If
anything sealed the
fate of video poker in South Carolina, it was the
sad tale of Joy Baker, a 10-day-old baby who suffocated in a
car while
her
mother played the machines at a roadside casino in August of
1997.
"Precious little Joy is dead because her mom is addicted to
video
poker,"
read the newspaper ad from the Palmetto Family
Council.... (link to
full article, June 2005)
The (Australian) State Government has ordered a review of toy poker
machines after it was revealed children as young as four are playing
life-like slot games. An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has
discovered toddlers are at risk of developing dangerous gambling habits
by playing with toy poker machines. The replica slots are available in
toyshops and supermarkets, and encourage children to feed fake money
into the machines. (Gambling
with a child's life, 9/25/06)
Danger of gambling gifts for kids - Poker sets for kids? Think twice
before anteing up. Research indicates that 60-90 percent of youth
engage in gambling, and that youth problem gambling rates are 2-4
times higher than those of adults. Surveys of Oregon teens tell us
drugs, alcohol and gambling often travel together, yet many parents see
gambling as a relatively safe pastime and encourage it as an
alternative activity.
What do you look for if you're concerned your child might have a
problem? Watch for signs such as lying about gambling, gambling
superseding other activities, using money to gamble that's supposed to
be used for other things, borrowing money to gamble, or stealing and
letting schoolwork suffer.
As a parent, you play the most important role in preventing problem
gambling behaviors in your children. You may want to think twice before
buying your daughter a "Pink Poker Night" set or, for that matter, any
one of the hundreds of gambling products that will adorn your
newspaper's ad inserts. (Parents urged
to consider dangers of gambling gifts for kids, 11/20/06)
he April 2003 advertisement below, according to
a Washington state anti-casino group, was printed
in a large daily newspaper . The ad promotes "Kid's Bingo" for
ages 4 to 17. The games only cost $12 "buy-in" and the kids
can win stuffed animals and shiny new toys, all within sight of their
parents or grandparents who
are playing at the grown-up gambling machines on the other side of the
glass partitions.
Addicting our Children
According to the Oregon state Department of
Human Services, one in ten teens is at risk for developing a
gambling problem. And one in every 25 is a problem gambler. (7/1/07
- Oregon teens at risk from
gambling)
Children as
young as 11 years old call in on the gambling addiction hotline.
- "They (the children) talk about
personal problems, depression, and always being penniless. Their
gambling addiction isolates them, and when they call us they do it
secretly, so that their parents shouldn't know," said Thore
Paulsen,
daily manager of the hotline. Paulsen said that these children were very evasive when
asked where they find the money to support their compulsion.(6/19/06 - Children ring gambling hotline)
(Oregon) Lincoln City's Chinook
Winds (casino), which
allows 18-year-olds
to play poker, says it doesn't promote the game to
teens, but "we understand that poker is extremely
popular with all adults and therefore encourage responsible
gaming to all our guests," said Chinook's general
manager, Jim Kikumoto. ... Youths are twice as likely to develop a
gambling problem as
adults, said Jeff Marotta, problem gambling services manager
with the Oregon Department of Human Services. "There's been more and
more research looking at
brain development, and some of what the research is finding
is that teens, including 18-year-olds, don't have the
same type of mental facilities when it comes to
decision-making," Marotta said. "A lot of their
behaviors tend to be more impulsive." (Barring
18 year olds simpler for casinos, 6/11/06)
Gambling "camp" for kids 10 to 18 - "Targeting
kids as young as 10 years old, I think is reprehensible, and our
government is certainly opposed to minors being targeted this way."
"They want to come in here and get kids involved in poker. I think
their objective is clear, they just want to raise customers for
tomorrow.'' "First we allow our kids to be exposed to various abuses,
and then we scream for justice when some pervert takes advantage of
their vulnerability. Now we have a gaming business using deceptive
techniques based on educational concepts wishing to turn young,
innocent members of society into gamblers.
Shame on Nevada North, and shame on us if we sit back and do nothing
about it." (Kids'
Poker Tour,
5/23/06)
The
study compared a group of gamblers and their adult relatives with a
control group of non-gamblers and family members, and found that
between 8 and 12% of gamblers' relatives had their own gambling
problems, while only 2 to 3.5% of non-gamblers' relatives were
compulsive gamblers. Faragher said kids are three times as
likely
as adults to get hooked on a bad habit, meaning up to 12%of
children
and teens who gamble will probably become addicts. Part of the
concern surrounding gambling dependency is that it's the addiction with
the highest suicide-attempt rate, according to Faragher, who said that
20% of problem gamblers try to kill themselves.
(5/17/06, Junior
Jackpot: Teen Gambling On the Rise)
(National Center for Responsible Gaming)
Hansel
and Gretel: Life-size gingerbread house at casino - (Uncasville-AP, Nov.
24, 2005 8:44 AM) - Mohegan
Sun (casino) is unveiling a life-size gingerbread house today.
It
stands over 17-feet tall, and was prepared by the casino's executive
pastry chef with the help of 60
students from nearby Oakdale Elementary
School. It
took 4,000 pounds of ingredients to create the 6,000 thousand
gingerbread bricks to build the house. (11/24/05, Life-size gingerbread
house at Moehgan Sun Casino)
"He was an A student,
talking about going to M.I.T.," the
mother said. "He was playing online in free tournaments and won enough
to be given credit. Now he won't go out with his friends, won't do his
schoolwork. He says, 'What do I need to learn chemistry for when I want
to be a poker player?' " Parents of those 13-year-olds now being conditioned
to think that a good hand is as cool as a gold glove, are you
listening? (11/4/05 - Fold
'em before poker can hold 'em)
The latest 'gimmick' among casino operators is
to offer 'child care' on the premises. One chain of child care
companies caters to casinos by providing child care for infants as
young as 6 weeks to kids 12 years old, where they "are educated
and entertained" (casino
fun tours) They also offer video games for
children 12-17. These
care centers offer video "redemption games" which cost between 25 cents
to a dollar to play, where kids can redeem the tickets they win for
plush toys and electronic prizes. Even kids under 12 can play if
they have an adult with them.
One nationwide casino child care provider's web site proudly states:
** "On average, (child care company)will drive over $2 million
in additional gaming revenue to its host property every year."
** "(child care company name) helps open new markets and
accesses a wider demographic for the casino." (See: Casinos
Cash In With Child Care for Players )
OR - "Kids
enjoy the inflatable slide during casino festivities." "... a
play area
complete with an inflatable slide entertained
kids." "Kidsplay during outdoor activities
before the ceremonial blessing." ("Tribes hold blessing and
casino preview" Siuslaw News, Florence, Oregon, 6/23/04)
OR - Nineteen percent of Oregon
youths have gambled in a casino, with 12 percent having done so
in the past year, according to a 1998 phone survey of approximately
1,000 adolescents. The study, which was paid for by the Oregon State
Lottery and the Spirit Mountain Casino, identified four percent of the
state’s adolescents—about 13,000—as problem gamblers. Another 11 percent showed signs of being compulsive
gamblers.(Casinos
in Alabama, Alabama
Policy Institute, 2004) John R. Hill, Ph.D.,
February
2004)
IL - When he left the table just before 5 a.m. after losing some $900 in less than 15
minutes, fellow players said he turned to the group and uttered
what may have been his final words: "It was nice knowing you."
