Casino Gambling Ills Unfounded in Proof

Gambling is assumed to be linked to an increase in social ills, such as crime, drug and alcohol abuse, and prostitution; but studies have not found proof to back these thoughts up.

An old television commercial once proclaimed that perception was everything, but a professor of economics who specializes in gambling studies has found perception to often be far from reality. William Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada at Reno, said in regard to gambling, people form opinions "regardless of the amount of information they have."

Because of a shortage of objectively conducted, peer-reviewed research on many of the effects of casino wagering and online gambling, Eadington says those who favor gambling and those who oppose it have assumed "adversarial positioning."

Many people accept that certain "common knowledge" concepts are truth, disregarding a lack of empirical evidence. Gambling is assumed to be linked to an increase in social ills, such as crime, drug and alcohol abuse, and prostitution; but studies have not found proof to back these thoughts up.

Eadington stated, "You may decide early on that gambling is good or gambling is bad because in your gut you know it. That has clouded the public debate. The evidence is very ambiguous, I hate to tell you, on all these issues.''

Howard Shaffer, a researcher at Harvard University, has conducted studies showing problem gambling to be the result of underlying physiological causes, a theory in concordance with research conducted in South Africa, Russia, Australia, and Europe. Shaffer also found less than 2 percent of the population likely to suffer from compulsive gambling issues.

Yet, anti-gambling factions refuse to accept Shaffer's data, despite the worldwide corroboration, and the reputation of Harvard University, because the research was funded by gaming interests. These people would rather resort to following their innate beliefs than recognize scientific reasoning.

So, for gambling proponents, the obstacles in their way are comprised largely of unfounded fears, unproven theses, and demagoguery. Sometimes the scientific method must accumulate enough objective evidence to bury superstition before knowledge can advance.