NYT OP-ED: CASINOS MAJOR COTRIBUTOR TO INEQUALITY IN USA
In a major Op-Ed in the New York Times yesterday, June 21, 2014, Barbara Defoe Whitehead from the Institute for American Values reveals what many of us already know: Casinos target the poor with slot machines to make the majority of their profit, and the state governments are partners in the exploitation of its citizens.
Long gone are the days when the “whales,” the big rollers, were the major profit generators for casinos. The op-ed points out how the casino strategy has evolved to target the lower income gamblers to slowly extract all their cash over time.
This is all true in New Mexico, as well. All casinos make the cold-blooded calculation that more addictive machines mean more profit. All the addiction hot-lines, and “Please Gamble Responsibly” ads are merely PR fluff, delivered to try to convince the public that the casino owners actually care about the devastation they cause. The fact that our state government is complicit in this exploitation is deplorable.
It’s time for the government to get out of the predatory gambling business.