Police said Potvin walked out of the casino (Argosy's Empress
Casino) to his car and then returned to the entrance, where he
sat down and shot himself in the mouth. The shooting was captured on
surveillance videotape. Potvin, a correctional officer
at Stateville Correctional Center, died at the scene. Alyinovich
described Potvin as "a nice kid"
with a short haircut and spit-shine
black boots. 5/17/05 - Gambler, 23, kills himself in front of
casinohttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050517e
PA - According to a study by the Center for
Addiction
Studies at Harvard Medical School, between 9.9 percent and 14.2 percent
of adolescents in North America have gambling problems. An additional
4.4 to 7.4 percent are compulsive
gamblers. (9/7/04 http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/9597797.htm )
CA - The council (California Council on Problem
Gaming)
estimates that more than 1 million adults and 100,00 juveniles in California are
experiencing compulsive gambling
problems. It's those 100,000 juveniles who are most
disturbing to me. Sports gambling is rampant in our high schools. Some
kids even have bookies who extend lines of credit, the council reports.
(North County Times, 8/10/04)
"So Kaminkow is devoting a sizable portion
of his time to what he benignly calls
"expanding his market." To appeal to a younger, male cohort,
he signed licensing deals with the people behind "South Park" and
"Austin Powers" (with mixed results) and then negotiated the even
bigger deals with Drew Carey and George Lucas for "Star Wars." At the
same time, he has been pursuing the potential of the Latino market by
designing a line of games that lets gamblers play in Spanish with the
push of a button." (5/9/04 - New York Times Magazine)
AL - "The rate of pathological
gambling among college students is four to eight times greater
than the rate of adults not currently enrolled in college. ... The
proximity of casinos to college campuses may be adding to the
problem. For example, six casinos are within an hour's drive of
the University of Kansas. The campus now holds regular Gamblers
Anonymous meetings." (Casinos in Alabama, Alabama Policy
Institute, John R. Hill, Ph.D., February 2004)
OR - "Also on April 16, students in the Taft High School Culinary Arts
program will cook for a fund-raising
reception from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Chinook Winds Casino
and Convention Center."Newport
News Times 4/9/04
Over half of
14-to-18-year-old boys (54 percent) report that they have gambled for money,
according to new research by the Institute for Adolescent Risk
Communication of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University
of Pennsylvania. "Gambling among adolescent boys is a growing problem
that is largely being ignored by the public health community," said Dan
Romer, research director of the Institute for Adolescent Risk
Communication at the Annenberg Public Policy Center. (4/14/03 http://www.upenn.edu)
MO -
The
play area is lined with seven arcade machines. The kids play games
using quarters instead of tokens. One game is called "Cut the
Cheese
Potty." The object is to roll a quarter down a slide and into a toilet.
"Seven in a row to win jackpot," the machine beckons. Winners
get tickets they can redeem for prizes such as candy, stickers and
stuffed animals. The loot is on display at the same counter where day
care workers dole out nachos, hot dogs, slices of pizza, pretzels, pink
lemonade and soda at the Star Light Cafe. Parents can leave $3 with the
child to cover the cost of food. No milk is available.
(Riverport
casino child care center - Betting Magazine, 11/21/99)
South Africa - More than 70
parents have been banned from Durban's Suncoast casino in six months for neglecting and
abandoning their children. The children
were left unattended in the casino's premises by their gambling
parents and were picked up by security officials. Suncoast public
relations manager Evelyn Bramdeow said the extent of the ban depended
on the severity of the neglect. "When their parents can be located
almost immediately, we ban them for 24 hours. (Daily News, 6/17/03)
MI - Boy found
alone outside casino - A 10-year-old
boy who was found alone outside of the Greektown Casino has been
reunited with his mother, police say. Police
say that the boy's mother went to
the casino Saturday night to gamble. The boy was taken to
the police child abuse unit. (http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/934073/detail.html
8/26/01)
MO - On
the casino
floors,
hundreds of hidden cameras record all the action, from the amount of
chips a poker player bets to the numbers on the dice after each
roll. Casino
workers are subject to rigorous background checks before they're hired
and every year when their gaming licenses come up for renewal. Cashiers
and waitresses are led away in handcuffs for forgetting to pay a
traffic ticket or a citation for having overgrown weeds. But
the people watching the children get no such scrutiny. No cameras are
focused on the baby-sitting area or toddler playroom. Even parents are
barred from seeing the rooms behind a giant TV screen. They're not
allowed past a check-in counter. What isn't
shown is that one baby crib is kept in a back room amid packing boxes
and other supplies. In
addition, because the facility is not
licensed, no state regulators
ever inspect it or monitor what goes on inside. That means
there's no
oversight on everything from the nutritional content of snacks to
whether the staff is free of tuberculosis or other communicable
diseases. (Riverport
casino child care center - Betting Magazine, 11/21/99)
"The gambling industry is as
brazen as the
tobacco and alcohol industry. It's even more brazen," Citing the
move toward family entertainment among Las Vegas casinos, Ralph Nader
said, "the gaming industry knows its future depends
on addicting youngsters. The idea is that parents will feel
less guilty if they are subjected to family entertainment, and that the
next generation of gambling addictees must be given attention."
"Marketing practices of the gaming industry and other businesses," he
said, "amount to corporate abuse of
children." (Las Vegas Review Journal
6/13/98)
"Kids
Quest is
more than entertainment, it's 'edutainment!'" a casino pamphlet said.
But several participants who toured Kids Quest as part of the
Jan. 26-27 Casino Gambling Consultation here saw another
function: a training ground for
future casino consumers. "They
had strobe lights in Kids Quest to get the kids used to (a casino
environment)," said Esther Kniss, a member of Gulfhaven Mennonite
Church. "That depressed me." Another participant asked a child,
"Are you having a good time?" "No," the child replied, "I'm waiting for
my mother." (Grand
Casino promotes family values May 24, 1996, Gulfport, Miss., Mennonite
Board
of Missions)
"The
single most
important reason legal gambling has become so incredibly profitable and
popular ... is computerized video technology. This technology
has produced the most addictive form of gambling in history: video
gambling. For this reason, some people call video lottery terminals
(VLTs)—video slots, poker, keno, and other games—the 'crack cocaine'
of gambling." (Rhode
Island Hospital and Miriam Hospital's Lifespan" Research)
"The 'kiddie
casino'
issue first surfaced back in June ...
