Published on page B3 of the Montreal Gazette Friday May 18, 2001.
PAULINE MAROIS IS A VERY GENEROUS WOMAN,
WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY
In recent days Pauline Marois announced that 20 million dollars would be provided for prevention, treatment and research for problem gambling. Another 30 million dollars would go towards seniors’ programs and assisting people with disabilities. The shocking part is that this money is not coming out of the general revenue fund, it is coming instead from VLT profits. Furthermore, it will not come out of the 70% of VLT revenues that the government has been raking in since 1993, but instead the operator’s share will be cut by 4% to create this fund. It would take 1.25 billion dollars in revenue to create the 50 million dollars that Ms. Marois is so generously promising to provide. Last year’s revenue from VLTs was 928 million dollars, so we would need those that participate in this deadly game to play harder and longer. The bottom line is that if we can get problem gamblers to lose 1.25 billion dollars this year, they will get 20 million dollars back for treatment, prevention and research. Meanwhile, the bar owners who operate these machines, although they are the highest paid in Canada, will have to try to make up the shortfall of 4% by perhaps leaving the machines on for more hours per day. In the rest of Canada, VLTs are controlled by a computer chip that automatically shuts down the machines at closing time and does not start them up again until the bar opens the following morning. Not only do we have a lack of policing the countless bars to make certain that age restrictions and operating hours are enforced, but now we have placed the operators in a position where they must encourage people to play more in order to maintain the profit level of the machines. Ms. Marois will soon be telling the populace that it is their patriotic duty to put money into VLTs.
Rapid electronic gaming, whether in bars, racetracks or casinos (call them VLTs or call them slots) is wreaking havoc with citizens who would never had encountered gambling problems if not for the endorsement of the government, the easy access and the blatant advertising outside of each establishment. In other provinces, it is illegal to have signs outside bars indicating the presence of machines. The premise is that the machines ought not to be the primary purpose of entering the establishment. At a parliamentary commission we attended at the National Assembly last year the government agreed to limit advertising to a simple black on white sign 18 by 15 inches but to this date nothing has been done. The commission also agreed that machines should not be visible from the street or in areas where minors pass through i.e. bowling alleys, pool rooms and family restaurants, but like an errant teenager the government agrees to all conditions but then procrastinates in the hope that you will forget. But, as it says on our license plates, "je me souviens." At a press conference on May 15, 2001, Agnes Maltais, junior minister of health and social services told the media that Quebec has already had two parliamentary commissions on problem gambling. She said, "almost all of the recommendations have been applied." The truth is none of the recommendations have been applied except for Bill 84 which prohibits the sale of lottery tickets to minors. This was put into law in February 2000 but is barely being enforced. The sight or sound of a VLT or a neon sign to an addict have the same effect as holding a bag of heroin or cocaine in front of them. We treat clients who cannot make it to or from a therapy session without falling victim to the allure of the machines.
This province does not need a referendum or a prevalence study to realize the deadly effects of rapid electronic gaming. We didn’t have a referendum to determine whether or not to allow machines in the first place, so why have a referendum on whether to remove them. The New Brunswick experience tells us that the stakeholders have a lot more money to promote acceptance than the grass roots movements have at their disposal. Agnes Maltais also said at her press conference that all the experts consulted by the government have said scrapping the terminals would not erase the problem of compulsive gambling. "They say that games of chance involving money have always existed and that it could be a good idea if the state managed them." There are less games since we’ve managed them. Just who are these experts that the government consulted with? Ms. Maltais has not returned my phone call. I would really like to know who "they" are. The government’s argument that there were many more illegal machines before their involvement does not hold water. When machines were illegal they were not advertised, most people didn’t know they exist and most people would not participate in something illegal. If they were illegal before what made them safer now with government at the helm? Gaming is in every sense of the term, organized crime. We need to have the debate that Mr. Landry has spoken of so much in recent days, and it must include the grass roots. Otherwise, we are setting up the next generation for disaster. Let’s give the children, who are the future of our country, a future.
Sol Boxenbaum
Gambling critic and consumer advocate
