scotia’s capital the Sin City of the East — putting the sin in Bedford Basin, the city’s inner harbour’ a 6/13 line in the Ottawa Citizen says of David Boyd who is launching his campaign for mayor of Halifax Regional Municipality with a party platform that mentions more poker and strip clubs as a key to Halifax’s success.
Beyond our border
‘MGM Grand Casino In Detroit Thrives While Others Falter’ is a CasinoGamblingWeb 8/14 item.
http://www.casinogamblingweb.com/main/casino-gambling-news/index.jsp
It reports that MotorCity Casino had a decrease of 7.26 percent from last year, and Greektown Casino dropped off 13.2 percent, while MGM had a whopping increase of 22.25 percent. The next day’s The Buffalo News writes that The Seneca Gaming Corp. is hinting at a slowdown in its fast-paced expansion efforts, despite a nearly 10 percent rise in its third-quarter net income.
J. Deviet