"Connecticut does not need the neon flash of the Las Vegas Strip to make money from gambling. Consider: Nevada, with its scores of casinos, took in tax revenue of about $1 billion last year. But Connecticut's State Treasury took in $718 million from the lottery and just two Indian casinos.

There was once a time when Connecticut had a healthy caution about the negative impact of legal gambling. That is one reason that the General Assembly passed a law in 1991 requiring a statewide gambling study every five years. But just two studies were completed. Reports on the impact of gambling, which were supposed to be done regularly, have been delayed for years by a state government reluctant to examine this issue too closely.

The last gambling study was completed in 1996, when Foxwoods Resort Casino had been open less than five years and the Mohegan Sun Casino had just opened its doors, in October of that year. The research asserted that the number of problem gamblers in the state was anywhere from 33,000 to 76,000.

Both casinos have expanded significantly since. Furthermore, in 1998, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that pathological gambling doubles within 50 miles of a casino. So the state is overdue for a report that asks tough questions about the social cost of gambling. A relevant investigation will not stop at the impact of the casinos, of course. State lottery games, which have existed since 1972, have proliferated in recent years."

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Connecticut's Gambling Habit (The New York Times 1/28)
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