Slot Machines: The Big Gamble
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It wasn't that long ago if you wanted to gamble
you had to travel a long way
today to shot craps or play slots. All you have to do is
in your car, there's probably a casino state or right next door
There are casinos now in 38 states, which use the revenue from gambling
to help solve their blotted budget deficient.
The main attraction at these casinos is now the new slot machines
There are close to 850,000 of them in the United States, twice the number of ATM's,
We Americans spend more money on slots then on movies, baseball and themed parks
combined. But with the modern slot machines there's a greater potential for a dangerous side
effect, gambling addiction. As more people are addicted to slots then any other
form of gambling.
This story will continue in a momment
This is what slot machines used to look like
where you pull a handle and hope for 3 of a kind
This is what they look like today
The modern slot are like high tech video games, that play music
and scenes from TV shows. You can play hundreds of lines at once
and instead of pulling a handle, you bet by pushing buttons
Which means each bet can be completed in as little as 3.5 seconds
It looks like great fun, but it can be dangerously addictive.
Whether or not its there intention the gambling industry is designing machines
that can addict people. MIT Anthropology professor Natasha Shull has studied gambling
addiction for over 15 years. Shes interviewed gamblers, casino owners, and slot machines
designers.
Interviewer: Do you think that most people would even think that a machine
could addict you, that a machine can do the same thing a drug could?
Natasha: What addiction really has to do is with the speed of rewards and these machines
if there packing 1200 hands per hour into play, your being exposed,
you could see that as being exposed to higher dose.
Interviewer: A higher dose says Shull because all that speed means more bets,
and that means more excitement and no machine is better for that then the penny slot.
the most popular game on the casino floor. Because the bets are small
you can place hundreds of them at a time.
Natasha: Another core aspect of there addictive-ness is their continuous nature
Your not interupted by anything, your not waiting for the horses to run, your not wating
for the guy next to you to choose his card to put down, there's no roulette wheel spinning
Its just you and the machine, its a continuous flow without interruption.
Gambler: I found that the machines were wonderful, I loved the excitement I love
the people, the comradely, the high 5s when you win, it was just very exciting
Interviewer: Sandy Hall, lives only a short drive from thousands of slot machines in Rhode Island and Connecticut
Married with two daughters, she worked in a book store and used to look at the casinos as an
entertaining break, but eventually she was playing slots so much she burned through
her retirement funds.
Sandy: My every thought and every being if i wasnt at the casino, i was figuring
out how i was going to get there where was I going to get the money?
Interviewer: You know, you sound like a heroin addict.
Sandy: It takes your soul, it takes your humanity, you drive home pounding the
steering wheel promising yourself your never going to go again, your never going to do it again
and you know that your going down, and your going down and your going down
I became from a nice person, I became manipulative, deceitful, lying person
lies dismanufactored themselves, you didnt have to think about it.
Marlyn Lancealot another slot addict, ended up in embezzling a quarter million dollars
from her employer in Phoenix Arizona.
My Daughters lived within, 2 houses away, they did not know i was stealing money or
gambling until one day 7 police cars drove into my yard and took me away in handcuffs.
thats how they found out. handcuffs????
This is gambling for gambling sack and the aim is not to win a jackpot
Shes not talking about most people that go to casinos, shes only talking about addicted gamblers
Are you saying that they'd rather stay in the game then win the money?
Not only am i saying that, but i found instances where gamblers who won a jackpot, then became irritated
because it stopped the flow of play.
Researchers at the University of Waterlou in Canada, measured how players
respond psychologically while they gamble, and showed that the new machines
can make them think there winning even when there not.
The gambler almost always gets some money back, if he puts in a dollar, he might
get back 50 cents, but the sounds and flickering lights trick his brain into thinking he came out ahead.
the constant feeling of winning creates so much pleasure says Natasha Shull that regular
players can slip into a trans like state, a place she calls the zone.
One gambler told me when hes in the zone he couldnt remember his children's name.
You go into that trans, that zone, that box, no body can touch you
you have escaped from reality, no one can ask you for anything
When you sat in front of those machines, did you get into the zone, you have a buzz?
I was having a love affair with that machine, that was my love, if anybody came near it or
touched it, back off, dont touch my machine, it was the same as a kiss from a love
it was sweet. And yet not everyone is convinced the machines addict people.
Listen to Howard Shaffer, the director of the Harvard medical school
division on addiction, the man the gambling industry loves to quote.
And your position is machines are not addictive, that machines inadament objects are not addictive
Machines didnt make me do it, If slot machines caused addiction, then most people who played
slot machines would develop addictions and its the opposite.
but at one point, You said slot machines were the crack, cocaine of gambling.
