"In Their Own Words" 8th in a series
To commemorate RFFM.org's 15 years of service to the conservative community, we will be conducting a series of monthly interviews throughout 2007 with some of the most influential leaders in the pro-family/conservative movement. RFFM.org's national director, Daniel Zanoza, will conduct Q + A sessions with the aim of educating our readers as to some of the views held by those who work tirelessly to reach their stated goals.
The eighth interview in RFFM.org's series continues with Anita Bedell, Executive Director, ILCAAAP (Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems)
Mission Statement:
The Mission of ILCAAAP is to open doors to freedom from addictive behavior for individuals and families in Illinois through public information, education, and legislation.
Biography:
Anita Bedell is a graduate of Illinois State University with a B.S. in Business Education. Bedell did her graduate work in Human Development Counseling at Sangamon State University--now UIS. Bedell also taught Junior High and High School. Bedell has worked for ILCAAAP since 1990 and became executive director in 1994.
Bedell currently serves as Secretary/Treasurer of the American Council on Alcohol Problems and served on the board of the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion for three years. Bedell served on the Governor’s Alcohol Abuse Task Force and has testified before many Legislative Committees about alcohol and gambling issues. Bedell leads the statewide coalition to oppose the expansion of gambling in Illinois and the Sangamon County Coalition on Underage Drinking.
Anita Bedell and her husband of 38 years have two married sons and six grandchildren.
Q. Can you elaborate on why you think gambling has such a degrading impact on our society and who it hurts most?
A. I first saw the impact of gambling on children and families when I was in Junior High. I was asked to baby-sit for two little girls, ages 2 and 4, when their family moved into town. Their parents bought the biggest house in town, drove a Cadillac and owned race horses. Appearances are sometimes deceiving, because the cupboards were bare, they had very little furniture and few toys for their children. The mother bought a few groceries a few days later when she won $50 betting on the horses. While both parents worked, at the end of the week they had no money to pay me. A few months later the bank foreclosed on their house and they lost their car for non payment due to their addiction to gambling.
I started working for ILCAAAP in 1990--the same year the Riverboat Gambling Act became law. I was surprised when newspapers focused on the amount of revenue that would be generated from gambling, and wondered why no one was speaking out about the potential harm to families, gambling addiction and crime. Rev. Tom Grey approached ILCAAAP in 1992 and asked our organization to help oppose casino gambling. ILCAAAP hosted a Round Table and I heard new information about crime and the economic costs of casinos.
The following year, I attended a two-day seminar about gambling in Mississippi. One of the speakers was a pastor who had been hired by the casinos to minister to their employees. Famous for their “southern hospitality”, many of the workers had a difficult time when they saw gamblers losing all of their money. The pastor arranged for us to tour two of the casinos. This was the first time I had been in a casino. One of the workers asked us why we were smiling and seemed so happy. Gambling is touted as “entertainment”, but we didn't see any smiling faces. We saw people with slot cards hooked to the machines, almost trance-like, putting coins into the slots. Even when they won, they were expressionless and simply put their winnings back into the same slot machine.
One of the casinos had a state of the art day-care center for children as young as 6 months of age. The casino had only been opened for one month, yet they planned to enlarge the day care center because of the long waiting lines on the week-end. The children did not interact with each other and did not seem to be having fun, even though they were surrounded with toys, video games and movies. This experience made me even more determined to oppose casinos and to educate others about the problems of gambling.
Q. Of course your organization attempts to tackle other addictions which plague our culture. Why, in your opinion, does it seem Americans are so prone to addiction? Some people are addicted to work, which can be a negative thing, if it is taken to an extreme. Then, there is alcoholism, drug addiction, obesity, etc. Could it be we are a society which has it too easy because many of these problems are not encountered in third world countries that simply have a hard time feeding their people.
A. Instant gratification is part of the problem--we want what we want, and we want it now!
I believe the predatory marketing practices of alcohol and gambling companies and the accessibility and acceptability of these potentially addictive products entice and encourage people with addictive tendencies. Young people, who have never known a time when gambling was illegal, are attracted to gambling when they see celebrity poker tournaments or watch poker on ESPN. Betting lines are published in newspapers, Lotteries are promoted on the nightly news, and the money is used to fund education.
The younger people begin to gamble and drink, the greater the likelihood they will become addicted. The National Research Center estimated that as many as 1.1 million adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 are pathological gamblers, which is a higher percentage than adults.
