Gambling problems now more prevalent than drinking problems

From our friends at the Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation:

In a study published in this month’s Journal of Gambling Studies, gambling problems were discovered to be more common than alcohol problems among adults in the U.S. Dr. John Welte, a national expert on alcohol and gambling pathology at the University of Buffalo, also concluded that problem gambling increases in frequency during adolescence and reaches its highest levels during the 20s and 30s.

But here is what makes this latest news even more significant: the nation’s high rate of problem gambling is a direct result of the government’s policy to promote and partner with casinos and lotteries.

In 2008, McDonald’s made national headlines when they stopped serving sliced tomatoes everywhere in the country after a handful of customers got sick in an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. Yet government, in its partnership with casino interests, are offering the public slot machines which no one denies are making millions of people sick in a way that is reducing many of their lives to nothing.

This latest study provides further evidence why government’s partnership with casinos and lotteries represents one of the biggest public policy failures of the last fifty years. The time has come to get government out of the predatory gambling business.

CLICK HERE to read the full study (PDF format).

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