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Ban gets
credit for steep drop in gambling addicts
fab, May 20th 2003
Banning
video poker three years ago led to a sharp drop in gambling addicts,
according to the authors of an extensive study on South Carolina's 14-year
love affair with video poker.
Within 90 days of video poker being banned in 2000, the number of active
Gamblers Anonymous groups declined to 16 from 32.From then on, most addict
treatment groups had only one or two members instead of the previous dozens,
the study said.
"Additionally, the most active gamblers' hot line in the state reported
the number of calls they were receiving fell from over 200 a month to
zero," the study said.
The study, a 164-page report dealing with the mingling of politics, the law,
gambling and addiction, was done by two Columbia residents, Frank Quinn and
Randall Bridwell.
It examines how and why S.C.public officials and video poker operators
created a "casino the size of a whole state, ‘.‘.‘.a land of trouble, of
rising bankruptcies, disintegrating families, escalating crime, damaged
productivity and lost opportunity.".
Video poker - called "the crack cocaine of gambling" - was so big,
and so addictive, that by the time it ended in mid-2000, it was doing $3
billion in sales a year, they wrote.
Quinn, 53, is a drug, alcohol and gambling addiction psychologist.Bridwell,
58, is a University of South Carolina law school professor. Both were active
consultants in dozens of civil lawsuits against video poker operators in the
late 1990s.One remaining lawsuit is expected to be tried in June.
Their study shows how South Carolina - in large part because of coziness
between politicians and video poker operators -became a gamblers' paradise,
with more gambling outlets than Nevada.
Among the study's findings:.
• In 1986, the General Assembly initiated what would become "one of the
largest organized gambling operations in the world.without originally knowing
what it had done." The late State Sen.Jack Lindsay, D-Marlboro, quietly
slipped a provision into a complicated law that allowed gaming machines to
give payouts.
• State Democratic lawmakers let video poker operators stay in business. At the same time, the operators targeted
low-income blacks - one of the Democrats' most loyal voter bases - as their
preferred customers.
• Politicians became so addicted to money raised from video poker that they
didn't devote the necessary resources to police the games.This meant that
even though the Legislature banned payouts of more than $125 a day in video
poker per person, operators flouted the law because they knew it wouldn't be
enforced.
• Politicians were so attracted to taxes raised from gambling that they
ignored the widespread harm video poker did.
• Blacks and women were more vulnerable than others to becoming video poker
addicts.
Former Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian, who led the party from
1998 until this year, ridiculed Quinn and Bridwell's study.
"If you believe poor people don't have any brains, I suppose you'd
subscribe to their theory that they shouldn't be allowed to decide how to
spend their money, have children or get a job," Harpootlian said.
Harpootlian also said the nation's most famous video poker player is not a
poor Democrat, but rich Republican William Bennett.Recently, it was revealed
that Bennett, who has written best-selling books about being virtuous,
gambled away $8 million, much of it in slots and video poker.
The study's authors single out four heroes: U.S.Judge Joe Anderson,
S.C.Chief Justice Jean Toal, the late Rep. Terry Haskins, R-Greenville, and
State Sen.Wes Hayes.
Operating for the most part independently of each other, those four led the
battle to destroy video poker.
On the bench, Anderson and Toal enforced laws that would have the effect of
outlawing video poker.
In the Legislature, Haskins fashioned a "poison pill" law that, in
certain rare circumstances, would outlaw video poker. Hayes was vital in
getting the law passed. The rare circumstances Haskins had envisioned took
place, and Toal's Supreme Court ordered video poker shut down.
Bridwell said in his investigations of video poker, "One of the most
shocking things is how the political system, instead of protecting poor
people from predatory behavior by video poker operators, allowed them to be
turned into a cash cow.".
Quinn, who for years had focused on traditional addictions, learned about
video poker when his drug and alcohol clients got hooked on the games.
"One lady said, 'I lost the money we were going to send our children to
college with,'‘" Quinn said."I asked her how much.She said,
'$80,000.'‘".
The study, for which the writers received no pay, was published last month in
the University of Mississippi Law Review.
Video poker, they say, isn't just any gambling - the electric games with
their colored screens, bright lights and seemingly frequent payoffs can put
players into a trance, making it the world's most addictive form of gambling.
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