In other words, kids could blow their allowance in a room designed just
for them - a room where all the machines look, feel and sound just like
the
slots the grown-ups play." (Maine
Press Herald Editorial 10/31/03)
Pre-teen
addiction pattern is highly similar to cigarettes. Seventy-five
percent of compulsive gamblers' children reported their first gambling
experience before age 11 (Florida, Executive Office of Governor).
Children of compulsive gamblers are far more likely to smoke and abuse
drugs and alcohol (National Gambling
Impact Study, June,
1999, p.
4-13)
USA-
Last year,
Americans wagered $400 billion. And some of their kids - perhaps as
many as 7%, or 1.3 million - became pathologically hooked. In extreme
cases, they resorted to theft, drug dealing, even prostitution to
support the habit. Some became desperate. Clinical psychologist Durand
Jacobs found suicide rates twice as high among teens with gambling
problems. ( 'Teen Gambling; Hidden
habit, public problem, Unsigned
editorial/3.5.95/USA Today)
13.33%
of
American teenagers have gambling problem(Potenza, Marc,
Thomas
Kosten, and Bruce Rounsaville, “Pathological Gambling”, Journal of
the American Medical Association, July 11, 2001, Vol. 286, No. 2, p.
141)
Hidden
Suicides ... The victims are people like 19-year-old John
Lee, a St. Paul college student who, in a three-month period, won about
$30,000 at blackjack. Then he started losing ... he lost it all
in
one night. He returned home, put a shotgun to his head and killed
himself. (Readers Digest, April 1996)
Iowa
- Where a 19-year-old
college dropout, Jason Berg, shot himself to death in June
1994, despairing over a budding gambling habit. (Los
Angeles Times 6/22/97)
MN - Daniel Edwin Jones, (who was 18 at the
time) is
charged with third-degree murder for
allegedly providing the drugs that
killed16-year-old
Brittany Powell
of Coon Rapids. She died shortly after midnight Nov. 7, 2000, at
Fairview Ridges Hospital in Burnsville. Jones is also charged
with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for allegedly having
intercourse with Powell after the drugs had left her in a “physically
helpless state,” said Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom. Jones,
who no longer lives in Burnsville, is unemployed but is a member
of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux community and “receives substantial
income” from Mystic
Lake Casino
operations, Backstrom said. (This Week, June 27, 2003)
Studies conducted by the Connecticut Council on
Problem
Gambling suggest that teenagers are a particularly high-risk group for
compulsive gambling. Approximately 11.3 percent of
college-age adults are
known to have compulsive gambling problems, with a comparable rate for
high
school students, said Marvin Steinberg, executive director of the
organization. (Mohegan Sun, Connecticut, 9/30/03)
Surveys show that about 10% to 15% of
American and
Canadian youth have experienced gambling-related problems, and
1%
to 6% of these individuals may satisfy diagnostic criteria for
pathological
gambling. Additionally, children of problem gamblers have been shown to
be at a higher risk of developing health-threatening behaviors.
This includes alcohol and drug use, problem gambling, eating disorders,
depression
and suicide. (Oregon Department of Human Resources , 2003
Oregon
Problem
Gambling Awareness Week Community Resource Packet, page 69)
"Children of compulsive gamblers are often prone to
suffer abuse,
as well as neglect, as a result of parental problem or
pathological
gambling" (NORC, 1999)
Research consistently shows higher rates of
pathological gambling
in teens whose parents gamble too much (Gupta & Derevensky,
1997;
Jacobs, 2000; Wallisch & Liu, 1996; Winters, Stinchfield &
Fulkerson,
1993) (Setness, 1997)
Children of problem gamblers have higher levels of
use
for
tobacco, alcohol, drug use, and overeating than do their classroom
peers
(Gupta & Derevensky, 1997; Winters, Stinchfield & Fulkerson,
1993)
Children of problem gamblers experience twice the
incidence
of
broken homes (separation, divorce, death of a parent) before age 15.
(Jacobs,
1989)
Child endangerment and child abuse increase (NRC,
1999)
Child endangerment was exemplified in our state by the
September
2001 report of an Oregon licensed day-care provider who left three
children
(1, 2 and 3 years old) in a van for over 11 hours while she gambled
in a casino (Lawrence-Turner,
2001, September 15)
The NRC reported on two studies indicating between 10
and 17
percent of children of compulsive gamblers had been abused" (NRC,
1999)
Children of problem gamblers have more health and
emotional
problems.
Divorce, depression, substance abuse and other such issues are common
among
problem gamblers.
... in Oregon, children of parents who gamble are nearly
twice
as likely to be weekly or daily gamblers
than children whose parents don’t gamble (Carlson &
Moore, 1998)
(Oregon Department of
Human Resources , 2003 Oregon Problem
Gambling
Awareness Week Community Resource Packet)
NIAGARA FALLS
- Casino Niagara was fined
$62,500
yesterday because a 14-year-old girl
slipped by security and gambled
for about an hour last summer. While her 27-year-old brother was asked
for identification, the girl was able to enter the casino on Aug. 3.
The family, visiting from Pickering, passed by three security officers
and a security shift manager. Falls
Management Co., which operates the
casino, was
fined $50,000 plus a 25-per- cent surcharge after pleading guilty under
the Gaming Control Act of Ontario to permitting a minor to
gamble. Once inside, court heard, the girl played several
slot machines for about an hour before an alert cashier at a coin
redemption booth suspected the girl was underage. (10/24/03 - London Free Press)
Station
Casino
St. Charles got slapped with a $250,000 fine for
permitting a 12-year-old
to gamble. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch 3/12/97)
KANSAS
CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A southwest Missouri woman was sentenced to probation
for escorting her 16-year-old daughter to a Kansas City casino
and allowing her to gamble. Station Casino and Harrah's have been
fined $250,000 by the Missouri Gaming Commission for allegedly not
preventing the daughter from gambling. (St. Louis
Post-Dispatch
9/28/00)
A
Long
Island teen who had a "death wish" because of a $6,000 World Series gambling
debt used a $1.75 toy gun to force cops
to shoot and kill him, police said yesterday. (New York
Post
11/16/98)
Pergament,
depressed over $6,000 in gambling debts, got himself shot Friday
night by threatening officers with what turned out to be a toy gun,
police said. They call it "suicide by co-- and say they've seen
it
before. (The Associated Press 11/17/97)
9/5/03
- Experts say more than half of the nation's adolescents are now
gambling in some form, about one-third on a weekly basis. More
shocking, they
say, is the rate of youths with serious gambling problems, a number two
to three times higher than that of adult gamblers ... addiction
specialists
say the earlier children start gambling, the more difficult it will be
for them later in life to responsibly deal with the gambling industry.
