Program Item Details
TITLE: Dr. Garry Smith, Gambling Research Specialist, Alberta Gaming Research Institute
SUBJECT: #178 Alberta Gaming Research Institute
SYNOPSIS: Our views on gambling have undergone a remarkable transformation over the last three decades. Gambling researcher
Dr. Garry Smith introduces some ways in which science can inform public policy.
AUDIO: Download Audio (mp3 format)
TRANSCRIPT:
#178 October 11, 2005
Interview starts at 13:40
Intro: Over the past three decades, social perception of gambling has undergone a dramatic transformation, morphing from a sin into an amusement. And governments around the world are gaining large revenues from gambling. In Alberta, some of that money supports charities and scientific research. Dr. Garry Smith is a gambling research specialist with the Alberta Gaming Research Institute.
Dr. Garry Smith
GS: Well it’s a consortium of three Alberta universities, the University of Alberta, University of Calgary and University of Lethbridge. Our focus is to study gambling and all of its ramifications, the good, the bad, and the impacts it has on people and communities. And to learn more about it and to develop the best public policy that we can around gambling and to educate Albertans about it.
CC: HOW DOES THIS DIFFER FROM PERHAPS SOME OTHER INSTITUTES ACROSS THE COUNTRY?
GS: In terms of gambling related ones, we focus on the subject of gambling in its entirety. Virtually all of the other ones study problem gambling which, of course, is a major facet of it, because you are looking at the downside to make sure that there’s a net benefit to society. So problem gambling is the major obstacle to that. But we focus on that certainly to some extent, but we look at gambling in general, the phenomenon and what it does, both good and bad for society.
CC: WHY IS IT THAT WE ARE SEEING THIS RISE OR INTEREST IN GAMBLING BECOMING SUCH A MAJOR FOCUS FOR GOVERNMENTS? THEY MAKE A LOT OF MONEY FROM IT NOW AND WE’RE SEEING GAMBLING INSTITUTES LIKE CASINOS, EVEN MORE HORSE RACING BEING ADVERTISING, WHY IS IT SUCH AN EXPANDING PHENOMENON?
GS: It’s expanded in the last about 35 years and its gone fairly quickly from being a “sin” , from a religious perspective, to a “vice” , most of it was illegal, to now, a “harmless amusement”. And you mentioned that in your question. It’s a way for the government to get money from relatively innocuous tax, at least from their point of view.
The reasons governments justify gambling is to keep the money in the province, because other jurisdictions are having gambling, and so they say, well rather than having money leaking out of the province, we should have it, to keep it here.
Also to prevent organized crime from running gambling, because there would always be gambling anyway. You can’t prohibit it, so better that we run it than they do.
Also as a way to fund worthy causes. Charities and non-profit groups get a fair bit of money from the gambling, as does the government and the gambling industry.
So those are the main reasons that government has turned to gambling as a fundraiser.
CC: WELL YOU CALLED IT GOING FROM A SIN TO A VICE TO A HARMLESS AMUSEMENT. THAT WOULD BE A PR PERSON’S DREAM IN TERMS OF BEING ABLE TO TURN THAT PERCEPTION AROUND. HOW HAVE THEY ACTUALLY DONE THAT?
GS: A lot of different ways. By aligning it with worthy causes, saying that, you may not like gambling all that much, BUT, the money is going to a helpful cause. It’s going to benefit your community with sports facilities. It’s going to benefit the Kidney Foundation or the Heart Foundation. These are worthwhile programs that we can’t fund out of general revenue. So gambling which is perceived by people indifferently may still have a taint to it, but at least the money is going to worthwhile causes.
The other way they do it is by using euphemisms to soften it. We call it gambling, but they call it gaming. That makes it you know, sound like it’s an innocuous thing. And for a large percentage of people, it is. But, a lot of people do get hurt by it and so does society.
