Fri Dec 12, 6:23 PM ET
Canada - Canadian Press
OTTAWA (CP) - One in four video lottery terminal players is an at-risk or problem gambler, says a landmark study on the subject released Friday by Statistics Canada.
This confirms "the much-reported notion that VLTs are the 'crack cocaine' of gambling," says the report culled from the 2002 Canadian Community Health Survey on Mental Health and Well-being.
Men, aboriginal people, those with less education, VLT players and those who bet frequently are most likely to get in over their heads, it says.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with larger native populations and the busiest VLTs in the country, had the highest shares of wagering addicts.
The study estimates that 1.2 million adult Canadians are at risk or have already developed betting troubles.
Of those, 120,000 people have financial or social problems, are depressed or anxious, or are alcoholics. Eighteen per cent said they had considered killing themselves in the year before the survey - six times the number of non-problem gamblers who said the same.
Another 370,000 adults are considered at moderate risk of developing such symptoms, while 700,000 are at low risk.
It's the first time the national statistics agency has tracked compulsive betting, but the numbers were questioned by at least one expert.
"I think there's a lot bigger problem than they're reporting," said gambling critic Sol Boxenbaum of the Montreal counselling firm Viva Consulting.
By the Quebec government's own estimates, between one and two per cent of the population - about 120,000 people - are pathological gamblers in that province alone, he said.
Most play VLTs, dubbed electric morphine for their hypnotic pull on some players.
"Out of 125 clients, we only have four who are not VLT players."
Boxenbaum says the machines should be pulled out of bars and other locations and placed in casinos only.
It's time to stop studying already obvious addiction trends and start preventing them through education, he said.
"It's also time to start figuring out what the social cost of all this is."
The federal government, most capable of conducting such a national overview, has left gambling in provincial hands while sharing in massive profits.
"The insidiousness of excess gambling is revealed by the 27 per cent of moderate-risk gamblers and 64 per cent of problem gamblers who wanted to stop gambling in the year prior to the survey, but believed they could not," says the study. "About 56 per cent of problem gamblers had tried to quit, but couldn't."
Government-backed gambling continues to expand, the report concludes. An estimated 19 million Canadian adults wagered $11.3 billion in 2002 on everything from VLTs to lottery tickets, bingos and casino games. That's a four-fold jump from $2.7 billion spent 10 years ago.
A problem gambler commits suicide every two weeks in Quebec on average, according to the latest provincial numbers.
That's almost a five-fold jump from numbers recorded five years ago, according to the provincial coroner's office.
Statistics show 126 gambling addicts have killed themselves since 1999, an alarming increase from 27 such suicides recorded in the five years before that.
Experts cite an explosion of VLTs in bars since the electronic slot machines were legalized in 1994.
About 14,000 VLTs in more than 3,000 licensed venues around the province earned profits totalling $692 million in 2002
Canada - Canadian Press
OTTAWA (CP) - One in four video lottery terminal players is an at-risk or problem gambler, says a landmark study on the subject released Friday by Statistics Canada.
This confirms "the much-reported notion that VLTs are the 'crack cocaine' of gambling," says the report culled from the 2002 Canadian Community Health Survey on Mental Health and Well-being.
Men, aboriginal people, those with less education, VLT players and those who bet frequently are most likely to get in over their heads, it says.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with larger native populations and the busiest VLTs in the country, had the highest shares of wagering addicts.
The study estimates that 1.2 million adult Canadians are at risk or have already developed betting troubles.
Of those, 120,000 people have financial or social problems, are depressed or anxious, or are alcoholics. Eighteen per cent said they had considered killing themselves in the year before the survey - six times the number of non-problem gamblers who said the same.
Another 370,000 adults are considered at moderate risk of developing such symptoms, while 700,000 are at low risk.
It's the first time the national statistics agency has tracked compulsive betting, but the numbers were questioned by at least one expert.
"I think there's a lot bigger problem than they're reporting," said gambling critic Sol Boxenbaum of the Montreal counselling firm Viva Consulting.
By the Quebec government's own estimates, between one and two per cent of the population - about 120,000 people - are pathological gamblers in that province alone, he said.
Most play VLTs, dubbed electric morphine for their hypnotic pull on some players.
"Out of 125 clients, we only have four who are not VLT players."
Boxenbaum says the machines should be pulled out of bars and other locations and placed in casinos only.
It's time to stop studying already obvious addiction trends and start preventing them through education, he said.
"It's also time to start figuring out what the social cost of all this is."
The federal government, most capable of conducting such a national overview, has left gambling in provincial hands while sharing in massive profits.
"The insidiousness of excess gambling is revealed by the 27 per cent of moderate-risk gamblers and 64 per cent of problem gamblers who wanted to stop gambling in the year prior to the survey, but believed they could not," says the study. "About 56 per cent of problem gamblers had tried to quit, but couldn't."
Government-backed gambling continues to expand, the report concludes. An estimated 19 million Canadian adults wagered $11.3 billion in 2002 on everything from VLTs to lottery tickets, bingos and casino games. That's a four-fold jump from $2.7 billion spent 10 years ago.
A problem gambler commits suicide every two weeks in Quebec on average, according to the latest provincial numbers.
That's almost a five-fold jump from numbers recorded five years ago, according to the provincial coroner's office.
Statistics show 126 gambling addicts have killed themselves since 1999, an alarming increase from 27 such suicides recorded in the five years before that.
Experts cite an explosion of VLTs in bars since the electronic slot machines were legalized in 1994.
About 14,000 VLTs in more than 3,000 licensed venues around the province earned profits totalling $692 million in 2002