Jeffrey Derevensky, co-director of Youth Gambling International
... "Gambling has become the new rite of passage," he said. "Instead of
going to the
bar when you get old enough, you go to the casinos." Derevensky
estimates that between 65 and 80 percent of North American high school
students
gamble in some form. Even more troubling, a 1999 National Research
Council
study reported between 4 and 7 percent of adolescents have a
serious
gambling problem, more than double the rate for adults.(The
Sun Herald, 9/5/03, By
Ashante Dobbs and Carrie Seim)
Child Abuse Caused by
Gambling
NY - A Brocton father was arrested after leaving
his 2 1/2-year-old son in a car parked outside the Seneca Nation bingo hall in Brant for an
hour while he gambled inside Thursday afternoon, according to
the Erie County Sheriff’s Office. The boy was sweating profusely
when he was pulled from the sweltering 2004 Jeep Cherokee, but
he was sent home after an evaluation in Lake Shore Hospital in Irving,
the Sheriff’s Office said Friday. The father, Jose Morales, 29, of
Pullman Street, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child,
said Dennis Rankin, chief of police
services for the Sheriff’s Office. Deputies know that the
boy was
alone in the car for 65 minutes because Morales checked in
with a card provided to frequent bingo hall gamblers when he entered
the building, Rankin said. (Gambling
with a child's life, 9/15/07)
A 4-year-old boy was left in a car
unattended in subzero weather while his father gambled inside Mystic Lake Casino. The
boy was suffering from mild hypothermia and faced dire physical
consequences had he not been discovered, authorities said. Olson added
that such incidents at Mystic Lake happen "a few times a year, but not
all the time." A
casino patron found the boy wandering in the parking lot, police said.
The temperature was minus-7 degrees with a minus-22- degree windchill
at the time. . (Father charged
with endangering son, 2/9/07)
WI - Prosecutors have charged a Neenah woman
with a misdemeanor count of child neglect after they say she left her nine-month-old
child in her car while she gambled at a casino. According to
a criminal complaint, 40-year-old Julie Boone visited the North Start Casino in Bowler.
Authorities say the child was dressed in a long-sleeve top and was
covered with a crocheted blanket, but by the time deputies arrived, the
temperature had dropped to 37 degrees. (Woman
left baby in car while gambling, Wisconsin, 10/31/06)
NV - A 26-year-old
Gardnerville woman was arrested
Wednesday after casino security guards found a 2-month-old baby
and his 3-year-old brother locked in a car with the
air-conditioning and motor
running. Deputies were called to Carson Valley Inn at 2:10
p.m. by casino personnel who found the car in the lot with the motor
running, all the doors locked, the windows rolled up and the air
conditioner turned on. The children were in their car seats. (Mom
accused of leaving two tots in car, Minden, Nevada, 10/20/06)
IN - It was 9 degrees outside when the
Keisha Clark,
24, left her 16-day-old infant, 2-year-old daughter and
7-year-old son
in a car while she went into an East Chicago casino Feb. 19., police
said. The infant was discovered
unresponsive in the car about 1:30 p.m. that day, authorities said. The
baby was successfully revived and two other children in the car were
unharmed. (Woman
must take parenting classes, Crown Point, Indiana 9/2/06)
NJ - A Camden County couple accused of
leaving their 3-week-old son alone in a car in a casino
parking garage for several hours this weekend have been charged
with child abuse and child endangerment. Security personnel at Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino found
the child just before 1 a.m. Saturday after patrons reported seeing him
in the backseat of the car. The officers remained until the child's
parents - Jennifer Drake, 19, and Andrew Delano, 21, both of Clementon
- returned to the car around 4 a.m. (Couple
charged over child left in car, 9/2/06)
OR - Bonnie says she'd played bingo throughout
her life but that her
compulsive gambling began with video poker. Within two months,
Bonnie says, she was stealing her son's allowance
and paying frequent visits to her bank's cash machine. She'd return
bottles to the grocery store just to
get money to gamble. Three times she sold her blood plasma. (Oregon to offer inpatient treatment,
7/23/06)
OK - A Keefeton woman is
being given probation after pleading guilty to leaving her 2-year-old
granddaughter locked in a pickup truck last August while she
gambled inside a casino. Loretta Webb was given a two-year deferred
sentenced and fined 200 dollars for leaving the child inside the locked
pickup while she played slot machines at the Creek
Nation Travel Plaza. (Woman pleads
guilty to leaving child in truck while gambling, June 2006)
NV - Two
children were rescued Friday afternoon from a sweltering vehicle by
Budweiser delivery men who noticed them locked inside, crying and one
of them bleeding in a casino parking lot. McDonald said when they looked inside the dark
tinted windows of a GMC Jimmy they saw a little girl with her nose
bleeding and a baby boy in a car seat "covered in sweat." Ernestina Leon, 44, was arrested on suspicion of
two counts of gross misdemeanor child endangerment and neglect and two
counts of misdemeanor leaving a child unattended in a vehicle. Leon was
baby-sitting the children while their mothers worked.
(Children
pulled from hot car, 4/29/06)
OK - Loretta Webb of Muskogee, accused of
leaving her 23-month-old grandchild in
a hot vehicle while she played the slot machines at a tribal casino,
will stand trial. (Woman
to stand trial for child neglect, 4/14/06)
CA - Sycuan Indian Reservation - Sheriff's
detectives are investigating after a (6-month-old) child died
yesterday, apparently while waiting in a car with his father outside Sycuan Casino while the mother was inside.
The cause of death was unknown. (2/16/06 - Baby dies in vehicle
waiting at casino)
Australia - Punted principal left $31,000
gambling bill - A
battling primary school is being
forced to repay the debts of a gambling-addicted principal who
stole from it. Glen Devon Primary School in Werribee lost more than
$31,000 to former principal Lisa Trowell's pokies (slot machines)
habit. Now the school
has been forced to pare extra-curricula programs it would otherwise
have offered students, such as arts programs, because it is
cash-strapped. (11/5/05 http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17206960%255E2862,00.html)
OK - Gambling grandma, ... Loretta Lynn Webb,
43, went to
the Creek
Nation Travel Plaza in Muskogee and left her 23-month-old granddaughter locked in
a pickup with outside temperatures
reaching 88 degrees. ... Police said Webb won $265 while in the
plaza, but we know no amount of money would have been worth the loss of
her granddaughter. This incident adds a new dimension to the problems
that can result from gambling. Not only will some people spend money in
casinos instead of purchasing things their children need, but they will
tell their small children to wait in the car patiently while they go
get a soft drink and then not come out for a long time because they
were ambushed by a slot machine. (8/26/05 Gambling Grandma should know better)
Tokyo - A six-month-old
baby died in Japan after her mother left her in a car in the
summer heat to play slot games and did
not even return during a major earthquake, police said on
Thursday. Police arrested Saori Konno, 27, for allegedly causing her
daughter's death by leaving her in the car without air conditioning for
two and a half hours on Tuesday in the northern city of Ichinoseki. The
mother was half an hour into her game when an earthquake registering
7.2 on the Richter scale hit, but she did not return to the car, a
police spokesperson said.
