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Willamette Week outs Barbara Roberts as closet video poker player

The irony is that the introduction of video poker to the Oregon Lottery occurred while Barbara Roberts was Oregon's governor.   The WWeek article says that Roberts was "ambivalent" about the video poker bill, which she allowed to become law without her signature.

Big mistake.  With the subsequent addition of video slot machines, Lottery revenues now account for 7% of the state's budget.  Some blame the ever-increasing revenue from state-sponsored gambling for the reluctance of Oregon's voters to approve tax increases, or to consider any significant reform of Oregon's tax code.

But that may all change come January 1, when Oregon's ban on indoor smoking takes effect.  It seems that video gambling addicts are also usually hooked on nicotine.  They typically chain smoke while they play.  The smoking ban, therefore, does not bode well for Lottery revenues in the coming year.

I heard Willy Week editor Mark Zusman interviewed on KPOJ's early show this morning.  The ever informative Thom Hartmann pointed out that addictive behavior has been linked to a dopamine receptor gene, so it came as no surprise to him that compulsive gamblers are often also heavy smokers. 

Like me, Hartmann bemoans the rise of state-sponsored gambling in Oregon.  It's a tax on the most vulnerable of our citzens, he says, those with chemically induced compulsions.  They're exploited by the state in the scramble for easy money.

Barbara Roberts, of course, was a mere coda to Willamette Week's examination of the future of the Oregon Lottery.  She was one of three women portrayed in the piece, and, aside from the irony, by no means the most important.  The other two were described as  the "winner" and the "loser" (the latter has sworn off video gambling.)

The "winner", as Willamette Week described her, is more likely a loser as well.  She claims to have won $494,000 since early 2000 on Keno alone while gambling $500 a week.  According to my calculations, the "winner" has spent well over $200,000 on the lottery.  That means either she won a few big Keno prizes as well as some video poker jackpots, or she's pouring a lot more into the machines than she's willing to admit.

Lottery games, you see, guarantee that the player, over time, loses.  I once calculated that the Oregon Lottery returned no more than 40 cents on the dollar.  That means that if you put $10,000 into the machines, you'll lose $6,000.  Guaranteed.  These are games of chance.  Not skill.  

Barbara Roberts claims that the games she plays at Kay's Bar and Grill are fun.  I say they're anything but.  If you want to gamble, play low stakes poker once a week as I used to do.  That's fun.  And you can actually win in a poker game with some skill.  And a little bit of luck.

The Lottery and Novick --and Obama

There are two things wrong with the Oregon Lottery.

First, the state should not be in the business promoting gambling as a revenue source for public services.  Second, the Oregon lottery has too much autonomy and too little government oversight. 

The Oregonian takes on both issues in an editorial in this morning's edition, the first by implication, and the second more directly.  The bottom line, says the editorial, is that the decision to reward lottery vendors --bars and taverns-- with outsized commissions, a decision backed by a recent state Supreme Court ruling, is bad for the state and and bad for the services the lottery was set up to fund.

The language of the editorial bolsters my objection to state-sponsored gambling:

"But it's not good business -- and it's another symptom of the state's gambling addiction. ...

"...the rates haven't kept up with Oregonians' legendary gambling habits. ...

"And Oregonians continue to feed their paychecks into these blinking, hungry machines."

U.S. Senate candidate Steve Novick is quoted in the O's piece as saying that the court decision sets a "terrible precedent".  Unfortunately, Novick, neither in the editorial nor on his campaign website, which argues for tax fairness, condemns the lottery as  a bad --and unfair-- source of revenue. 

Nor, it must be said, has Novick's primary opponent, Jeff Merkley, taken a stand against the lottery.  In fact, Merkley recently commissioned a poll (and here)--some call it a push poll-- linking Novick to proposals for raising taxes.  (Why it's bad for a progressive candidate to call for a tax increase to pay for vital public services is beyond  me.)  If the flow of easy money from the lottery were to be stopped, as I believe it should, taxes --fairer taxes-- would have to be increased elsewhere to make up for decreased revenue to the state.  Merkley appears to oppose both the cessation of state sponsored gambling and increasing taxes elsewhere. 

