Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico

05/26/2023

guycclark

12/04/2017

Friends,

About a week ago Thom Cole wrote a good article in the Santa Fe New Mexican about the failure of the state to take gambling addiction seriously. I thought it would be useful to reveal more details about the state’s failure, so I wrote this op-ed below for the Albuquerque Journal that appeared today. It’s not just that the state fails to do a good job of attacking this enormous health problem (state studies since 1997 have indicated that there are between 35,000 to 45,000 problem gamblers in the state), the health department does not even recognize the problem. I hope you will read this article and encourage your state legislators to hold legislative hearings next month to remedy this problem.

To contact your legislator open the “Find Your Legislator by Address” page by clicking the link below.

https://www.nmlegis.gov/Members/Legislator_List?T=R

On the “Political Body” field you can scroll down to pick the house or the senate, then add your address in the following field. That will bring up a field with your legislator’s picture and name. You can then click on his/her name and it will take you to their legislative page where you can find their contact information.

The most effective contacts are by phone, so you could call your legislator at their home, since they won’t be at their Santa Fe office until mid-January. An email would also probably get to them. You could say something like, “I read the article about problem gambling in the Albuquerque Journal (or the SF New Mexican), and think that it is disgraceful that the state does nothing to help problem gamblers. Would you please do what you can to get legislation moving to get the health department to create an office that deals with gambling addiction?”

Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico will be at the legislature and will use what influence we have to get legislation moving to get the state engaged in helping our citizens.

Thank you for your help,

Dr. Guy C. Clark, chairman
Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico

https://www.abqjournal.com/1101255/state-ignores-health-dangers-of-gambling.html

OPINION | Tens of thousands of gambling addicts in New Mexico create need for permanent agency

11/25/2017

Thom Cole at the Santa Fe New Mexican wrote a good piece today on the failure of the state to protect its citizens from gambling addiction. I'm also quoted a couple of times. The article is posted below:

State government is the big winner when it comes to gambling in New Mexico. But when it comes to preventing and treating problem gambling, the Legislature and governor have been

08/25/2017

CHILD CARE CENTER OWNER'S $400K GAMBLING SPREE ON STOLEN MONEY
A Capitan woman, Gina McPherson, embezzled $400,000 in federal money meant to fund the day care center she managed at the Inn of the Mountain Gods resort and casino. McPherson enrolled the resort day care center with the NM Children Youth and Families Department and had the money sent there. She then orchestrated the transfer of the money from the resort facility to a day care center she owned in Clovis.

From 2011 to 2016 she had the monthly checks sent to her off-site center and cashed the checks and deposits, rather than spending them on child care at the resort center.

Interviewed by the FBI, she admitted to spending the money on gambling. In her FBI statement, she excused her theft by saying, "‘I felt like I gave them back everything I took from them … gambling it back." She failed to mention that it was federal money that she stole, and that she was robbing the children in the day-care center. We can hope that the judge takes her complete lack of remorse into consideration in passing sentencing on her.

An article on this story in the August 20 Albuquerque Journal can be read by clicking below.

McPherson is the tip of the gambling-related-embezzlement iceberg in New Mexico. There are thousands of businesses in the state that have had employees and employers (think withholding taxes) embezzle company money to fund their gambling addiction. The only ones that seem to get mentioned are cases involving state or federal money, or are carried out by government workers or celebrities. This is just another reason that government sanctioned gambling is one of the main causes for our state's economic stagnation.

It is time for the government (state and tribal) to get out of the predatory gambling racket.

https://www.abqjournal.com/1050876/nm-woman-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-400k.html

By Maggie Shepard / Journal Staff Writer • Funds were meant for day care center at Apache-owned resort

08/06/2017

POJOAQUE AGEES TO SIGN ON TO GAMBLING COMPACTS WITH STATE

A little over two years since their gambling compacts with the state of New Mexico expired, the Pueblo of Pojoaque finally agreed to the terms that the other gambling tribes had already agreed to. Pojoaque sued the state, saying that the state didn't negotiate in "good faith," since it required them to increase their revenue sharing beyond the original 8%. They went even further in challenging the whole concept of "revenue sharing."

