 Who would the gambling industry least want to hear speak at their meeting?
Is <A NAME= Gambling's would-be federal regulators--the National Gambling Impact Study Commission--went to Las Vegas this week to hold hearings. Tuesday's overpowering show of force by the Nevada gambling aristocracy has had at least one audible effect on the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. This effort has largely succeeded, because Vegas is still the dominant image of American gambling, if not the dominant reality. Judging by today's hearings and by conversations with most of the commissioners, the tobacco model is winning. Today's panelists tell the commission that kids are starting to gamble too young and are getting addicted too easily, that compulsive gambling appears to be increasing as gambling spreads, that gambling marketing may be designed to addict customers, and that the industry exploits problem gamblers by allowing them to draw repeated credit card advances from ATMs on casino floors. Instead it will opt for small, targeted policies, concentrating on compulsive gambling. Similarly, the commission will try to reduce gamblers' access to cash by limiting the size of ATM advances and prodding casinos to remove the machines from their floors. If the comments of the pro-industry commissioners can be believed, the industry will happily endorse such a report. It has already established a (mostly) independent center to fund research into pathological gambling. In exchange for losing a few compulsive gamblers, the casinos will (falsely) appear more concerned with the health of their customers than with profits. As long as the commission just nibbles around the edges, the casino operators and state lotteries will be happy to indulge it.
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