On the home page at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation's website, everyone is smiling. Families and friends are playing together at the tables. This is the Ontario government's official gambling headquarters, where gambling is called gaming and where the news of another 3,000 slot machines being installed (at the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort, opened in June) is cause for rejoicing.
There is another, far less glamorous way of describing the Ontario government's promotion of gambling. It's a tax on illness. It is a tax on the hundreds of thousands of people who can be described as problem gamblers, either moderate (gambling causes significant harm in their immediate social network) or severe (they cannot resist gambling, and borrow and sell their goods to get the money). In a report for the government's Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre, University of Lethbridge professors Robert Williams and Robert Wood estimate that the 4.8 per cent of adult Ontarians who are problem gamblers are responsible for $1.41-billion of the $4-billion in gambling proceeds the government collects each year from Ontario residents (after winnings are deducted, but before expenses) -- a staggering 35 per cent. (The government collects another $1.6-billion from visitors to Ontario, mostly Americans.)
The government does not ignore compulsive gamblers. If you return to the official website and click on the words "responsible gaming," you will find an offer of help for anyone who "may develop financial difficulties and often neglect family, business and personal responsibilities" because of the government's siren call. But as a cost of doing business, the money the government devotes to repairing the damage it causes to homes, families and jobs is close to negligible. It spends $36-million a year on prevention, treatment and research related to problem gamblers. That's only 2.6 per cent of the money those poor suckers lose.
Ontario is not as unrepentant as some other provinces. It prohibits video lottery terminals, which are a particularly devious way to separate the poor and the less educated from their money. But it remains shameless in the way it promotes its casinos and advertises its lotteries, suggesting people are missing out if they don't gamble.
Premier Dalton McGuinty was candid this week about his government's addiction to money from gambling. "There's no doubt about it," he said. "We have come to rely on gambling revenue. Perhaps in a better world we wouldn't, but the fact of the matter is it's here, it's here to stay." This is a junkie who won't give up his fix without a fight.
The lure of the billions does not excuse his fatalistic view. The government should announce that it will approve no more casinos and racetracks in the province and permit no more slot machines, building on a moratorium imposed by the previous Conservative government. It should cut back on its promotion of gambling. It should set up a tight system to make sure people who register as problem gamblers are denied access to casinos. It should maintain its ban on video lottery terminals and reduce the number of existing slot machines in the province.
The province's addiction to gambling revenue is ruining hundreds of thousands of lives. Premier McGuinty is wrong to duck his government's responsibility.