The Pojoaque lawsuits in State and Federal courts finally brought the Interior Department into the fray, and under the Obama administration, the department was working on compacts with the pueblo that would exclude the state in the process. This would be in violation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, which could have made for some more interesting lawsuits.

Recently, the 9th Circuit Federal Court in Denver approved lower court decisions that allowed the State of New Mexico to forbid vendors from supplying the Pojoaque casinos. That, and the likelihood that the currently constituted U.S. Supreme Court would probably side with the state, probably pushed Pojoaque into accepting the current state/pueblo compacts.

An article in the Friday Albuquerque Journal on the story can be read below.

Now Pojoaque is in the boat with all the other gambling tribes, and they will at least have to make a semblance of complying with its provisions. In Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and commercial casinos across the country, a team of a dozen or more FBI agents can show up at a casino at 2:00 am, hook into their computers, grab their books and collect real-time records of the income and expenses of the casinos. In New Mexico, there is provision for ONE state representative to collect gambling data from twenty-eight casinos, although over recent years, even that position has not always been filled. And that representative receives casino-generated reports, not subject to state standard auditing procedures.

Now Pojoaque can legally join in the process that causes bankruptcy, divorce, alcoholism, su***de, increased criminal activity, political corruption, and economic inequality and decline with the other gambling entities in the state.

It is time for the government to get out of the predatory gambling racket.

https://www.abqjournal.com/1043448/pojoaque-pueblo-agrees-to-gambling-compact-with-new-mexico.html

By Mark Oswald / Journal Staff Writer • SANTA FE — Pueblo of Pojoaque leaders have agreed to sign a new gambling compact with New Mexico after years of fighting back against the state's attempts to increase its share of revenue from the…

07/23/2017

10TH CIRCUIT COURT RULES AGAINST POJOAQUE VENDORS

Vendors to the Pojoaque tribal casino are now prevented by law from supplying the casino. The newest twist in the battle between the Pueblo of Pojoaque and the State of New Mexico is that the 10th Circuit Federal Court in Denver threw out the lawsuit filed by Pojoaque restraining the state from prohibiting vendors from supplying goods and services to the tribal casino.

The state had won in the first case decided by the local Federal District Court, which prompted the lawsuit filed by Pojoaque. The result is that many of the casino games had been shut down, and the tribe complained that this further action could shut down their operations.

The state acted on the basis that the pueblo had let their state/tribal compact expire in July of 2015, so that the casino was in violation of federal and state law. The previous federal administration took the position of protecting the tribe from being closed and had been working on a compact without state involvement. The Pojoaque Pueblo also has a lawsuit challenging the state and accusing it of "bad faith" in their negotiations.

Pojoaque will most likely appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court

An article in the Santa Fe New Mexican about the federal court decision can be read by clicking below.

It is distressing to see how the gambling industry can violate state and federal law with little being done over such a protracted period of time. It has been two years since Pojoaque violated the terms of their contract. Most all other businesses that violate federal law would have locks slapped on their doors immediately.

As with all state regulated gambling, tribal casinos are exempt from truth-in-advertising laws and "duty of care" protections that all productive businesses are required to obey.

It's time for the government (state and tribal) to get out of the predatory gambling racket.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/briefs/appeals-court-rules-state-can-target-pojoaque-casino-s-vendors/article_a834f408-56dc-59d5-ae47-4d5650b3c8a9.html

A federal appeals court has lifted a ban on state regulators interfering with gambling equipment and service companies doing business with the Pueblo of Pojoaque’s casinos after the tribe’s gambling

06/11/2017

LOCAL BAD IDEA TO RESCUE THE STATE LOTTERY SCHOLARSHIP FUND

In an article in the "My View" section of the Saturday, June 10 Santa Fe New Mexican, Mike Patrick, VP of Datastream Media, proposes a so-called solution to the lottery-scholarship dilema: Video lottery on hand-held devices.

