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Is Gambling Damaging for Low Resource Communities?

Is Gambling Damaging for Low Resource Communities?

Added: September 9, 2013

There has been global controversy regarding gambling and how it affects societies. Lately, a lot of countries have been taking new initiatives in order to counteract the impact of gambling on poor communities and have imposed caps on the amount of slot machines and gambling equipment that can be present in a city, or have limited the number of casinos allowed per area. This entire issue is tightly tied to suggestions that land based casinos purposely locate themselves in low resources areas.

Recently, an article from the Israeli news source, "the Calcalist," formally accused Israeli gambling tycoon Teddy Sagi of taking advantage of the unemployed and the destitute and prey on them due to their high desire to gamble. The issue with the accusation was that there was no statistical evidence to support it, but a lot of theories that the author deducted from somewhere. The article suggests that in poor communities there is very little to do, and that people in them don't have many ways to pass time but to put money into gambling machines, and "watch it disappear."

Whereas articles like that don't have a strong foundation, the topic does lead us to ponder on what they have to say. What is gambling and is it really getting more out of the poor than the rich? We know that gambling has been an integral part of many cultures, and some countries have been smart enough to regulate it and set mechanisms in place to ensure fairnes in the games.

Today, the gambling industry in the United Kingdom is worth £6 billion pounds and plays a role in controlling 0.5 percent of the country's economy. Even more important to mention is that the gambling industry contributes millions of pounds in taxes every year in the UK, and it is going in the same direction for countries like the US, Australia, and other countries in Asia. However, upon reading the article from the Israeli press, it is common to ask ourselves in people in economic disadvantage are presented with too many opportunities to bet their money away.

The answer remains uncertain, but some industry experts have explicitly stated that gambling machines in stores dramatically increased their weekly revenues by even tripling them, and these stores are usually located in disadvantaged communities. Adrian Parkinson, a member of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, stated that the gambling industry began marketing these store located machines extremely aggressively due to their positive results, without true considerations for the risks of the machines.

What od you think about this case? We'd love to hear your opinions and experiences.