Op-Ed from Bishop John M. D’Arcy

Sometime ago, a number of pastors of other Christian churches along with members of their flocks have approached me or their friends in the Catholic community and asked if I would consider weighing in on the proposal for a gambling casino in our community. While moved by their respect for the Episcopal Office, I felt the need to study the matter before taking a position. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes a brief, but clear, presentation of Catholic teaching.

“Games of chance (card games, etc.) or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement.”

So we must look at the effects. Some would claim that since the vast majority of people who gamble do it for entertainment and do not become addicted, that such gambling casinos should be approved. In my judgment, after serious study, such a position does not hold up.

Most of the money realized from gambling for the private companies who sponsor it, as well as the funds realized by the government, comes from problem gamblers; from the addicted; and it is the addict whose family is harmed, because he has lost his free will to a machine.

The gambling addict repeatedly uses up his or her salary to feed his addiction. The very people that Catholic social teaching requires us to put at the forefront and whose dignity we are bound to try to restore are the most seriously injured by this addiction.

It is the machines, the video games, which have brought technology in a massive degree to the gambling industry. The machines are programmed to intensify the addiction. The Vanier Institute on the Family estimates that “4 percent of the population with a serious gambling problem contributed 23 percent of the revenues.” The same Vanier Institute reports that, “The personal cost of pathological gambling can include bankruptcy, family break up, domestic abuse, assault, fraud, theft, homelessness and even suicide. Up to 90 percent of pathological gamblers have considered suicide, and 20 percent of those in treatment actually attempted it.”

Some would say that since only 2 to 5 percent of those who gamble are addicted, that it is appropriate for the government to sponsor casino gambling. But with the increases of machine gambling, seem to indicate that such a position is not consistent with Catholic social teaching.
The increase of machine gambling, machines programmed to support the addict, makes clear that there is a moral issue here that many choose to avoid. For example, a 1998 study commissioned by the State of Montana, found that problem and pathological gamblers account for 36 percent of electronic gambling device revenues. A Louisiana study found that 30 percent of all spending on river boat casinos came from problem and pathological gamblers.

The Catholic Bishops of the state of Kentucky came to a similar conclusion. Here is what their report says:

“The Catholic Conference of Kentucky opposes expanded gambling because the social costs are intolerable and the common good suffers in such significant ways when gambling becomes highly professionalized. Research indicates that families and communities are hurt by false profit of professional gambling occurs through casinos and machine gambling. These vehicles bring about gambling in excess with harm caused to people and communities. The American Psychological Association recognizes compulsive gambling as a disease.”

In other words, the government and the private companies make their money on the backs of the poor and addicted.

Another principal of Catholic social teaching is the common good. People in government take an oath of office for the well-being of all. They should not gain necessary revenues on the backs of those who have already lost their human dignity through serious addiction.

As is often the case, Americans turn to something basic in our culture to defend gambling; namely, freedom. But freedom must always be subjected to the rights of others and to truth and to the common good.

The proper understanding of freedom. The dignity of the human person and the responsibility of duly elected leaders to seek the common good when coupled with the terrible effects of gambling indicate, that the introduction of casino gambling in our community is a moral issue, and in my judgment such introduction will be seriously harmful to many in our community and many others who will come from nearby cities and towns. We should learn from countless other communities and keep our wonderful community away from casinos, which intensify the experience of addiction.