We don’t talk about problem gaming. We talk about problem gambling. But the government likes to refer to it as gaming. They don’t want to talk about losses because the money that comes from gaming comes from people’s losses. They talk about revenue and sort of softer terms. So that’s one way they’ve softened the blow.
CC: WHEN IT COMES TO ADVISING ON PUBLIC POLICY, WHAT KINDS OF THINGS DO YOU BRING FORWARD BASED ON THE RESEARCH THAT YOUR INSTITUTE IS DOING?
GS: Well we know from studying gambling historically that it always been associated with cheating, with Illegal activities. That doesn’t mean there isn’t good gambling and that you can’t regulate it properly. You can, but you have to really watch it closely and regulate it tightly.
So from my point of view, knowing that historically, you should be ultra cautious when you introduce gambling and the regulations should be tight. And my belief is that we haven’t been cautious enough. We’ve introduced many new formats. Some of them are more addictive than others, particularly electronic gaming, which was outlawed until 1985, and then the Criminal Code of Canada allowed it. And that’s the form of gambling that’s causing the most problems right now. Most of the addicted people are electronic machine players.
And we didn’t exercise what they call “duty of care” there. And that is to study the phenomena, and the impact before we implement it and exercise the precautionary principle, which is ere on the side of caution. If you don’t know what harms it might cause, don’t introduce it until you are really sure about it.
So there’s duty of care and there’s responsibility by government. You don’t want to addict some of your citizens, you wouldn’t think. But that’s what happened by introducing electronic gaming machines.
So in terms of public policy, we think the government’s moved ahead too fast with too many formats, some dangerous ones. And their vision is clouded somewhat because they get money from it. And the lion’s share of their revenue comes from electronic gambling, so that’s a quandary for them. We make so much money from it. Yes, it does cause harm. What do we do? But it seems like many Canadian governments have put money ahead of people in this sense. And they’ll say well it’s only a small percentage that get hurt by this. And they’re adults. They should be responsible for this. We can’t babysit them.
But the problem is, addicts by definition are not responsible. They have this overwhelming urge to gamble and they’ve lost that control and the responsibility. Also, addicted gamblers supply a high percentage of the revenues. The 5 percent that are addicted supply 40 percent of the revenue.
So you’re looking at policy situations that are not good for society. You don’t want 5 percent of the people giving 40 percent of the gambling money. You’re preying on those vulnerable citizens. So we look at those kind of things and try to suggest more sensible and fair public policy.
CC: WELL I HAVE TO ASK YOU THIS. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE ELECTRONIC GAMING THAT MAKES PEOPLE MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO BECOMING ADDICTED?
GS: That’s a good question. There are about four reasons that have been isolated. One is speed of play. You can play a game cycle in about two seconds. So you are constantly in action. It’s called a continuous game. So you can lose more, even though you are betting a fairly small amount, you can lose a lot of money quickly. As opposed to say horse racing where there’s a race every 25 minutes, there’s quite a bit of down time in between versus two seconds. So speed of play is one.
Two is just the characteristics of the machines themselves, the way they’re built. They’re built and designed by experts to addict people. I mean, what they’re trying to do is get people to play longer and spend more money on them. And they’re well advanced. We’re behind in the arms race in that way They do do that. The machines are new every year. By that I mean the lights, the alluring sounds, the graphics and so forth attract people. And when they’re playing the games, it distracts them. And one of the things they like is they focus in on the machines, block out their other problems and sort of get hooked on the machines and lose track of time and the amount of money they spend. And that works.
The people who get hurt by the machines generally are people who are unhappy with their life circumstances. Things aren’t going well for them at work. You see a lot of middle age females whose home life isn’t that good. Maybe they have an abusive husband, or their kids are unruly, or whatever. And to get away from that day to day routine which is not that much fun, they stumble on the machines and find it’s relaxing for them. It’s a coping strategy they use to get away from their bad home life, that works for awhile in that they feel more relaxed. They’re a person there. People recognize them. They may win money initially. But obviously it doesn’t help in the long run. That’s not a good strategy in the long run. Because you’re not really dealing with your problems. They’re still there when you go home. And now you’re losing money as well. But people use it as a source of medication.