(8/18/05 - Gambling mom charged with baby's death)
NV
- A
mother and her boyfriend are facing
felony murder and child neglect
charges in the death of a two-year-old
girl found in squalor last month in a Las Vegas trailer home. Adacelli
Snyder weighed just 11 pounds
when she died June 29th. Authorities say
she starved to death, and she had sores and insect bites on her
body. Adacelli
was born with cerebral palsy, and authorities say she and two sisters
between the ages of two and five were found in a northeast Las Vegas
trailer full of rotting garbage, human waste and vermin. Police
say the mother, 28-year-old Charlene Snyder, and her boyfriend,
25-year-old Jack Richardson, spent
the child's state disability checks
on gambling. The other girls and Richardson's
one-year-old son are in Clark County custody. Information from: Las Vegas
Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com (Mother,
boyfriend face murder charges in death of Las Vegas girl, 8/10/05)
Canada - Linda Resmini, a former nursing
administrator at
McMaster
Children's Hospital, was sentenced to two years in prison this week
after stealing $1,030,000 from a fund
for newborns in need of
reconstructive surgery for cleft lips and palates. The
provincial
agency that owns Casino
Niagara
... But Teresa Roncon of Ontario Gaming and Lottery Corp., the
casino's owner, says casino officials had no idea Resmini was playing
with stolen funds and the agency is not required to make restitution. (Children's fund blown in
casino should be repaid, say gambling foes, 5/4/05)
NM - "I deal with that all the time," Salazar
said. "It's sad when I have to go and evict a family because ... the
single parent who lives in the home has spent all the family income at the casino
and they don't have any food and they can't pay their utilities, much
less their rent. "It's kind of hard for me to go home and sleep at
night when I know there are young children who don't have a place to
sleep." (City officials see gambling's dark side
1/7/05)
AU - Criminals are recruiting problem gamblers
to use as
"shoppers" in a major fraud scheme aimed at Brisbane retailers.
Gamblers, mostly young people in
their teens or early twenties, are loaned money to pay their
debts but are then told there is a simpler
way to repay the money. They are provided with airline tickets
to Brisbane and false credit cards and identification to enable them to
buy goods. (11/18/04 http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11418743%255E3102,00.html
)
NZ
- A 25-year-old mother and a 41-year-old grandmother will
appear in the
Christchurch District Court after a distressed girl was found wandering
around a casino car park. It
is alleged the women drove from North Canterbury last night, parked
their car leaving a six-year-old girl
asleep in it and went to the(Christchurch)
Casino. (10/13/04 http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=43994&c=w)
MS - Mom faces neglect charges after child
hit - A
Hancock County woman faces neglect charges after she is accused of going gambling and leaving her 3-year-old son home alone to be hit
by a car. Thuvan Huynh, 39, is being held on $150,000 bond at the
Hancock County Jail. She is charged with three counts of felony
neglect, Sheriff Steve Garber said. The woman allegedly left the boy
and two other children alone at their mobile home Saturday to go to Casino
Magic in Biloxi.
Huynh's 5-year-old daughter
then tried to walk the boy and the woman's 3-month-old third child to their
father's house when the boy was struck by the vehicle. (8/16/04,
Waveland, MS, http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040816/NEWS01/408160361/1002
)
WI - Surprise money from son clears mother's
gambling debt
- Waukesha - A woman who ran up gambling
debts of $6,100 on credit cards she took out under her son's name while he was on a
tour of
duty with the U.S. Army in Iraq
has been placed on probation for the crime and the debt has been paid
by her son. (6/1/04,Milwaukie
Journal Sentinal)
IL - Through a freedom of information request,
ABC7 News has obtained the most recent statistics on unattended
children at casinos. The Illinois Gaming Board says there have
been 68
such cases since 2000. In Indiana, there are many more -- 215 since
1999. Horseshoe Casinoin Hammondhas reported 33 children left
unattended -- the highest number in our area. The
Empress
in
Joliet
follows with 19 incidents in the past
three years. Child welfare
experts say it is abuse and should be prosecuted. (ABC
Channel 7, Chicago May 15, 2003)
MN - A 4
1/2-month-old baby was left alone at a casino
hotel
for several hours, and child endangerment charges are possible
against the parents, authorities said Monday. (Prior
Lake, Minn. 1/4/00.)
IL - McHenry man
faces two child endangerment charges for allegedly leaving his two
small children in his van while gambling at an Elgin riverboat.
Christopher J.Duca, 36, 5413 Euclid Ave.McHenry, was arrested Tuesday
by Elgin Police.At about 6:30 p.m.security at the Grand
Victoria Casino
noticed
a 1-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl
sitting inside a locked white
van alone and strapped into their car
seats. (McHenry, Illinois, 5/16/03)
IA - After
consuming Cognac and beer at the hotel-casino in (Meskwaki
Casino) Tama, Iowa, Joy
decided to go for a drive. She took
her
two year old daughter, Tyra, with her in the vehicle. She placed
Tyra
in her safety seat. There was snow and ice on the ground at the
time
and Joy lost
control of her car while going around a curve.
The car left the roadway and struck a telephone pole. Tyra was
thrown
from her car seat and
suffered a fractured skull and
a collapsed lung. She
was airlifted to
the hospital, placed on a ventilator, and
remained in intensive care for over a week.
Joy admitted she was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the
accident. A blood test at the time of
the accident showed Joy had a .109 alcohol concentration. (State of Iowa v. Brienne Laree Joy, Iowa
Court of Appeals decision 6/9/04)
Bradford, England - A British father who has sold his 15-year-old daughter for
£15,000 to
pay off his gambling debts is being investigated by police.The girl,
who lives in Bradford, contacted West Yorkshire Police three
weeks ago to tell them that she had been sold and was to be sent abroad
to be married to her new "owner". (5/9/04, News
Telegraph,)
NM - A 15-year-old girl who was abducted from the parking lot
of the Big
Rock Casino in Espanola and raped is suing the casino.
Attorney Merit Bennett says the casino
was negligent in not providing adequate security or lighting in the
parking lot. Bennett
says such measures could have
helped prevent the February 2003 abduction.
He says casino parking lots must be
patrolled. Bennett
also says casino officials refused to
help the girl’s
mother look for her daughter, who was at the casino to have
dinner with family. The
lawsuit alleges the girl, then 14,
was abducted after three males invited her to listen to a CD in a
vehicle. (3/27/04 KOB-TV, New
Mexico http://kobtv.com
)
12% of
18 to
29-year -olds say gambling has been aproblem for someone in their
family. (Gallop
Poll,
March 24, 2004)
Australia - A report is being prepared for the
Department
of Family and Youth Services after a three-month-old
girl was left in a car in Adelaide's south yesterday afternoon
while her father was inside a hotel, gambling. The publican of
the Port Noarlunga Hotel was forced to use a spanner to smash his way
into the car to free the girl who was distressed in the warm
conditions. (3/21/04 -http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1070325.htm)
MS - A Gulfport woman is in the Hancock County
jail on
felony
child abuse charges after she allegedly
left a 3-year-old relative in her car for about five hours while
gambling at a local casino. (The
Sun
Herald, Mississippi, 11/17/03)
OR -
- A
licensed day-care provider left three toddlers in a van at Spirit
Mountain Casino while she gambled for 11 hours Thursday,
authorities said. The two boys and a girl, ages 1, 2, and 3, were found soaked, soiled
and dehydrated."
