Saturday, November 18, 2006

Critics of the recently released study on problem gambling are being
needlessly harsh in their dismissal of the research. The study by UPEI
professor Jason Doiron is neither misleading nor irrelevant. Rather it is
incomplete. Doiron looked at the prevalence of problem gambling in the
spring of 2005 and compared it to the numbers from a similar study conducted
in 1999 and found there was no significant difference. Since there was no
significant change in the availability of gambling products over that same
time period, the result is not shocking. If nothing changes in gambling,
nothing changes in problem gambling. That's good to know, because something
significant has changed in gambling since the spring of 2005. That something
is the Charlottetown Driving Park Entertainment Centre. Unlike the
environment in 1999 or early 2005, there now exists a facility purposefully
built and promoted as a gaming centre. The CDP has a room set aside for
nothing but video lottery terminals -giving the city a casino/arcade where
once gamblers had to lay their bets at either the track, the bar or the
cornerstore. Backers of the CDPEC have said it won't contribute to gambling
addictions. Opponents have predicted that social and familial decay will
emanate from the facility. Now Doiron or some other researcher has the
necessary ingredients for a study looking at what happens to problem
gambling in a community when there is a major and controversial change in
the gambling market. Hopefully government and the Atlantic Lottery
Corporation have the courage to fund such a study. It would be useful to add
some objectivity to the lingering debate about whether the CDPEC is a plague
or a panacea. Both of these parties have invested a lot of money at the
track and have an interest in seeing it succeed. But all Islanders have an
interest in knowing if a gaming hall built to help the racetrack is leading
vulnerable people into crippling addictions.