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How does Barack Obama figure into this debate?  He doesn't, at least not directly.

However, his good friend and campaign surrogate, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who ran for office on the Obamian theme of "change and hope", has suffered some setbacks since becoming governor in 2006, the most noteworthy being the defeat of his plan to bring three casinos to Massachusetts to help with state revenue.

The man responsible for stopping the casino plan, speaker of the state Democratic House Salvatore DiMasi, said Patrick's gambling proposal would be "a scourge on the state... ."

DiMasi is right.  State sponsored gambling is a "scourge".  If casino gambling is what the new politics of "hope and change" is all about, count me as an advocate of the "old" way of doing things. 

Let's hope for better from Barack Obama.

Another reason for Susan Castillo to resign

It's bad enough that Oregon's Superintendent of Public Instruction fawns all over No Child Left Behind and U.S Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.  As spokesperson for Oregon's public schools,  Susan Castillo ought to be calling for the repeal of NCLB.   And telling Spellings to butt out of how Oregon runs its schools.

But to agree to the Oregon Lottery's scheme to provide extra cash for schools?  That's beyond unconscionable!

Here's Chuck Sheketoff's nutshell objection to Scratch-it for Schools:

"If a lottery is a bad tax on people’s poor understanding of statistics, Scratch-it for Schools is nothing but a public relations scam peddling the lie that lottery games can be a panacea for schools’ funding shortages, all the while validating gambling in the eyes of our kids."

I couldn't agree more.  I've long argued that state sponsored gambling is a terrible idea.  But it's even worse as a source of funds for strapped schools. 

Apparently Susan Castillo (and Stand for Children) don't see the problem of mixing gambling with schools.  But the schools --and their computers-- do, according to Sheketoff:

"The Oregon Lottery encouraged school officials to fill out the registration on their home computers, because some school computers ban access to the Lottery’s website. Many school computers apparently put lotteries in the same category as pornography when it comes to online access."

This year's lucky participating schools include Alameda Elementary and Chapman, two Portland schools with huge parent fundraising operations.  But what the hey!  Every extra dollar helps.

I suggest that Castillo and other state public education officials read Sheketoff's piece.  And think again about the wisdom of Scratch-it for Schools.

Easy money gets easier

The latest issue of Mother Jones reports these interesting (and disturbing) facts about the state of the American economy, with an emphasis on the condition of the poorest Americans:

• 1 in 4 U.S. jobs pay less than a poverty-level income.
• Since 2000, the number of Americans living below the poverty line at any one time has steadily risen. Now 13% of all Americans—37 million—are officially poor.
• In 2002, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) compared those who point out statistics such as the one above to Adolf Hitler.
• America now has twice as many publicly available gambling devices that take money—slot and video poker machines and electronic lottery outlets—as it has atms that dispense it.

The last one is of particluar interest to me, because Oregon has been more than helpful in contributing to the national proliferation of electronic "gaming" --or taking-- devices.  And it's paying off big time for the Oregon Lottery:

"Fueled by the popularity of its new electronic slot games, the Oregon Lottery now appears to be one of the top 10 states in per capita lottery sales -- and it's at least seventh in per capita profits."   

Remember when the Oregon Restaurant Association threatened to reject the new slot options if the state reduced the retailers' --mainly taverns-- share of the take?  Yeah, right!  Like they were going to turn down what essentially amounts to free money, money that keeps many marginal dives afloat. 

Let's look at the numbers.  Correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not sure if "sales" --$1.09 billion-- means the total amount of money stuck into the machines and spent on lottery tickets and scratch-off cards, or if it means profit --the amount actually lost by "gamers".   I assume the former, so lets go with that:

• State's cut --      $484 million
• Commissions --     $200 million (assuming a 20% average commission)
• Expenses   --       (?)