Senior Citizens are offered bus trips to casinos as an inexpensive outing, and some will become addicted. Women, who are caregivers and widows, gamble for escape. Gamblers are rewarded for losing money when they use their player cards. The frequent rewards make the gamblers feel like they are winning, and they keep gambling.
Making gambling more accessible increases addiction. While people once had to fly to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to gamble, now they can drive to a casino in an hour or two. Gamblers can go to Off-Track Betting parlors in their neighborhood to bet on the horses daily/weekly instead of traveling to the racetracks. Studies have found the presence of a gambling facility within 50 miles roughly doubles the prevalence of problem and pathological gamblers. Men and women, who had never been in trouble with the law, have been convicted of embezzling money and robbing banks to fuel their gambling addiction.
Q. What is currently going on with gambling in the legislature? What should Illinois residents who care about the negative effects of gambling be aware of as far as what's on the docket in the Illinois legislature. And if there are things not yet on the docket, but looming in the future regarding gambling, could you tell us about them?
A. Every year gambling interests try to expand--additional casinos, more gambling positions at casinos, slot machines at racetracks, and video poker. Recently bills have been introduced to legalize gambling on the Internet and in bars.
The Senate passed a gambling package that included Account Deposit Wagering at race tracks, which would legalize horse racing on the Internet. People could place a bet over the Internet or from their cell phone and lose their house while betting at home!
While the General Assembly has rejected the Governor's proposal to sell or lease the Lottery, Rep. Saviano recently introduced HB 4128 to legalize Lottery games on the Internet. The types of games could expand without legislative approval--Video Lottery and Keno. People could lose thousands of dollars with a click of the mouse. The fast-pace of Internet gambling is very addictive. The age to gamble on horse racing and the Lottery is 18.
The Governor recently vetoed HB 1124 to legalize gambling in bars on video games. Young people, who have grown up playing video games, could become addicted to gambling by playing in the video game “contests of skill”. Alcohol impairs judgment and these young people will gamble until all of their money is gone. Making gambling more accessible by expanding into neighborhoods and communities statewide would increase the amount of addicted gamblers in Illinois. Organized crime and money laundering are additional concerns. We all pay for the high costs of gambling, whether you gamble or not. Coin machine operators will continue their efforts to legalize gambling in upcoming Legislative sessions.
Q. In Illinois, it seems gambling has expanded in increments. How has this happened?
A. When the Lottery was legalized, a drawing was held once a month. Later the drawings were held weekly, then daily, then “instantly” with scratch-off Lottery tickets. The Lottery expanded to a multi-state Lottery and increased the prize--Mega Million--to entice more people to gamble.
The Riverboat Gambling Act limited the size of the boat, the number of gambling positions, the time to gamble (2 hour cruise), and required the boats to sail on a navigable waterway. Many Legislators did not want land-based casinos or want Illinois to become another Las Vegas. In 1999, casino lobbyists worked to pass legislation for dockside gambling. The boats no longer had to cruise or be located on a navigable river. This opened the door for casinos to build a “boat in a moat” . The Casino Queen in East St. Louis recently opened a new casino that was built in their former parking lot. The Hotel and Restaurants are built on land, and the gambling area is floating on water. There is room to expand--should the Legislature approve additional gambling positions. The casino in Rock Island received approval to move three miles off the Mississippi River to a former rock quarry, which is closer to the Interstate highway. Once gambling comes in, it continues to expand.
Gambling addiction increases as gambling expands and becomes more accessible and more acceptable. Almost half of the revenue at casinos comes from pathological gamblers. In Illinois over 4,600 gamblers have voluntarily placed themselves on the self-exclusion list and asked the Gaming Board to keep them from entering the casino because their gambling is so out of control.
Q. Why do you think legislators keep pressing for more gambling, even though we all know the damage it wreaks on the personal lives of addicted gamblers and their families which totals in the millions.
A. Prior to passage of the 1999 gambling expansion bill, the Economic and Fiscal Commission estimated the state would lose $14 million a year due to the subsidies to horse racing and funds transferred from the General Revenue Fund to pay for programs formerly funded by horse racing. Legislators told me that they didn't believe those numbers.
Money for campaign contributions seems to be the driving force for more gambling. Gambling interests have money and political influence, and they use both to introduce bills and get hearings on their issues during every legislative session. There is no public outcry for more gambling, but ILCAAAP leads the statewide grassroots opposition calling for NO MORE GAMBLING.
The greed of gambling interests is another factor. They continually want to expand to make more money.
