The Washington Post
Dear Editor:
Much like the thousands of the “undead” that walked the streets this recent Halloween, there are some myths about the gaming industry that just will not die. Your reporter Dylan Matthews dredged several of them up in his Oct. 30 blog post “Studies: Casinos bring jobs, but also crime, bankruptcy, and even suicide.” It is difficult to see why, one week after the Post’s own editorial page endorsed Maryland’s Question 7 citing jobs and tax revenue (and calling arguments against gambling expansion “unconvincing”), he would decide to use such discredited information.
Here are the facts: Studies by the National Institute of Justice, the congressionally-mandated National Gambling Impact Study Commission and numerous others show that, in fact, the introduction of a casino into a community generally leads to a decrease in crime in the surrounding area. In the rare instances when things like bankruptcy or crime rates go up, it can actually be attributed to the increase in visitors to the area, not the casino itself.
Lastly, over the past 30 years, numerous peer-reviewed studies, including one by Harvard Medical School in 2008, have shown that the rate of pathological gambling has held steady, at around 1 percent of the population, despite the dramatic increase in the number of casinos. It is true that, in some cases, problem gambling at first increases when a casino is introduced nearby; but the studies show that eventually the prevalence drops back down to pre-casino rates. Despite this, the gaming industry takes the issue of problem gambling seriously. It gives tens of millions of dollars to support research, educate the public, prevent underage and problem gambling from occurring, and provide help for those who need it.
It is the right of the people of Maryland to decide gaming issues in their state, but they also have the right to accurate information and not resurrected myths that have been dead and buried for many years.
Sincerely,
Frank Fahrenkopf
President & CEO
American Gaming Association