The other thing is that when people are playing the machines, they have this irrational belief that if I work at this long enough and hard enough, I can figure out a system or a strategy that will help me win in the long run. And that idea of perseverance is good in everyday life, that’s a good quality in a person, is to keep working at something, overcome the obstacles and succeed. But if you use that same strategy with machines, it’s disastrous because you’re going to lose. There is no optimal playing strategy. The machines are randomly programmed. The harder you try, the more you play, the more you’re going to lose. So in that case, perseverance is a negative quality to use on the machines. But people, some still think there must be some way of doing this where I can win, or, I’m luckier than other people and I’ll win. So a combination of those factors makes them more addictive than other gambling formats.
CC: HOW DO YOU GET AROUND THAT?
GS: Well, we’ve tried harm reduction features on the machines, that is slowing them down, taking the bill acceptors off them, because a bill acceptor, you can put in a $20 bill and it converts them into credits. It makes it go faster. They’ve tried pauses in the machines, like every hour it’s going to stop for five minutes
A variety of measures like that, they work to some degree, but so far, they haven’t been rigorous enough. They need to be much stronger ones, like maybe a maximum bet of a dollar so you can’t lose as much. Maybe a maximum bet for the day $50. If I could only lose $50 a day and the machine shuts down, that would help, because now, some people can lose a thousand, two thousand dollars in a day.
But, those harm reduction features also reduce revenue. So again, the government is caught in a trap where they want to maximize money and if they put on strong reduction features, they’re not going to make as much money. So it is a trap.
Another thing is location. VLT’s are one form of electronic gambling and they are in bars and lounges And some people see this as being too accessible. That people stumble on them, not necessarily expecting them. A lot of women come to gambling that way. They go in for a drink or a sandwich. They see the machines, haven’t played them before, play them, find them exciting, maybe win the first time and start getting hooked on them. And within a couple of months they’ve got an addiction problem.
If they were only in gambling outlets, then at least you know you’re going gambling, to a casino or racetrack, at least you know you’re going there to gamble. It wouldn’t be as bad as having them everywhere, in bars and lounges and in your face. So, there are some things that could be done to reduce the hazards of gambling, and some places have voted them out.
We’re not anti-gambling completely, but this one form is more dangerous than others.
I liken that to drugs that society allows. Some drugs are legal, whether they should be or not is questionable, like tobacco, it’s legal, but obviously it hurts. There’s no positive way of using that. Alcohol is legal. Marijuana is kind of in a grey area. It’s illegal but a lot of people do it. But others are, like heroin, cocaine and so forth, are illegal and they crack down on those.
Gambling is similar. You have different formats, some of them are benign, but some are over the edge, like electronic gambling is more dangerous. So you could look at it that way and say, let’s eliminate these addictive forms and keep the other forms.
CC: YOU’RE WRITING A COUPLE OF BOOKS RIGHT NOW AND ONE OF THEM DEALS WITH MORALS. WHAT ARE YOU CALLING IT?
GS: Well right now it’s called the Moral Maze of Gambling. That’s the working title. But I’m not looking at the morality of whether you should have or not have gambling. I think gambling is here to stay. It’s a legitimate activity and can be done safely by most people. I’m looking more at how it’s regulated and how because money is the predominate driver, it effects the morality and the ethics of gambling, so the way the industry operates. The way government operates and having gambling, they do some things that border on being unethical or immoral. And I’d like to see more openness, transparency, and accountability related to gambling. I’m not calling for prohibition, just tighter, better regulations.
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH, GARRY.
GS: My pleasure, Cheryl
Dr. Garry Smith is a gambling research specialist with the Alberta Gaming Research Institute.
FEATURED LINK: Alberta Gaming Research Institute