FACTS

PREDATORY ADVERTISING

One casino proudly displays a billboard proclaiming:

We think truth in advertising rules, if they applied to casinos, would require the disclaimer:

"AS SOON AS YOU CASH IN THOSE BONDS YOU WERE SAVING
FOR THE GRANDKIDS"

---

Recent Poll shows 23% of NJ seniors have gambling problem, spend 3 to 6 times more in casinos - A poll released today found 23 percent of New Jersey senior citizens have gambling disorders. The poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University and The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey found 75 percent of state residents aged 55 and older gamble, with one in four answering affirmatively to standard psychiatric questions about gambling, such as whether they feel shame about gambling or use gambling to escape personal problems. John Schiemann, director of the university's PublicMind Poll, said the percentage means 340,000 New Jersey senior citizens might suffer from a gambling problem. The survey found senior citizens with gambling problems spend $14,300 per year in casinos and $1,160 per year on lotteries. (6/15/06)
Report ; Tables/Data ; Background Memo (Onsite copy)

Seniors Are Prime Targets for Predatory Casinos

Casino developers persist in saying that casino merely present fun and games.
To that claim we say, who is having the fun, and who is playing the games?
And who is being made to pay the lasting costs for these fun and games?

Casinos prey on seniors

"I have concluded that the casino business has much in common with the tobacco business. Both profit by exploiting people's inability to limit consumption of the product. Like tobacco companies, casinos cynically make their biggest profits off the poor souls who cannot stop once they start. Casinos are fundamentally predatory.

Indian casinos employ a diabolically effective business model. They fix the odds at the slot machines so that on average for every dollar a customer bets, he or she gets back about 85 cents. It is, of course, highly profitable to take in $1 bills and give people 85 cents back day-in, day-out. (The phrase that comes to mind is "Heads I win; tails you lose.)" Brett Duval Fromson

Casinowatch Excerpts

Excerpts from articles illustrating the extent of casinos' predatory tactics - and the devastating results for our seniors.

* Casinos Market to the Elderly
* Casinos Provide Cheap Buffets, Coupons and Drug Discounts
* Casinos Bus the Elderly from Nursing Homes and Retirement Centers
* Casinos Take the Elderly's Homes, Cash for Food and Medicine
* Casinos Cater to Elderly Illnesses and Handicaps
* Casinos Make Money off the Very People Who Can Least Afford It
* Five to Ten Percent of Elderly Gamblers Will Become Addicted
* Study of Elderly Women Revealed That They Gambled 249% of Monthly Income
* Gambling Addicted Elderly Stop Taking Medications, Steal Money, or Even Skip Meals
* The Elderly Gamble in Wheelchairs, on Gurneys, with Walkers, Canes and Oxygen Tanks
* The Elderly Fall into Financial Ruin and Bankruptcy
* The Elderly Cannot Get a Job or Start Over
* The Family Becomes Responsible for the Addicted Elderly
* The Addicted Elderly Commit Suicide
* The Elderly are Victims of Addicted Gamblers
* State Governments Have Brought Gambling Into Nursing Homes

 You are visitor No. 36,000 and

• Popular Parkinson's drug linked to gambling
  
  

• Casino Watch Cartoon
  Pictures speak louder than words

• Gambling Poses Dangers for Seniors
  "At their age, they have little hope of recovering from their financial loses," Fowler said. Some seniors, destitute and humiliated, have committed suicide.

• Older Adult Gambling in Oregon
  An epidemiological survey of gambling and problem gambling among Oregonian adults 62 years and older. (Moore, 2001)

• NCALG - National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling

• Newfangled Slots
  As one old Las Vegas hand put it, the country's casinos are now providing "day care for the elderly."