Here Comes an 'Independent' Anti-Gambling Study to 'Help' Legislators

You knew it was going to happen, right? You knew the anti-gambling crowd would commission a gaming study of its own to throw at the Florida Legislature two weeks before the last part of their own Spectrum Gaming Study was due out.

Sure enough.

Just days before Committee Week and the Florida Senates first meeting to discuss the future of gambling in the Sunshine State, along comes a study its proponents say "could become a valuable guide for lawmakers" during their deliberations.

The No-Casinos-style Council on Casinos label the 33 scholars behind their "Why Casinos Matter: Thirty-one Evidence-Based Propositions from the Health and Social Sciences" as "an independent group of scholars and public policy leaders."

The study was released Tuesday from the Institute for American Values, a New York City-based think tank. (Independent, right? No agenda there.)

The section on slot machines will let the reader understand how addictive and destructive todays machines are, said Mark Andrews, FL Casino Watch. Senators will be able to benefit from this research when considering the future of gambling.

Andrews says the study includes a tough conflict-of-interest statement that will challenge the thinking of lawmakers who have pro-gambling tendencies. State regulation of casinos creates a conflict of interest, in which the state is charged with protecting the public from the very business practices that generate revenue for the state and which the state is co-sponsoring.

Andrews suggests senators give his group's study equal standing with the Spectrum Study.

Then, after declaring the honest-to-God-cross-my-heart independence of his study, Andrews says, "The Florida Family Policy will agressively fight all forms of gambling during the 2014 Florida session and will oppose all the back-door attempts by the various gaming industries to play 'gambling math games' which attempt to reduce some forms of gambling while increasing others."