Educators Urge Lower Lottery Profits for Ore. Bars - ABC News

Educators Urge Lower Lottery Profits for Ore. Bars - ABC News

Education advocates are pressing the Oregon Lottery Commission to reduce what they say are overly generous payouts to bars and taverns that host the state's video gambling machines.

They plan to be on hand Friday when the commission decides on a recommendation by Lottery Director Dale Penn to retain current compensation rates for video lottery retailers.

. . .

Bars and taverns now get an average of about 24 cents for every dollar that gamblers leave behind in the lottery's machines. Retailers used to get 35 percent, but the lottery has steadily cut the rate.

Stand for Children says the rate should be gradually reduced to 16 percent. The group says compensation rates could be cut substantially and still allow retailers a reasonable profit.

[Read the full article at http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8934755]

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What are your thoughts on video lottery retailers' profits?

Side note: One percent of Lottery profits go to the problem gambling treatment & prevention fund. Help in Oregon for problem gamblers and their families is free and confidential by calling 1-877-MY-LIMIT or going online http://www.1877mylimit.org.

Oregon's awkward hush on problem gambling

[Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/10/oregons_awkward_hush_on_proble.html]

**Note** Not mentioned in this article is Oregon's availability of free and confidential help for problem gamblers and their families. If you or someone you know is affected by a gambling problem, call 1877-my-limit or go online to 1877mylimit.org for free and confidential help.

By The Oregonian Editorial Board

October 02, 2009, 4:05PM

About a half a dozen people joined Ronda Hatefi and her parents on the Capitol steps Tuesday to raise public awareness about what they call "Salem's dirty little secret."

It's the harsh truth that revenue-raising operations of one state agency, the Oregon Lottery, prey on what another state agency, the Department of Human Services, estimates to be 74,000 Oregon adults with serious gambling addictions.

Hatefi's brother, Bobby Hafemann, was one of them. Hopelessly hooked on state-sponsored video poker, the crack cocaine of gambling, he blew every paycheck, pawned everything he owned, borrowed from every friend and relative he had to feed his addiction before killing himself in despair in 1995.

"He was only 28," Hatefi said. "He needed help but very little was available for problem gamblers back then. One morning, on a Thursday, he shot himself in his Portland apartment."

Ever since, for 14 straight years, Hatefi has organized a "Problem Gamblers Awareness Day" on Sept. 29, her brother's birthday. It was "official," too -- she was armed Tuesday with a formal proclamation signed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Secretary of State Kate Brown.

Neither was present, though. Nor was anyone from their staffs or from the Oregon Lottery.

"None of them have ever come to our rallies, even though we've been inviting them for 14 years," Hatefi said.

Of course they never come. Nobody in Oregon government wants to talk bluntly about the devastating social costs of a state-sponsored gambling operation that netted $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2008.

Instead, Oregon has assuaged its collective guilt by creating a problem gambling treatment and prevention program that's recognized nationally for its enlightened approach. Funded by a dedicated percentage of lottery proceeds, this program boasts a 2009-11 budget of $11.6 million.

Oregon could do better than that, now that the state has put Vegas-style line-game slots on practically every street corner in every town. Hatefi and her colleagues certainly think so, although their fondest wish is an end to the addictive games. They were joined Tuesday by Tom Grey of Spokane, national field director of a group called Stop Predatory Gambling, which is battling its spread nationally.

Grey, a Methodist minister, has made this fight his life's work. National studies, he says, show that slightly more than 50 percent of gambling revenue comes from just 5 percent of those who gamble.

People such as Bobby Hafemann.

A study done for the DHS in 2006 concluded that Oregon has about 74,000 of them -- the equivalent of a city the size of Bend or Medford.

That's a lot of tortured souls to sacrifice so the rest of us can enjoy lower taxes and an occasional video game. And it's why there was not a single state official in sight at yet another Problem Gamblers Awareness Day rally.

7/3/09 | University of Oregon student pulled off string of holdups | Register-Guard

Investigators tie ex-UO attendee Samuel Sourikoff to robberies in three states

BY JACK MORAN

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Friday, Jul 3, 2009

News: Local: Story

Former University of Oregon journalism student Samuel Sourikoff spent part of his time away from campus robbing and breaking into jewelry stores in three states to help pay off gambling debts, investigators said Thursday.

“Two lives” is what Eugene police Detective Jeff Donaca said Sourikoff had for a 19-month period between May 2007 and December 2008, when the 22-year-old targeted five jewelry stores in Eugene, Nevada and California.

Sourikoff also robbed Mazzi’s restaurant in south Eugene four times during his crime spree, which ended when restaurant patrons helped police chase him down following a heist there last Dec. 5.

Sourikoff — who was sentenced this week in Lane County Circuit Court to a mandatory 12-year prison term for a series of local robberies that included the Mazzi’s holdups and two takeover-style robberies at Beaudet Jewelry in south Eugene — confessed to those crimes and similar incidents in Nevada and California during interviews with investigators earlier this year.

Donaca said Sourikoff once had an academic scholarship to UO and played prep sports.

But the young man apparently went off-track and into debt after gambling online and at several Nevada casinos.

“It’s really pretty sad,” Donaca said.

The former UO student wasn’t a suspect in any of the crimes until last September, when an acquaintance told FBI investigators that Sourikoff was the man pictured in surveillance photos taken during the unsolved jewelry store crimes.

[Click here to read the full article.]

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For more information about problem gambling in college, as well as the new ground-breaking "Problem Gambling Awareness Project" to address problem gambling at the University of Oregon, click here.

What are your thoughts on college gambling? Is the article above identifying a rare issue, or something that hasn't yet been uncovered? Please post your comments below!

Oregon students honored for artwork focused on problem gambling

Statesman-Journal

July 1, 2009

Area students won awards and honorable mentions in the 2009 Marion County Problem

Gambling Art Awards competition.

The sixth annual art search is conducted in partnership with local problem gambling prevention and outreach coordinators. The top artistic designs are chosen for next year's Oregon Department of Human Services calendar, which is designed to increase awareness of problem gambling. Each county can have two winners on the calendar, which is distributed statewide.

About 277 entries were submitted this year from middle school students throughout Marion County. Student art from Jefferson Middle School, Cascade Junior High School and Mount Angel Middle School ranked in the top 10.

[Click here to read the full article.]

Roseburg City Council says 'no' to social gambling

6/23/09

By Chelsea Duncan
The News-Review

The Roseburg City Council voted Monday night against allowing “social gambling” in the city despite reports that other cities that allow it have seen few problems.

Councilor Mike Baker said he doesn't believe the city should be in the business of promoting the activity, which involves low-stakes games, such as poker, in private businesses or clubs.

“I just don't think it's something that is desirable in Roseburg,” Baker said...

[Click here to read the full article.]

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What are your thoughts on "social gambling" (city/local ordinances that allow for low-stakes gambling in private business or clubs)? Feel free to share your experiences and/or research in the comments section!