Gambling and Casinos Addiction

“Mommy, why are we leaving again?” Young Claire will never understand the answer to her repetitive question asked to her parents yearly. Each new home, each year, each late night, Claire has to witness her dad go out and come home late with a bigger hole in his pocket. Claire’s mother has to work off the losses that her husband creates and worry that she will find another suicide note; praying her husband will come back to his normal self, his non-addicted self. Claire’s father insists that it will help out the family with money and claims that each night is “his night”. Claire’s family is already on the lower-income side of the nation and her father grows deeper in addiction and debt each night. If helping the family included growing deeper in debt and in addiction, then the family would have no problem. This is not specifically the case; gambling and casinos need to be made illegal because suicide and addiction increases, our nation’s deficit increases, and the losses differ according to wealth.

Availability of casinos increases the risk of problem gambling and suicide numbers fly sky-high. Before casinos became legal in Delaware, their state’s gambling hotline only received about one to two calls a month for help on gambling issues. After the legalization of the casinos, the state started receiving about 450 calls each month ("Gambling Availability Increases Addiction"). “A survey of nearly 200 Gamblers Anonymous members in Illinois found that 66 percent had contemplated suicide, 79 percent had wanted to die, 45 percent had a definite plan to kill themselves, and 16 percent had actually attempted suicide” (Hills). People are trying to take their own lives because of this disgusting addiction, the growth in the medical term of ...

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Peterson, Eric. "Study: More casinos, more gambling addicts." National Council on Problem Gambling. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb 2014. .

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Wilde, Cathy. "People in poor neighborhoods are twice as likely to have gambling problems, study finds." University at Buffalo The State University of New York. University at Buffalo, n.d. Web. 26 Feb 2014. .