Effects Of Legalized Gambling 

by Jerry "Jet" Whittaker
Oct 17, 2006
 

Effects of legalized gambling

Your right way to gamble!

Gambling is taking huge strides these days be it casino, sports betting, or slot machine. Due to public outcry and government policy gambling continues to be illegal in certain parts of the US.

Gambling adds to the revenue of government treasure and helps to fund schemes of public welfare, legalisation by government would mean a greater control on gambling activities which earlier used to go unchecked. But some argue that this is not the way to raise money for our schools. It will be a loss economically and will increase social consequences. Those who say that

legalising gambling would mean more trouble list the following reasons.

• affect taxpayers due to increased social welfare costs and increased crime 

• increase bankruptcies

• act as a regressive tax on the poor hurt local businesses by diverting consumer

• increase problem gamblers to more than 10 percent of the population, with two to five percent becoming compulsive gamblers 

• destroy families by increasing child abuse, neglect and parental suicide

The effects legalized gambling would have are the number of purse snatchings, assaults, rapes, robberies and murders shot up after the casinos opened. FBI statistics show the crime rate per 1,000 residents went from 134.3 in 1978 to a peak of 450.3 in 1988. The addiction, the bankruptcy, the crime and corruption that are already there will multiply with this, says Tom Grey, President of National Coalition against Legalized Gambling. In the first six years of casinos in Minnesota, the crime rate doubled. The total number of crimes within a 30-mile of Atlantic City rose up by 107 percent in the nine years with opening of casinos in Atlantic City.

Legalized gambling affects bankruptcies in a substantial way. SMR Research Corporation surveyed 298 Counties with and without Gambling and found results which are bound to make any government think twice before legalising, which include Counties with legalized gambling had a bankruptcy filing rate 18% higher than those without it.  The rate for counties with five or more gambling facilities was 35% higher than counties without gambling.

Prince George's County, Maryland, county in the state where casino gambling was legal in 1996, also had highest bankruptcy rate that year.

The effects on family due to legalized gambling are far more serious because in a survey of nearly 400 Gamblers Anonymous members, 28 percent said they were separated or divorced because of gambling.

When anyone has this information one is likely to get misleaded, but legalized gambling would at least make matters less serious.

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