I did say that. And how does that square with what your telling me today?
Not everyone that uses crack cocaine becomes addicted,
Ya but no body is going to sit here and try to tell me crack cocaine isnt addictive.
and if this is like crack cocaine, the conclusion is its addictive.
I dont come to the same conclusion because majority of people who've used cocaine
have not developed cocaine addiction, only a small minority have
and the same would be true with gambling.
the problem is that small minority that does get addicted is hit hard
You are getting a little dose of gambling in your brain every 3 seconds
its a gambling IV. and theres a drip, drip drip.
Doctors Robert Brim and Henery Lasur are gambling addiction specialists at Rhode Island hospital
They've treated 1300 slot addicts, who when they try to stop, look like heroin addicts
in withdrawal. And there coming in literally, they have shakes, there physically having these
responses and you tell yourself, they got to be on something
and it turns out there withdrawing from the gambling Slots in particular.
And yet state after state is turning to slots as an easy way to raise revenue and increase jobs.
And no state has been more aggressive and more in gaming in the last few years then
Pennsylvania, where where the opening of the sugar house in September made Philadelphia
the largest US city to house a casino. So far there are 10 gambling halls in the state.
with plans for 61 thousand slot machines. An 11th casino on the drawing broad would be
close to the main entrance of the Gettysburg National Battlefield
Governor Ed Rendell whos about to leave office, championed the casinos
Look gambling is not anything we should say o, thank lord we have gambling, but it is
decent way to raise revenue where the upsides thats produced is significantly
better than any downside that comes from it.
You said there were downsides to gaming, what are they?
The biggest downside is that some people loose their paychecks
but understand Lessly there not loosing their paychecks because Pennsylvania instituted
gaming, those people who are paychecks in Atlantic city in Delaware, at the race tracks
If there going to loose it anyway, lets get the upside. We were getting all the downside and none of the upside.
The upside he says is the 1 billion dollars the state got in gambling revenue last year
which was used to provide a $200 a home property tax reduction, plus more relief for senior citizens.
People have been gambling since organized society was formed on the banks
of the Tigras and the Euphrates, they were gambling, and they will gamble as long
there is life on this planet. And thats a fact.
No one is saying people cant gamble, This is about government using gambling to pray on human
weakness for profit. Les Branalize head of the national organization Stop Predatory Gambling
He and Massachusetts State Senator Sue Takur, have been fighting
a move to bring casinos and slot parlors to the base state.
Were in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and the daily
voice of government to most Americans, Were gona push Casinos and push lottery tickets
Well but you have a situation where states are desperate, they are way over budget
they have to find revenue somewhere, they know people will gamble.
as a revenue raiser it defies every principle, its regressive, in other words it takes far more
out of lower income peoples pockets then higher income
it is cannibalistic, in other words it eats other forms of revenue
When you have your citizens dumping 2 billion down the slots there not buying a new car
and you loose that tax
You brought these casinos to the state, do you ever just say to yourself o my god
there alot of people who are suffering and there taking whatever money
they have and there throwing it away in these casinos, and do you ever say o what have I done
You dont listen, Anyone who has that bent would be doing it in other places
had Pennsylvania had not legalized gambling
The counter argument is your creating new gamblers, and lots of them. And lots of them
Were not creating new gamblers. Because its down the street, Just logically
Those people play the lottery they bet on football, How much money is bet on the SuperBowl?
people are loosing money for the state to get its revenue.
Their loosing money. Let me answer this, I've know you for 2-3 decades, your a very smart person,
but not now...... but your not getting it. Those people would loose that money anyway
Dont you understand?
Are pressing him on this point lead to this...
(Gov) You guys dont get that!!!!
Interviewer: I Do get it Gov: Your simpletons, your Idiots if you dont
get that.
We couldnt figure out why all the emotion, but his main point was that gambling is good entertainment
and people should be allowed to make their own decisions about it
But since the first casino opened in Pennsylvania 5 years ago
calls to gambling addiction hotlines in the state have tripled
Sandy Hall says her problems didnt start till 3 casinos opened near her.
I can not read my local newspaper without having full page ads of
upcoming events and slot play, and free this, free that, the exposure
phenomenal because of the proximity of 3 casinos
if you were within 25% of Massachusetts residents went out of state to gamble
Thats alot of people
75% didnt, thats the group the industry wants...
they want the 75% that can get on the T and go to a nearby casino
and get in trouble with gambling, thats the play book.
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