Although Mr. Patrick extols the virtue of his Rio Rancho, home-grown company solution, he would have to stand in line behind such "industry" giants as Scientific Games, IGT, and Interlot, who supply video lottery support for dozens of states in the U.S. , and have had lobbyists encouraging our state lottery board to move in exactly that direction for years.

He wonders why we should worry about harmless little lottery games on smart phones, when we allow video gaming to take place in 25 casinos. Certainly the 25 casinos are a menace to our society, and a source of addiction and suffering. Do we need another source of addiction and suffering that WE CAN CARRY AROUND IN OUR POCKET?

In recent years that NM State Legislature has defeated bills that would allow electronic expansion of the state lottery. We hope they will hold the line and avoid the escalation of the lottery to online gambling and video lottery terminals in the future.
It's time for the government to get out of the predatory gambling racket.

The article in the Santa Fe New Mexican can be viewed by clicking on the link below.

Dr. Guy C. Clark, chairman
Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/my_view/who-really-runs-the-new-mexico-lottery/article_1244bfdd-4758-5135-b370-10e87fc7d546.html

The New Mexico Lottery Authority is responsible for our state lottery. Intralot, a Greek-owned multibillion dollar company, for all intents and purposes, is the New Mexico Lottery. Intralot provides the purchasing network for lottery tickets and scratchers; it runs the back office and computer syste...

04/25/2017

POJOAQUE V. STATE OF NEW MEXICO MAY BE NEARING CONCLUSION

For nearly two years since the gaming compact between the Pueblo of Pojoaque and the State of New Mexico expired, Pojoaque has been using the courts to try to avoid paying the state revenue sharing on its gambling profits. The state has been trying to get Pojoaque to agree to an identical compact that all the other gambling tribes in the state have signed.

Following various court hearings, the Obama Department of the Interior sort of adopted the pueblo and said that they could negotiate a compact with the tribe without state involvement. Federal courts have already supported the state in preventing vendors from crossing pueblo borders to supply gambling activities.

Earlier this year, a District Federal Court ruled that the Interior Department acted improperly in working with the pueblo to approve compacts, cutting the state out of the process. On April 21, the 10th Circuit Court in Denver agreed with the District Court's decision saying that the Interior Department action would have, "stripped New Mexico of certain procedural protections or benefits" from the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).

Although the pueblo has the option to appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit court decision is a major setback for the pueblo, and a victory for the State of New Mexico.

Pojoaque is supposed to have been keeping the equivalent amount of revenue sharing in a trust account in the event that they lost the battle and have to pay the state for the last two years of non-compliance. All tribal payments to the state are made on a sort of self-monitoring honor system, with the state having virtually no hard regulatory authority. Maybe the federal government can get them to comply. It will be interesting to watch.

An article on the court decision in the Santa Fe New Mexican can be read by clicking here. Besides cannibalizing local businesses, damaging the local economy, causing misery through the addictive effects that casinos have on citizens, according to a 2005 article in the economist, tribal casinos cause significant economic problems for tribal members.

It's time for the government (tribal and state) to get out of the predatory gambling business.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/judge-sides-with-n-m-in-dispute-over-pojoaque-gaming/article_dda371e1-087b-57e3-b942-d9b43c9469bb.html

A federal appeals court has rejected an appeal by the U.S. Department of the Interior and Pojoaque Pueblo that would have given the agency the right to negotiate a gaming compact with the tribe.

03/05/2017

****ACTION ALERT—HB 250 PREVENT LOTTERY EXPANSION---PASSED HOUSE—CALL SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE****

Dear Friends,

As you may have heard, HB 250 passed the WHOLE HOUSE in a 63 to 1 vote--THANK YOU!! It now moves to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Remember that HB250 would PREVENT expansion of the lottery to Play at the Pump, Keno, Video Lottery Terminals (read shot machines), and Online lottery play.

