QC - “Quebec under fire over plan for more VLTs”
Hundreds to go near harness racing tracks
Dave Rogers, The Ottawa Citizen, Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Outaouais medical officer of health has joined 17 other public health officials throughout Quebec in condemning a Loto-Quebec plan to operate hundreds of video lottery terminals near harness racing tracks and at Mont Tremblant.
Dr. Lucie Lemieux said yesterday that combining betting on horses with video lottery terminals will increase gambling addiction that can lead to indebtedness, lost jobs, broken marriages, mental health problems and suicide.
She said public health officials suspect that the planned gaming lounges will be marketed as family entertainment because some will be built at sites visited by people of all ages.
“We are concerned that a planned publicity campaign will increase the number of people who use gambling machines and go to the race track,” Dr. Lemieux said.
“The combination of the hippodromes and gambling machines creates a high risk of addiction. We know that 24 per cent of people who play the horses and use video lottery terminals will develop some form of gambling problem.”
Loto-Quebec plans to build three gaming lounges near harness racing tracks and one at Mont Tremblant during the next two years.
The gaming lounges will add 1,770 video lottery terminals to the 430 that already exist at the tracks.
There will be 235 more machines at the Quebec City track, 135 more at Trois-Rivieres, 1,300 at a new Laval track north of Montreal and 300 at Mont Tremblant.
No new machines will be installed at the Hippodrome d’Aylmer harness racing track.
The harness racing operator, Attractions Hippiques, owned by Liberal senator Paul Massicotte, will receive 22 per cent of the profits from the gaming lounges.
Loto-Quebec spokeswoman Marie-Claude Rivet said the government agency will study the recommendations of the province’s medical officers, but added problem gambling hasn’t increased.
She said between 1996 and 2002, the number of probable compulsive gamblers as a portion of the province’s adult population dropped to 0.8 per cent from one per cent.
“During that time, the corporation’s revenues grew by 40 per cent, so this increase did not result from any escalation in excessive gaming.”
An Outaouais health department study in March 2006 found 430 video lottery terminals in Gatineau, including 65 at the Hippodrome d’Aylmer — one for every 546 people in the city of 235,000.
Dr. Lemieux said most of the gaming lounges will be in poor neighbourhoods where people can least afford to lose money. She said Loto-Quebec says it has modified the terminals to make them less addictive, but there has been no analysis of how effective the changes are.
“What we are saying is that there should be no more than two gambling machines for every 1,000 people over the age of 18,” Dr. Lemieux said. “The government should make sure there is no outside advertising, no sponsorship and that there are programs to reduce the number of problem gamblers. The government should invest in treatment and prevention.
She said development of gaming lounges should be put on hold until Quebec has a policy on gambling.
Dr. Lemieux said there are about 3,000 problem gamblers in the Outaouais. She said there are 60 to 70 suicides a year in that region. She believes many are gambling-related, but she could not say how many, nor provide evidence of the link.
Quebec’s 18 medical officers of health recommended that gaming lounges remain open no more than 12 hours a day, there be no outside advertising of the lounges, no sponsorship of gambling, no automatic tellers nearby and that access to the rooms be limited to people over age 18.
Attractions Hippiques owns the Hippodrome d’Aylmer and a track in Trois Rivieres. The company rents a track at Quebec City and plans to build a new track at Laval, near Montreal, to replace Blue Bonnets, which it manages.
Mr. Massicotte said in a news release yesterday that the company is promoting responsible gambling for pleasure, not social or financial problems.
“Thanks to our follow-up systems, the presence of our staff and existing programs, we are already helping our clients to gamble responsibly,” Mr. Massicotte said.
“We have signed business agreements with cities and other agreements with the government. We are counting on fulfilling our contractual obligations for all the Quebec population.”
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