Add 'em up and you're left with a less than 40% return on the "gaming" dollar.  In other words, for each dollar spent on the Lottery, the average player can expect a return of between 35 and 40 cents.  Such a deal! 

The Oregonian reports a per capita expenditure of about $260.  But of course, not everybody plays the Lottery.  And of those who do, only a handful are serious players.  We can assume that those lucky folks are willingly handing over to the government every year well over $1000, some probably much more. 

No fuss, no fret.  Any wonder why I call it easy money?

The most regressive tax: State-sponsored gambling

Someone wrote recently that any talk of "tax reform" in the Oregon gubernatorial campaign was code for "sales tax."  That's nonsense, of course.  I'm a proponent of tax reform, but I oppose the imposition of a regressive sales tax.

In my opinion, state tax reform would begin with the abolition of the Oregon Lottery, perhaps the most regressive tax of all.  Make no mistake --the lottery is a tax, and an unfair one.  But because it hits only those who "choose" to play,  proceeds from the lottery are hardly considered a tax at all, let alone a tax on the most vulnerable segments of society.

To most people, including ironically Stand for Children, the lottery is viewed as easy money, a source that should be tapped more heavily in support of schools.  Never mind that the source of that money is gambling.  It seems an odd social policy to fund the education of our children on the pathologically addictive behavior of a relatively small number of adults. 

The folks opposing the off-reservation casino in Cascade Locks understand the social ills that accompany the proliferation of "gaming".  Former Nevada prosecutor George Holt predicts  an upsurge of crime in the heart of the Gorge should the casino be built:

" 'Pathological gambling has a fiscal impact on social welfare and law enforcement. They are going to need a hospital and a jail in Cascade Locks, and other things they never thought they needed,' said Holt."

According to this 2005 article in the Tribune,  Oregon has an estimated  60,000 problem gamblers --or more aptly, "gamers".  That figure predates the introduction of video slot games into the Oregon Lottery.  If you don't think that bodes ill for Oregon, just recall the favored name of slot machines before they were digitalized: 

One-armed bandits!

Before I forget, here's the point of this rant.  It would be a very good idea for all progressives to vote NO! on any initiative urging Oregon to overturn it's ban on casino gambling.  Otherwise it's "Las Vegas, here we come!"

Gambling, or 'Gaming"? Casinos and Indian sovereignty.

Steve Duin's asserton that "more adults gamble than don't" needs some clarification, especially in the wake of his apparent endorsement of casino gambling, Indian or otherwise.

Let's be clear.  There's a big difference between playing poker and playing the slots.  Poker and similar games of chance generally reward the skilled player.  Casino gambling rewards the casino.   A skilled card player, over time , will likely come out ahead.   Anyone playing the slots or video poker, the cash cows of casinos and the Oregon Lottery, is guaranteed, over time, to lose.  It's a rigged game. 

Should Oregon maintain its ban on casino gambling?  Absolutely!  And it should get out of state-sponsored gambling entirely, meaning the Oregon Lottery.   I wrote as much last August.  And a year ago January I wrote a piece calling state-sponsored gambling a "crime":

"Problem, or "pathological", gamblers--those who become addicted to the games-- provide a disproportionate amount of the income to casinos, and to the state.  As a source of tax revenue, gambling exploits the psychological disorders of the "weakest" and most vulnerable sector of our citizenry."

There's another issue that Duin's column raises that has never, to my knowledge, been adequately addressed, and that's the issue of Indian "sovereignty",  which allows the operation of casinos on tribal lands without government oversight.  Here's the problem:

If Indian tribes are indeed "sovereign nations", why are they allowed to back domestic political campaigns with huge infusions of cash, mainly designed to protect their casino interests?  In fact, if Native Americans are indeed citizens of "sovereign nations", why are they allowed to vote in American elections?

I'm all for Indian voting rights.  But I oppose Indian casinos.  I don't see how they can have it both ways.