We need to contact the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and encourage them to pass this important bill. Personal contacts are the best contact, followed by telephone contact, followed by fax, followed by email, in order of effectiveness. Most contacts will be by phone. If a committee member is your representative, it is especially important to contact him/her, but all contacts are important.

When you call their office, usually you will have to leave a message with their secretary. Be polite and patient. You don’t have to sound like an expert on the bill. Use your own words to say why you want the senator to support HB 250. You might mention that you don’t like any expansion of the lottery, or playing it at the gas pump is a bad idea, or you are worried about video lottery games. But mainly, just ask them to support HB 250.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will probably hear HB 250 within the next seven days. The list of committee members is below. Below is a link that will take you to the committee website. Click on the committee names and it will take you to their website and their contact information.

Please pass this action alert on to your contact lists where appropriate.

It is important that you call or otherwise contact the senators as soon as possible.

Richard Martinez
Daniel A. Ivey-Soto
Gregory A. Baca
Jacob Candelaria
Joseph Cervantes
Ron Griggs
Linda M Lopez
Cisco McSorley
Mark Moores
Peter Wirth
William H. Payne

Thanks for your support,

Sincerely,

Dr. Guy C. Clark, chairman
Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico

https://www.nmlegis.gov/Committee/Standing_Committee?CommitteeCode=SJC

02/08/2017

https://www.abqjournal.com/944876/nm-should-halt-video-gambling.html
CLARK OP-ED ON HB250 IN ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL

Albuquerque Journal Guest Columns
Lawmakers should outlaw ‘video lottery games’
By Dr. Guy C. Clark / Chairman, Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico
Wednesday, February 8th, 2017 at 12:02am

House Bill 250 has attracted a fair amount of attention for its logical approach to lottery fund distribution to the state scholarship program. Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico is very much in favor of HB 250, mainly because of the provision that would outlaw “video lottery games.” There are three types of video lottery games the lottery authority has been recently promoting.

One form is the “play at the pump” devices that the New Mexico Lottery has already installed at over a dozen service stations around the state. The lottery basically spit in the face of the New Mexico Legislature by installing them after the Legislature rejected the lottery legislation the last two years in a row. So far, no legislator is sponsoring “play at the pump” legislation this session, probably to avoid the humiliation of dealing with an organization that has no respect for their deliberations. In Minnesota, their legislature outlawed “play at the pump” when the state lottery pulled a similar stunt.

The second type is online lottery playing. David Barden, chairman of the New Mexico lottery, recommended legalizing online lottery games for smartphones, etc. at two Legislative Finance Committee meetings that I attended. He mentioned that young people do most of their commerce and game playing on mobile devices, and why shouldn’t we take advantage of this popular technology? Imagine allowing legalized video lottery games into our bedrooms, studies, kitchens, dormitories, etc. This would generate a major expansion of gambling addiction in New Mexico, especially among the young people Mr. Barden mentioned.

This online gambling would embolden the Poker Player’s Alliance, plus the brick-and-mortar casinos to demand similar opportunities. That could lead to full-blown legalized casino gambling on the internet in New Mexico.

The third type that the lottery has recommend in their legislation the last two years is “Lottery Gaming Systems.” Over a dozen states have legalized “video lottery systems” in the form of stand-alone Video Lottery Terminals (VLT’s). These machines allow gamblers to play video poker and other casino-style games at convenience stores, beauty shops, shopping malls, grocery stores and anywhere you would expect to see paper lottery tickets being sold. These are, in reality, actual slot machines that these state lotteries operate.

Many studies have shown that video gambling machines (slots and online gambling) are much more addictive than other forms of gambling. Public health providers have termed them the “crack co***ne of gambling.” Dr. John Welte of Maryland has done extensive research on these systems and found them to triple the speed at which gambling addiction occurs compared to traditional forms of gambling. Studies in South Dakota and South Carolina discovered that calls into their addiction hot lines and addiction treatment centers dropped off spectacularly when the lottery gaming systems were shut down by court action.