Legislators ignore the costs of gambling and focus on inflated revenue projections as an argument to expand gambling. Illinois has never conducted a study to determine the cost of gambling. For every dollar gambling interests indicate they contribute in taxes, it usually costs taxpayers $3 in social welfare, criminal justice and regulatory costs, according to Prof. John Kindt. Professor Earl Grinols determined the average cost to society per pathological gambler is $13,586 per year.
Q. Do you believe the horse follows the cart in Illinois politics, meaning: Do politicians think of big projects and then look to the expansion of gambling to pay for them? If you agree with this premise, can you explain how it has worked in the past?
A. Politicians use their desire for more money as an opportunity to expand gambling. Gambling cannot pass on its own merits. It is only when Legislators are being pressured at the end of the session to believe that gambling is the only solution left that it has a chance of passage.
In 1999 Gov. George Ryan worked with the Senate and House to pass a capitol bill to fund construction projects for roads, bridges, schools, etc. “Back room deals” were worked out, and Legislators received projects in their district, help with their campaigns, help passing legislation, etc. for voting for the gambling expansion bill.
A similar “package deal” was worked out in the Senate this year during the final days of the overtime session. Republicans voted “present” on the bonding bill when the “memorandums of understanding” were not written into the legislation as promised, and this bill failed. The gambling bill--which was to be voted on next--did not have enough votes to pass and was not called for a vote.
Q. According to some of the information put out by ILCAAAP, there are special scratch-off's on Lottery tickets which fund projects other than education. Can you explain how this is legal, since the Lottery was first presented to Illinois residents as a tool to fund schools? Or have we gone beyond legality regarding the Lottery to where, essentially, anything goes?
A. Voters approved the Lottery more than 30 years ago to help fund education. The law was changed in 1985 to assure that 100% of the Lottery money went to the Common School Fund. The General Assembly makes the laws and they can change the laws. Two years ago Legislators approved two special scratch-off tickets to benefit breast cancer and Veterans. These tickets have generated $23 million in sales, with $3.4 million to Breast Cancer and $2.8 million to Veterans. While Lottery sales increased from last year, the amount of money transferred to the Common School Fund had decreased 10.87% as of April, 2007.
Two additional scratch-off tickets to benefit HIV/AIDS (SB 774)and MS (SB 764) passed this year. The Governor recently issued an amendatory veto, limiting the number of special purpose lottery tickets to two per year for no more than nine consecutive months.
Q. The latest gambling initiatives include installing machines in bars, restaurants and even grocery stores. In South Dakota, nearly every gas station has a casino attached to it. The word casino is misleading because these dingy rooms are usually filled with nothing more than slot machines and people sometimes playing two machines at a time. Can we eventually expect this type of thing in Illinois?
A. I certainly hope not. Grassroots activists in South Dakota have tried to repeal that law because of the harm to individuals and families, but the state is too dependent (addicted) on the revenue. It's important for citizens to contact their Legislators to voice their concerns about gambling. ILCAAAP has talking points on this issue and information about the problems of gambling that can be shared with your elected officials.
Q. I know education is important regarding the dangers of gambling. Our schools have programs designed to inform young people about the devastating effects of alcohol and drugs. Are our schools doing anything to educate our children concerning the terrible impact gambling can have on individuals and families?
A. Some schools brought in speakers when teens started playing poker or saw teens having problems with gambling. Some parents have asked that “Casino Nights” be eliminated from After Prom parties. Schools have many issues on their plate besides basic education. School Prevention groups and health classes are areas where gambling could be addressed. Churches could play a key role in educating children and adults about the harm of gambling. ILCAAAP has bulletin announcements and materials to help churches.
Q. What else can average Illinois citizens do to fight against the plague of gambling? And how can they start grass roots organizations to fight against gambling in their own neighborhoods?
A. They can get to know their Legislators and tell them their concerns about gambling. Write a Letter to the Editor to share your views with others.
They can link up with ILCAAAP (www.ilcaaap.org) for technical assistance and resource materials. ILCAAAP is the umbrella organization for grassroots groups opposing gambling in their communities.
Q. How can the public support what ILCAAAP is doing? Can they send donations?
A. Your prayers and financial support are always welcome. Send donations to ILCAAAP at 1132 W. Jefferson St., Springfield, IL 62702. Donations to “Illinois Churches In Action” are tax deductible.
Call: (217) 546-6871 or (877) 204-6863
Fax: (217) 546-2814
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