Czech NGO: Dense network of gaming rooms is drowning the poor

Staff of the People in Need (Člověk v tísni) organization have mapped the situation concerning the operation of gaming rooms in the Czech town of Ústí nad Labem. More than 100 places there feature video poker machines through which roughly half a billion crowns flow annually.

Almost one-fifth of the estimated incomes of the municipal departments of Ústí were comprised last year of gaming room receipts. Pathological gambling has a very tangible (or even a fatal) influence, and not just on the inhabitants of socially excluded localities. Gambling devastates entire families just like hard drug use does.

People in Need staffers have determined from available sources that a total of 107 addresses in Ústí nad Labem offer video poker or other video gambling terminals. "A significant portion of these places are in the immediate vicinity of public buildings, nursery schools, local authorities, libraries, even the Masaryk Hospital’s Psychiatry Department in Ústí. Roughly one-third of the permitted addresses are located in places where, in our experience, the residents are from groups that are most at risk socially," says Jakub Michal of the Ústí branch of People in Need.

On the basis of this investigation it has been determined that in 63 % of the gaming rooms in Ústí, the video poker terminals have been granted permits in violation of the law. Until 2012 it was not possible to issue permits to operate such machines near churches, hospitals, schools, etc. However, the Czech Finance Ministry has always completely ignored this law and has permitted tens of thousands of video gambling terminals in violation of it.

CZK 25.3 million crowns from gaming-room income were included in the projected incomes of municipal departments in Ústí last year. That represents a total of 17.5 % of the overall estimated incomes for the municipal departments in 2012.

"Roughly 20 times more money passes through the slot machines than subsequently goes into the municipal budgets. It depends on the tax burden and the limits established by law for the machines. It’s not just a gambler’s money that ends up in these machines, but the money of his family, his relatives, his acquaintances, of businesses, and very often also money from criminal activity. We can therefore consider gambling money either as a rather perverse secondary taxation of the poor in the case of low-income or socially excluded people, or as a tax on the proceeds of theft,"says Matěj Hollan, the chair of the Brnění association, which runs the website www.mapyhazardu.cz.

Pathological gambling is an officially recognized disease. It can be compared to hard drug addiction. A person who loses his money in the slot machines does not behave rationally and is forced to perform the behavior by his or her addiction.

"When considering how to advocate for the public interest, towns should give precedence to protecting their residents, instead of to the financial advantages these businesses offer the municipal budget, and they should at least partially regulate gambling," says Jakub Michal. People afflicted by pathological gambling in Ústí nad Labem have no one to turn to. There are, for example, no corresponding social services in the field for those in desperate living situations.

Experts on addiction estimate that at least 5 % of the population are pathological gamblers. Each negatively influences the living situation of those close to them, their families and friends. The problem can affect anyone, irrespective of social status. The fact that local administrations and the state welcome gambling operations is one cause of the spread of this addiction and the subsequent social destruction of its victims.

"Imagine you and your partner have a one-year-old son. You’re looking forward to a satisfying family life, you’re planning your wedding, but you’ve never shared a household with your partner and your efforts to arrange for you to live together come to nothing because you simply don’t have enough money. Each of you still lives with your parents. Not long ago someone I’ll call Věra was in such a situation. With the aid of a field social worker from People in Need, Věra and her boyfriend Láďa managed to get a lease on a municipally-owned apartment. Everything was running smoothly and working until Věra found out that her boyfriend had failed to pay the rent twice in a row. Until that moment she had never even suspected that her boyfriend loved playing the slot machines. They had to leave the apartment shortly thereafter. All of Láďa’s income was ending up in the machines and half a year of intensive work with the family was ruined. Láďa’s pathological gambling is standing in the way of his successful functioning in the family," says Jakub Michal.