Gambling & Senior Citizens
I couldn't help but think of an acquaintance's comment who referred to casinos here in the Midwest as "adult day care" when I read about the following gambling study. Here's the meat:
And I'm still remembering the first time I set foot in a casino here in Cheese Country. It was at a hotel cum casino complex outside of Green Bay. I finished my breakfast at about 7:30 AM, walked out of the hotel restaurant which opened into a shared space with the casino and there were senior citizen min-buses (10 to 15 passengers each) lined up one after another waiting to unload their passengers. The only scene I can compare it to is what you see outside an elementary school when the morning buses arrive. One unloads and there is another right behind it, filled to capacity, just waiting to pull up to the entrance and unload. The only differences were the color of the buses and the age of the passengers.
Seniors may be particularly vulnerable to the lure of casinos, says study author David Oslin of the University of Pennsylvania. Seniors who do not get out much may enjoy taking a day trip to a casino with other retirees. In fact, 70 percent of the 843 people age 65 and older in this study said they had gambled at least once in the past year, and going to a casino was one of the most popular ways to gamble.I'll do the math for you, that's 11% who admitted to betting more than they could afford to lose.
Oslin and his colleagues interviewed seniors by phone, asking them about their gambling habits. They found that 92 of the 843 seniors were at-risk gamblers: They said they recently had laid down more than $100 in a single bet or said they often bet more than they could afford to lose. None was considered a pathological gambler, a person who spends huge sums of money and develops a compulsion to gamble. Still, problem gambling can lead to financial disaster for seniors who are living on a fixed income, Oslin says.
At-risk seniors also had health issues that often accompany a gambling problem. The study found they were more likely to drink four or five alcoholic drinks a day, which could lead to dangerous falls for seniors.
And I'm still remembering the first time I set foot in a casino here in Cheese Country. It was at a hotel cum casino complex outside of Green Bay. I finished my breakfast at about 7:30 AM, walked out of the hotel restaurant which opened into a shared space with the casino and there were senior citizen min-buses (10 to 15 passengers each) lined up one after another waiting to unload their passengers. The only scene I can compare it to is what you see outside an elementary school when the morning buses arrive. One unloads and there is another right behind it, filled to capacity, just waiting to pull up to the entrance and unload. The only differences were the color of the buses and the age of the passengers.
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