(Statesman Jounral, Salem, OR, 9/15/01) Last
Thursday Zelda Luann Schmid, age 27, allegedly left the
children, ... strapped in their car seats as she
gambled at Spirit Mountain casino for nearly 11 hours. ("Woman
Gambles 11 Hours While
Children Left in Van, KPTV/Sept. 2001, Oregon)
NV -
Moments
before his trial was to begin, 19-year-old
Jeremy Strohmeyer pleaded guilty Tuesday to kidnapping, murder, and
sexual assault charges in the death of 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson
at a Nevada
casino in
May 1997. (CNN.com,
9/9/98)
CO -
Central
City, CO
reported six times more child protection cases the year after
casino gambling was introduced. (Long, Patrick, Jo Clark,
and Derek
Liston, “Win, Lose, or Draw?”, The Aspen Institute, 1994, p.54)
NE - The
record shows that in August 1996, Adrian was charged with child
endangerment after leaving one of his daughters, then age 2, locked in a car while he
gambled at a casino riverboat. (Nebraska Court of Appeals, May 27, 2003)
Children
of
problem gamblers are more likely to do poorly in school,
have substance abuse problems, eating disorders, gambling problems, and
depression (National
Gambling Impact Study, June, 1999, p. 7)
MO -
Mom lost eleven
children in a deadly house fire in 1981. She
had left the children home alone (10 months to 11 years old) while she
was out gambling with their father in St. Louis. In the two decades
since
the fire, she has had six more children. Gambling lies near the center
of
most of the mom's problems. She loses consistently and often uses
her
children's public assistance money and checks for their various medical
disorders to gamble, her children said. Consequently, she and her
children
have frequently been homeless. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch
3/26/01
By Denise Hollinshed)
IA -
Two
people from Illinois are accused of leaving two children in a van
while they went to Isle of Capri
Casino in Bettendorf, Iowa.
The children - ages two and six - were found by security guards in the
riverboat's parking garage on June 23rd. The windows were rolled
down and the keys were in the ignition. Temperatures that day were in
the
upper 80s to lower 90s. (The
Associated Press,
7/14/03,
Bettendorf,
Iowa)
According
to the
National Council of Compulsive Gambling, one in
four children of compulsive gamblers has behavioral or adjustment
problems in school, abuse alcohol and other drugs, runs away from
home or is arrested. (1/5/99 http://www.familyfirst.org)
MI -
A Michigan
City
woman already facing criminal charges for allegedly abandoning
her children outside Blue
Chip Casino
is accused of gambling away much
of her parents' life savings. Currently, Cabanaw has a felony child
neglect charge still pending for allegedly leaving her children,
ages 2 and 8 months, inside her car outside Blue Chip Casino in
December. (South Bend Tribune, 8/29/03)
Gaylon
told Perkins as she sat trembling in her counselor's office.
When asked what could compel her — a lifelong Mississippi Gulf
Coast resident, devout Southern Baptist, stay-at-home-mother
of five children — to give up everything for a hooker's life
on the street, Gaylon replied, "Satan can appear to be an angel
of light, and that's what those casino lights are for me." Gaylon
pondered placing her teenaged daughter in prostitution to gain more
gambling money.
(American
Family Association Paul Griffin Jones, II, Ph.D.
1.28.02
)
GA - A Georgia mother pleaded guilty to
involuntary
manslaughter
after her 10-day-old baby died of dehydration in a sweltering
parked car - while she played video poker for two hours in a South
Carolina Casino. (New York Daily News, February
22, 2003)
CA -
Last month,
the
union released a UCLA survey of 199 cooks, bartenders, janitors and
attendants at one of the Agua Caliente tribe's two Coachella
Valley
casinos that found that nearly half of the children of
casino floor
workers are enrolled in the state's Medi-Cal or Healthy Families
programs
for the poor. The report said the tribe saves about $1 million a
year by offering a family insurance plan that many employees said they
could
not afford. (LA Times, April 2, 2003)
NY -
The police
began
looking for him after questioning two girls — one 13, the other 15
— who were picked up in a sweep of prostitutes in the Bronx. The police
said that the girls told them that Mr. Bradley... had forced them
into prostitution. Mr. Bradley, was arrested...and was charged with
promoting prostitution and with raping the two girls. The police said
that when Mr. Bradley was arrested, he had 27 $5,000 chips from the Trump
Taj Mahal
Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. (Police Say Suspect Had
27 Stolen $5,000 Chips, Richard Lezin Jones/4.29.02, New York
Times)
NV-
Shannon said
prostitutes now flock to Las Vegas because they can make
$10,000 to $15,000 a week working on the Strip. And, many of
the those offering sex are children, Shannon said. Since 1994,
police have arrested 179 prostitutes under age 18, including two
12-year-olds, he said. (Detective predicts
success
for county's anti-prostitute zone" /Mike Zapler/10.22.97/Las Vegas
Review-Journal )
Toddler
left in
car while parents are in casino. Tunica County
sheriff's deputies were called to a casino parking lot early Saturday
morning,
where they found a child locked inside a hot car. The car had
Tennessee license plates. That's that's how Tunica County sheriff's
deputies were able to track down the parents who left their 3 year
old child alone while they did some gambling. It was at least
80 degrees when
someone found the child in the car at the Horseshoe
Casino
in Tunica.
