Toronto Gambling
by Jerry "Jet" Whittaker
February 19, 2006
Out-of-control gambling is on the
rise and gambling addiction is now recognized as a
psychiatric disorder and a challenge for mental health
treatment that can ruin a person’s life.
Toronto’s Raptors History:
As the Toronto
Raptors approached their scheduled home opener at the
SkyDome on November 3, 1995, club President John I.
Bitove could congratulate himself on having pulled off a
remarkable achievement and bringing NBA basketball back
to Toronto, where the long-forgotten Toronto Huskies had
tipped off against the New York Knickerbockers in 1946
that had been an arduous process, fraught with obstacle
after obstacle.
The current franchise
traces its roots back to April 23, 1993, when the NBA
announced that it had received a formal application from
Professional Basketball Franchise (Canada) Inc. (PBF)
and the ambitious group's president was Bitove, the son
of a leading Canadian food services family and president
of Bitove Investments Inc also The PBF group included
Allan Slaight of Standard Broadcasting Limited; Borden
Osmak, a vice president of The Bank of Nova Scotia; Phil
Granovsky of Atlantic Packaging Limited; and David
Peterson, former premier of the Province of Ontario, who
served as chairman.
The NBA's expansion
into Toronto was unique for two reasons where the first
is it marked the league's first step beyond the borders
of the United States and the second on is that PBF was
only one of three viable prospective bid groups in the
same city. Despite of so many problems the province
finally acknowledged the boost an NBA team would provide
to the local economy through taxes-$81 million the first
year alone, according the Metro Toronto Convention and
Visitor Association-and the creation of 4,000 jobs
necessitated by construction and related activities.
Then the Toronto club
took on responsibility for various youth and community
programs in order to offset dropping basketball from the
betting slips and for its part, the NBA, eager to gain
the Toronto market and wanting to preserve good
relations with its new constituency, contributed $1.5
million to medical research, donated $2 million in
television time to promote tourism in Ontario, joined
with the Toronto team to create a charitable foundation,
and agreed to hold the 1995 NBA Draft in Toronto.
The progress of
gambling in Toronto:
According to the
National Council on Problem Gambling, about 1% of
American adult that is nearly 3 million people are
compulsive gamblers and as its very tough for people to
come out of this habit people cannot stop and also get
addicted to alcohol, smoking and drugs.
Toronto is also
increasing in gambling such that it will also be one of
the famous cities of gambling in few years. In Toronto,
most of the compulsive gamblers are men, but the problem
is also growing amongst women.
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