University and state government research on gambling has shown time and again that the state lotteries exploit the poor, the uneducated and minorities. These families spend a disproportionate amount of their income on the lottery, not just as a fraction of their income, but in raw number of dollars, more than the middle and upper income families.

Stop Predatory Gambling hopes that the Legislature gets it right this time with a prohibition on the outrageous expansion of gambling the state lottery has been proposing.

It’s time for the government to get out of the predatory gambling racket.

OPINION | Bill would turn back push for ever more addictive gambling options

12/27/2016

ATLANTIC MONTHLY ARTICLE REVEALS HOW CASINOS ENABLE GAMBLING ADDICTS

The Atlantic Monthly published an article (link below) last month titled, "How Casinos Enable Gambling Addicts." It does a good job of revealing how casinos and slot machines intentionally deceive and addict their patrons.

This is a long read in the Atlantic, but it is the best article by a major media source on the intentional exploitation of gamblers by casino owners. One of the best quotes in the article is by Richard Daynard, president of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, and the godfather of the anti-tobacco litigation in the 80's. He is quoted as saying:

“The business plan for casinos is not based on the occasional gambler. The business plan for casinos is based on the addicted gambler.”

Read this and think of the possible duty of care and consumer protection violations that are occurring in New Mexico.

legislators and the New Mexico public may think that casino legislation is a thing of the past in the state, but efforts of the lottery to legalize gambling on mobile devices, and the effort to legalize Daily Fantasy Sports constitute introductory efforts that would eventually lead to legalized online casino gambling. This is the ultimate goal of the big players in the gambling "industry." We need to make sure that the legislature does not get either of these two gambling expansions legalized in our state.

We will be supplying you with information on how to take action against the gambling expansion bills as the legislative session progresses. It's time for the government to get out of the predatory gambling business.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/losing-it-all/505814/

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

10/20/2016

POJOAQUE CASINO SLAMMED BY U.S. DISTRICT COURT

U.S. District Federal Judge James Browning issued a ruling on September 30 that threw out a complaint by the Pojoaque Pueblo against Governor Martinez. Martinez was threatening to prosecute vendors that supply the Pojoaque casino because the pueblo is violating federal law in operating a casino without a state/tribal compact. Their compact expired in June of 2015, with the tribe
rejecting the requirement to pay revenue sharing to the state. The pueblo filed a lawsuit against the state in the 10th Circuit Court last year to allow them to continue gambling without the new compacts.

In the new ruling, Judge Browning overruled an injunction against the state from prosecuting vendors supplying an illegal gambling operation. The pueblo responded by sending an appeal to the 10th Circuit Court in an attempt to reverse the new ruling against vendors supplying the casino.

Judge Browning commented that his ruling does not stop the gambling operation of the casino, nor is it targeting the casino, but is directed at private vendors. No one seems sure what impact this new ruling will have on the casino operations.
The tribe has been required to set aside what would have been the amount of revenue sharing owed the state in an escrow account, although the state has virtually no ability to insure that those payments are accurately made.

The Legislative Finance Committee investigation two years ago determined that the state has no access to live data from the gambling operations, but has to rely on a sort of "honor system" that allows the casino to "self report."

Based on the illegal activity of the Pueblo, and their circuitous efforts to avoid the consequences of the law, the appropriate action by the 10th Circuit Court would be to declare the tribe in violation of federal law and instruct the U.S. Attorney to close their operations.
It's time for the government to get out of the predatory gambling business.

An article on Judge Browning's action in the Santa Fe New Mexican can be seen below.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/pojoaque-appeals-judge-s-decision-to-drop-pueblo-s-complaint/article_4087698e-c270-5682-8c77-dbccf9486d1b.html