(WMC TV, 8/16/03http://www.wmcstations.com/global/story.asp?s=1405297&ClientType=Printable)
IL - Dina
Abdelhaq
went on trial Friday on charges of insurance fraud, with federal
prosecutors alleging she suffocated her newborn daughter in 1995 in
an attempt to collect on a $200,000 life insurance policy. Fifteen
months before 7-week-old Tara Abdelhaq's death, another daughter of
the defendant, Lena, also died in her crib. Abdelhaq, 34, of Hickory Hills,
insists that both infants died from sudden infant death syndrome. But
in laying out the government's circumstantial case in opening remarks
to jurors, Assistant U.S. Atty. Ronald Safer said the odds of more than
one death in the same family from SIDS are one in a million. The one
thing both sides in the case agree on is that Abdelhaq had a gambling
addiction: Three days before Tara's birth, she was arrested on a
riverboat casino for passing bad checks, according to Safer. (Chicago
Tribune, Staff
Writer, January 23, 1999)
IL- A woman bent
on feeding her gambling addiction suffocated her 7-week-old daughter
to collect on a $200,000 life insurance policy, federal prosecutors
said. "She would do anything to get money with which to gamble -
including
the unthinkable,"..."(Feds: Mom Killed Over Casino Debt"
Associated
Press, AP/1.23.99/Las Vegas SUN)
... Seven
weeks later, Tara died of unexplained causes, and federal prosecutors
have charged that Abdelhaq suffocated Tara to collect the insurance
money to feed her out-of-control gambling addiction. ("SIDS
Trial Focuses on Baby's Life Insurance, Matt O'Connor/2.4.99/Chicago
Tribune) ("Gambler Receives 21 Years
in Connection with
Baby's Death," Copley News Service, October 23, 1999, Ed Bierschen
LA -- A man accused
of leaving his 13
month old son alone inside a sweltering minivan at Harrah's
Casino was jailed on
a felony charge.Joel Mesa, 23, of Bossier City. was arrested after
someone spotted the toddler strapped
in a car seat in the back of the van about
noon Sunday, police said. Outside temperatures at the time were in the
mid 90s. Mesa told police he had a gambling problem,
police reports showed. (Shreveport,
LA - Associated Press, July 22, 2001)
IN - Despite increased state oversight,
some 80 children have been left
unattended by parents or guardians at Indiana's 10 riverboat
casinos
during the last year and a half.
In one incident, a 13-year-old girl
had to have 27 stitches
after injuring herself in a casino hotel workout room. The adults had
left her and two friends to play by the pool while they gambled. (Courier
Journal, 1/3/02)
MI -
A
small-business owner, had just returned from a trip to the Las
Vegas Strip's MGM Grand Tuesday when he allegedly killed his
pregnant
wife and three children (under 7 years old) before turning the gun
on himself. In his Mich., home, police found a suicide note blaming
gambling addiction - and $225,000 in shredded casino markers. His
business was $500,000 in debt because he withdrew the money to cover
his
gamblling. (Las Vegas Sun 11/22/00 Las Vegas Review-Journal
11/23/00)
IL -
A
Naperville man wanted for questioning in the slaying of his ex-wife
crashed his sport-utility vehicle into a semi truck on a rain-soaked
road in rural Iowa Wednesday morning, killing himself and
his 6-year-old daughter. John Scherer's history of drinking
and gambling in part led to the collapse of his marriage, according
to divorce papers filed in Will County." Father, daughter die in crash
Manhunt for Naperville man wanted in wife's killing ends on slick Iowa
highway"(By Mike Cetera & John Zaremba/Daily Southtown,
7.11.02)
VA-
An 11-year-old
Herndon girl died yesterday after initially surviving the slayings of
her mother and brother and the suicide of her father, who
authorities now say had defrauded area banks of nearly $2 million and
had $10 million in gambling and other debts. Reha Ramachandran was
grazed by a bullet that struck the back of her head as her father,
Natarajan Ramachandran, killed his wife and 7-year-old son Sunday
night. Reha died yesterday afternoon at Inova Fairfax Hospital after
her brain swelled as a result of the injury. Sources familiar with the
investigation said that before his death, Ramachandran had written
nearly $2 million in
bad checks in an attempt to cover mounting debt totaling more than $10
million,
some of it from gambling losses at Atlantic City
casinos. "It
is
a sad day when the love of money and the fear of failure drives a man
to
destroy his entire family," said Lt. Bruce Guth, a Fairfax County
police
homicide investigator. " (Lone Survivor of Father's
Shootings
Dies"/Wendy
Melillo and Brooke A. Masters/8.6.98/Washington Post
)
CA -
The
survivor of
a stabbing in Mesquite will soon be leaving University Medical Center.
Meanwhile, videotape (This is surveillance video inside the Casablanca Casino
@
1:19 AM) from the confrontation between the
girl's mother and the stabbing suspects could help investigators
pinpoint what happened the night two little girls were stabbed.
10-year-old Brittany
Bergeron is improving. Her 3-year-old
half sister died in the
attack.
Although she is paralyzed from the
waist down..."(Mesquite
Casino Surveillance Video Released Holding Clues to Stabbings"/by Atle
Erlingsson/ klastv.com/1.31.03)
CA - A teenage murder
suspect told
police that he and
his sister stabbed two little girls
in Mesquite because he had been
ripped off in a drug deal by the girls' mother and her boyfriend,
authorities said Friday. Three-year-old Kristyanna Cowan died and her 10-year-old sister,
Brittney Bergeron, was left paralyzed
in the 2 a.m.
Wednesday attack in a trailer at the Casa Blanca
hotel-casinorecreational vehicle park where they lived
with
Bergeron and Schmidt. Bergeron and
Schmidt were in
the casino at the time. (Sign on San Diego, January 24, 2003)
LA -
A two-year-old
boy died after his baby sitter left him
in a van to play video poker. (Times-Picayune,
4.12.97)
WI - The man accused of
leaving
his child in a
freezing cold car so he could go gamble was charged Friday with child
neglect and possession of drug paraphernalia. Police
said Bruce Clausing left his 5-year-old
daughter in a
cold parking lot while he gambled inside Potowatomi
Bingo
Casino. (http://www.themilwaukeechannel.com/news/1949979/detail.html
, 1/31/03)
GA -
A 10-day-old
baby left inside a car died while her mother gambled in a casino.(The Associated
Press, 9.4.97)
IN -
Westville,
Ind., woman whose 2-month-old daughter was found unconscious in her
car while she gambled. "Children often left alone at Indiana
casinos" (By Grace Schneider/The
Courier-Journal/1.3.02)
MT -
Officers
discovered a 3-week-old baby in the car, which had been parked
in the sun. The mother, 27-year-old Angela Lauber of Bigfork, allegedly
left the babygirl in the car for more than an hour while she gambled
inside the casino. Officers said Lauber had, in fact, gambled
with her daughter's life, as temperatures Wednesday topped 80 degrees.
Temperatures inside a car on such a day can exceed 150 degrees...
(Bigfork
woman leaves baby in hot car"/Missoulian/ 7.11.02)
NV - A dead
baby was
found in
a trash bin at the Harrah's
Las Vegas on
Monday, just a day before the Assembly examines legislation designed to
prevent such incidents. (Las Vegas Review Journal, May 22, 2001)
NC -
man
arrested after locking his 2-year-old and 4 year-old in a car
while he gambled. (The Associated Press/9.4.97)
NC
mother left
her 6-month-old daughter in a locked car while she gambled.
