Annapolis, USA - In church sermons and rallies of the faithful throughout Maryland this month, religious leaders were hitting hard on the social problems they say state-sponsored slot machine gambling would bring to local communities.
Supporters of the Nov. 4 ballot measure to legalize slots acknowledge the social costs but say the economic benefits to the state's public schools outweigh the potential problems.
If the experience with slots in neighboring Delaware is any guide, the debate won't end after the votes are counted next week in Maryland.
In the 14 years since Delaware lawmakers legalized slots at three racetracks, the impact has been mixed. The number of calls to the state's gambling-addiction help line has swelled, but law enforcement officials say there has not been the surge in crime predicted by slots opponents.
Along with a dizzying mix of bells and beeping and flashing lights, the thousands of slot machines in Delaware's casinos display the phone number for the state-funded help line, initiated with the introduction of slots in the mid-1990s. Almost immediately, the nonprofit group that runs the call center began hearing from people who previously visited Atlantic City maybe once a year and were now, with slots at a nearby racetrack, gambling on a lunch break or after work.
"One thing I know for darn sure is that within six weeks, we were inundated with calls from people who said they'd never had a problem before but they were hooked on slots. They got hooked on slots here," said Elizabeth Pertzoff, executive director of the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems.
Calls for help more than tripled, from 1,400 in 1997 to 4,540 the next year, but Pertzoff said she does not want to overstate a problem that affects a small percentage of the population. She said it is difficult to put a number on the social costs or to make a direct link to crime. The criminal cases she knows of have been subtle, such as embezzlement from civic associations or lawyers' skimming from the trust accounts of clients.
Pertzoff is more concerned about the personal cost to the addicts and their families of suicide, divorce and bankruptcy. Unlike alcohol, she said, "you don't even get enough of it that you pass out for a while. You run out of money, and the craving is still there. It is a devastating addiction."
Of Delaware's share of gambling profits, about 1 percent, or $1.7 million in fiscal 2008, goes to help problem gamblers. Pertzoff's organization has grown from two in-house employees to nine. There are also 17 contract counselors and five prison-based programs.
Before slots arrived at Delaware Park, Dover Downs and Harrington Raceway, there was talk that gambling would bring organized crime, prostitution and other troubles to the surrounding neighborhoods.
"None of the above," said Col. Thomas Mac Leish, Delaware State Police superintendent, who was the officer in charge of the video lottery enforcement unit from 1998 to 2001. "There are no numbers that leap off the board that are indicative of a rise in crime."
Scanning categories of crime through the years, Mac Leish did not see trends directly connected to slots. A doubling of incidents of disorderly conduct near Dover Downs from 1995 to 2006, for instance, he attributed to the nearly 200,000 people who descend on Dover for NASCAR weekends.
"It just means there's a larger population of people," he said.
During the same period, the number of auto thefts was cut nearly in half.
About 15 miles from the Maryland border, a rural two-lane road opens up to a six-lane strip of chain restaurants and the newly renovated Dover Downs Hotel and Casino, with upscale shopping, restaurants and a full-service spa.
At businesses along North Dupont Highway, views of slots' arrival are mixed. To Judy Diogo, president of the Central Delaware Chamber of Commerce, slot machine gambling has been a "tremendous boost" to the economy, making Dover a destination. "Because of their success with slots, they've been very generous to the community," she said.
One mile south of the casino, Earl West Jr. said he has seen all kinds in more than 20 years at Dover Jewelry and Pawn Exchange but a "bigger slice of poorer people, and a lot are involved in slots." Slots have been good for business after an initial drop-off, West said, but he has seen too many people lose their homes and jobs. He doesn't play.
"People are chasing a dream," West said. "If it were rich people losing money, I wouldn't mind it."
Inside the casino atrium, adorned with columns and fancy tile, George and Rose Countiss have arrived from Southern Maryland with a budget of about $100 each for "a little fun" to celebrate Rose's 69th birthday. But the Countisses intend to vote against their state's slots ballot proposal.
"They claim it's going to help schools, and it might, but the poor people are the ones who support these things," said George Countiss, a retired contractor who works as a supervisor at a Sam's Club warehouse store. "I have control, and I can afford what I'm doing."
Government and academic reports on the community impact of gambling tell conflicting stories, depending on underlying assumptions and the location of the casinos studied. After interviewing law enforcement officials in 14 states, former Maryland attorney general J. Joseph Curran Jr. warned in a 1995 report: "It is simply a fiction to delude ourselves that it is possible to have casinos without more crime."
Curran's report was written before Delaware or West Virginia had any significant experience with slots. More recently, Maryland Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez went on fact-finding missions to those states and to Pennsylvania. Perez, one of the state's leading pro-slots voices, found that slots "do not appear to have instigated an increase in crime."
Moreover, Perez took issue with the assertion that slot machine gambling is a "poor man's tax," noting that officials at West Virginia's Charles Town venue reported that Montgomery County is its most lucrative Maryland market.
"They aren't busing in immigrants from Langley Park. They are targeting middle-income retirees from Leisure World in Montgomery County who have disposable income," he said.
If Maryland's slots proposal is successful next week, it would allow 15,000 machines at five locations. Most Maryland residents would live within 20 miles of one of the sites, according to researchers at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Their report, released this month, also noted that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found in 1999 that the presence of a casino within 50 miles doubled the number of problem and compulsive gamblers.
The UMBC report, paid for by opponents of slots, put a price tag on the social cost in Maryland: $228 million to $627 million a year. The study found that bankruptcy and divorce might rise with the increase in problem gamblers and that gambling addictions disproportionately affect African Americans and other minority groups.
The social and moral costs are what concern the coalition of Maryland religious leaders who are leading the opposition to slots. The Rev. Byron Brought, a pastor at Calvary United Methodist Church in Annapolis, is offended by the "predatory and deceptive nature" of gambling. "They prey on the poor people, people who are desperately looking for a chance to make money," he said.
Maryland's legislation acknowledges the problems associated with gambling by requiring operators to pay an annual fee per machine into a problem gambling fund that could bring in $6.4 million a year. But Perez said neither side has a monopoly on the moral high ground because without the anticipated revenue, an estimated $660 million a year, state programs would have to be cut.
"I respect the view that there are social costs," he said. "But there are social costs to a $600 million hole."