Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat

Dear Editor:

I am writing in response to the story about problem gambling that ran in the June 8 edition of your newspaper. In paragraph after paragraph, this article misled readers about the gaming industry.

According to research conducted in 1999 for the congressionally chartered National Gambling Impact Study Commission, pathological gambling is confined to approximately 1 percent of the U.S. population. Many of those individuals also experience other problems, such as alcoholism, drug addiction and depression.

There is not one shred of evidence to support your innuendo about widespread illegal activity in our casinos. In fact, the commercial casino industry is one of the most highly regulated industries in this country. In addition to extensive state regulatory requirements, this industry is subject to the same federal money laundering regulations as every other financial institution. Our companies are required to report every transaction in excess of $10,000 and every suspicious activity in excess of $5,000. What’s more, every commercial casino stands to lose its license if it is found to be involved in illegal activities. As publicly traded companies, they also must conform with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations.

Your negative portrayal of the casino customer belies reality as well. In fact, the income of the average casino customer is 20 percent higher than the income of the average American. Casino players also are slightly more likely to have attended college than the average American.

There is no doubt that these individual stories about problem gamblers are tragic. But the most comprehensive study to date on gambling and white-collar crime, conducted by Dr. Jay Albanese of Virginia Commonwealth University, found that the evidence does “not support the claim that casino gaming contributes significantly to trends in embezzlement, forgery, and fraud.” The study found an overall net decrease in arrests for white-collar crimes in the largest casino jurisdictions from 1988 to 1996, based on an analysis of arrest data in these communities obtained from the FBI crime reporting unit. The study also found, for the crimes of fraud and forgery, casino jurisdictions reported significant decreases in arrests, whereas the nation as a whole experienced considerable increases.

The gross misrepresentations in this article suggest that personal views may have interfered with your newspaper’s objectivity.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr.
President and CEO