(The Associated Press, 9.4.97)
WA - Auburn police
say a mother
spent three hours inside Freddie's
Casino,
leaving her 13-day-old baby
girl alone in a car in the casino's
parking lot. (Auburn,
Washington, KOMO-TV, July 19, 2002)
WI -
A
man was charged with leaving his 5-year-old daughter alone
in an unheated car in 5-degree weather while he gambled at
Potawatomi
Bingo Casino. (Milwaukie, Man charged with
leaving girl
in unheated
car outside casino"/Las Vegas Sun/1.28.03)
The National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported:
"Children of compulsive gamblers are often prone to suffer abuse,
as well as neglect, as a result of parental problem or pathological
gambling. " (National Gambling Impact Study
Commission (NGISC)
Final Report, June 1999, p. 7028)
VA - On July 9, a Virginia woman was arrested
after leaving six
children inside a sport-utility vehicle while gambling at the Caesars
casino in Harrison County. (Las Vegas Sun, July 18, 2000)
IN - The one Indiana case in which a child
suffered trauma
occurred
in May 1999 at the Blue
Chip Casino
in Michigan City. Diane Simac
of Westville was arrested and charged with child neglect after
leaving her 3-month-old daughter
in a locked car with the windows
rolled up. The infant was revived after receiving oxygen. (Las Vegas Sun, July 18, 2000)
IN - The Louisville Courier-Journal said its
review of
Indiana Gaming
Commission records found approximately 72
children were left
unattended in the 37 episodes since
May 1999, when the state first
began compiling such information. (Las Vegas Sun, July 18, 2000)
IN - In Indiana, a review of the state's gaming
commission
records revealed that 72 children were found abandoned on casino
premises during a 14-month period. (Grace Schneider,
"Children
Being Left Alone While Parents Gamble," Louisville Courier-Journa, July
18, 2000)
Children have died as a direct result of adult gambling
problems. In Louisiana and South Carolina, children died after being
locked in hot cars for hours while their caretakers gambled.
(Joe
Darby, "Sitter Indicted in Toddler's Death," New Orleans
Times-Picayune, May 23, 1997, p. B1; "Police: Baby Died of Dehydration
in Car While Mom Gambled in Casino," AssociaTed Press, September 2,
1997.)
MI - Child neglect charges filed - A Marne man
was arrested
Saturday on charges of child
neglect after he and his pregnant
wife left a toddler in a carwhile
they gambled in the Little
River Casino,
state police
said. Police said the child was left in the car, which was not
running, for
up to 90 minutes until a patron noticed the 16-month-old crying
uncontrollably in the car and notified casino security. (The
Grand Rapids Press, 2/12/01)
CT - Cases of child abandonment at Foxwoods, the
nation's largest casino in Ledyard, Conn., became so commonplace that
authorities were forced to post signs in the casino's parking lots
warning parents not to leave children in cars unattended. (Stephanie
Saul, "Tribe Bets on Growth," Newsday, August 11, 1997)
A 10-year-old
boy and his dog were left alone in a vehicle Sunday while his parents
gambled at Blue
Chip Casino. ("Child left alone as man
gambles"/Nixon interactive/7.24.00)
IN - Four
children were left alone for at least four hours in a car parked at
Buffington Harbor. The mother of the children, ages 2, 3, 9 and 16, was
arrested late Tuesday after she emerged from one of the two casino
boats there.Police found the youngest children clad only in diapers,
crying because they were hungry and cold, police and
witnesses said. (Youngsters left alone in car as mother
gambles"/By
Steve Patterson, Gary, Indiana)
IN -
Then, in
July 2000 -- after a Virginia woman was charged with leaving six
children inside a hot car with the windows rolled down at Caesars. (Children
often left alone at Indiana casinos"/By Grace Schneider, The
Courier-Journal/1.3.02)
IN -
Those
incidents, coupled with others statewide, make a total of 38
separate incidents in which 73 children have been left alone while
adults gambled. (Casino official syas no children
allowed"/By
Rhonda E. Sobecki/Nixon Interactive/7.27.00)
GAFFNEY
-- A
Blacksburg woman has been arrested after police say she left her
two toddlers (3-year-old and a 1-year-old) outside a convenience
store while she played video gambling machines. "Woman
charged after toddlers left alone while she played video poker (By
The Associated Press/12.15.98)
IN -
A day after
she left five kids alone in a car in a casino parking
lot, Rena Hitchcock walked out of the city jail. (Mother
who
left kids in car while she gambled is released without charges"/By
Steve Patterson/9.16.00, Gary, Ind.)
LA -
A Houma
woman left her 12-year-old daughter and the girl's friend stranded
outside The Esplanade mall in near-freezing weather while she
gambled into the early hours of the morning at the Treasure
Chest
casino, Kenner police said. (Kids left in cold
while mother gambles"/The Times-Picayune/12.25.98)
LA -
SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) -- A woman was arrested on two felony counts
of cruelty to a juvenile after she allegedly left two children in
a car with the windows rolled up while she played video poker.
(Children abandoned in car while woman plays
poker"/The
Associated Press/7.26.00)
RI -
NEWPORT --
A 33-year-old Massachusetts man was charged with child neglect Thursday
after he allegedly left his 6-year-old daughter alone in an unlocked
car while he was in Newport Grand Jai Alai for almost two hours. (Man
accused of leaving girl in car at Jai Alai"/by Scott Mayerowitz,
projo.com-news.html, 11.4.01)
IA -
A Maxwell
woman left her three children (ages 3, 10 and 21 months) alone in a
car on New Year's Eve while she was inside Prairie Meadows
Racetrack and Casinoin Altoona, Polk County officials
allege. (Officers find three children in a vehicle in the
parking
lot."/By Tom Alex/ DesMoinesRegister/1.9.02)
MONTREAL
-- A
couple has been fined $85 for leaving an 11-month-old baby
alone in a parked vehicle while they gambled at the Montreal
Casino. (Gamblers fined for leaving baby"/Canio
Limited Partnership,
7.22.00)
Canada
- A
London father who left his nine-year-old son alone in a car at
night while he played the slots at Western
Fair says he's a
good dad and did nothing wrong. (Dad tells his side of story
about
leaving son in car"/By RANDY RICHMOND/The London Free Press/8.2.00)
New
Zealand -
Puao Faumuina left her baby in her car at Sky
City Casino's
underground
carpark and took a lift up to the gaming floor, promising herself she
would only spend a few minutes on the pokie Machines. More than three
hours later she was still gambling and 7-week-old Neva - left
unchecked in the suffocating heat of the car - was severely
dehydrated. Ms Faumuina later tried to kill herself. (Casino's
pull
and
a near tragedy, By Tony Wallin, NZ Herald/12.22.01)
IT'S
NOT JUST CHILDREN THAT ARE
BEING ABUSED
IN - In addition, two
elderly women with mental disabilities were left alone in cars
while relatives gambled. The most recent involved a 91-year-old woman whom police
found,
frightened and confused, trying to free herself from the back seat of
her niece's sedan at the Empress
Casino
parking garage in
Hammond. (Courier
Journal, 1/3/02)
OR - "Kids
enjoy the inflatable slide during casino festivities." "... a
play area
complete with an inflatable slide entertained
kids." "Kids play during outdoor activities
before the ceremonial blessing." ("Tribes hold blessing and
casino preview" Siuslaw News, Florence, Oregon, 6/23/04) 