NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Gary Ruskin (202) 387-8030
For Immediate Release: November 22nd, 1999
Groups Want Congress to Investigate “Slots for Tots,” Gambling Industry
Concerned about gambling slot machines that feature child-enticing themes like Candyland and the Pink Panther, today a broad coalition of conservatives, progressives, religious leaders and academics asked key Members of Congress to investigate these slot machines and the “broader efforts of the casinos and gambling industry to market gambling to children.” Gambling is already a serious problem for American children.
The coalition sent letters to Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Ernest Hollings (D-SC), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation; and Representatives Tom Bliley (R-VA) and John Dingell (D-MI), Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Commerce. The letter follows.
Dear Chairmen McCain and Bliley, and Ranking Members Hollings and Dingell:
Recent news reports have revealed an alarming trend in the gambling industry. Slot machines are now featuring child-enticing themes including Candyland, which is popular among very young children, other board games such as Monopoly, as well as the Three Stooges, the Pink Panther, South Park, I Dream of Jeannie, and the Addams Family.
Gambling is a dangerous problem for American children. The National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported that as many as 20 percent of adolescents may already be experiencing gambling problems. Further, the Commission reported on a Harvard Medical School study, funded by the gambling industry, which estimated that 7.9 million American adolescents are problem or pathological gamblers. The Commission concluded that the “prevalence of adolescent gambling is a serious problem which demands a broad coalition of efforts.”
Given the Commission’s findings, we request that the Senate and House Commerce Committees investigate whether the gambling industry is luring impressionable children to gambling or casinos by employing slot machines bearing cartoon characters and other themes popular with children.
These child-enticing slot machines are the latest innovation in a broader advertising and marketing campaign by casinos and the gambling industry to promote a “family-friendly” image, and, apparently, to bring children to the casinos, and thereby shape the next generation of gambling addicts.
This is an American tragedy. Problem gambling is rife among our children. Children who start gambling early are predisposed to becoming pathological gamblers. According to the Commission,
“The available evidence indicates that individuals who begin gambling at an early age run a much higher lifetime risk of developing a gambling problem....Clearly, adolescents are a segment of the population who are at particular risk of developing problems with gambling.”
Given this risk of problem gambling among children, and the vulnerability of children to the predations of some in the gambling industry and their marketing ploys, we ought to protect children from efforts to seduce them into gambling via child-alluring themes.
The Commission recommended precisely such protections. In its final report, the Commission was “unanimous in urging elected officials and others to focus on implementing more effective measures to address the problem of adolescent gambling.”
We urge the Senate and House Commerce Committees to investigate, subpoena, review and publicly release the market research used to develop these child-enticing slot machines, and to review the broader efforts of the casinos and gambling industry to market gambling to children. That is the least Congress can do to empower parents and protect children from those who would seduce them into the depredations and addictions of gambling.
Sincerely,
Dr. James C. Dobson, President, Focus on the Family; Commissioner, National Gambling Impact Study Commission
Chuck Donovan, Executive Vice President, Family Research Council
Rev. Tom Grey, Executive Director, National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling
Kay James, Chairman, National Gambling Impact Study Commission
Dr. D. James Kennedy, Senior Minister, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church
Jean Kilbourne, author, Deadly Persuasion
Dr. Richard Land, President, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention
Rabbi Daniel Lapin
Velma LaPoint Ph.D., Associate Professor of Human Development, Howard University
Richard C. Leone, Commissioner, National Gambling Impact Study Commission
Diane Levin, Professor of Education, Wheelock College; author, Remote Control Childhood
Leo T. McCarthy, Former Lt. Governor, California; Commissioner, National Gambling Impact Study Commission
Bob McCannon, Director, Mew Mexico Media Literacy Project
Bishop Marshall L. Meadors, Jr., The United Methodist Church, Mississippi Area
Jim Metrock, President, Obligation, Inc.
Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University
Gary Ruskin, Director, Commercial Alert
Eunie Smith, President, Eagle Forum of Alabama
Jeffrey K. Taylor, Director of Government Relations, Christian Coalition
David Walsh, Ph.D. President, National Institute on Media and the Family
Dr. Don Wildmon, President, American Family Association
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