Carl DeLine

The action at the gaming tables is so heavy, people are squeezed shoulder to shoulder, waiting for a chance to try their luck. Chips clatter, a roulette wheel whirs and shuffling cards buzz as hundreds of people crowd the River Park Casino across from the Stampede grounds.

It’s two o’clock on a weekday afternoon and things couldn’t be much better for an industry on a big roll.

While many businesses in Alberta and across the country are struggling just to survive, the gambling business is booming.

“In my business there is no recession,” says Bob Klewchuk, manager of the River Park Casino and Tower Casino. “If I didn’t read newspapers and I didn’t watch TV, I wouldn’t know there was a recession.”

The waiting list for charities wanting to book a casino at his location along the Elbow River now stretches all the way to December 1993.

A gusher of lottery tickets, bingo cards, poker chips and racing forms grows each year, and the Alberta government–seeing how demand is turning into revenue dollars–has been rapidly turning the province into what some call a northern Nevada.

Casinos have been around for several years, but the number of ways to bet a buck is stacking up like a winner’s pile of poker chips. Alberta takes a bold step towards big-time gambling this summer when coin-spilling slot machines will be installed at this year’s Stampede and Klondike Days.

Last year, video gaming machines–which offer games such as blackjack and poker–were introduced. A year earlier, sports betting was legalized through a lotter-run game called Sports Select.

Those games join nine other lottery games, charity casinos, horse race betting at tracks and in closed-circuit TV-fed bars, big money bingo barns, sports pools and raffle tickets. The final product is a thriving $1.1 billion Alberta industry.

“Outside of places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City, Alberta is a leader in legalized gambling,” says Garry Smith, a University of Alberta professor in sports studies who has followed gambling growth for the past nine years. While the average Canadian spend $328 every year on gambling, Albertans top the list of spenders at $433, he notes.

Several U.S. states and, more recently, Canadian provinces have introduced variations of legalized gambling to generate new revenues and attract tourists.

But it’s caught on in a few places as it has here, with the dollar totals telling the story. In 1989 (the last year for which figures are available), Albertans spent $257 million playing bingo, $176 million at casinos, $315 million on lottery tickets, $232 million at the tracks, and $123 million on pull-tickets and raffles.

With this betting boom comes an ever-louder debate over whether Albertans want their province to become a gambler’s playground.

Some social advocates condemn gambling as a tax on the poor, a government slush fund, a quick fix solution to social problems, and a temptation to those who can’t afford it.

But proponents and others argue people are going to gamble anyway, so the money should stay within the province to pad cash-strapped government coffers and help struggling charity organizations stay afloat.

And Albertans do have a reputation of being high-rollers, even in Las Vegas and Reno. About one of every 10 Albertans visits Nevada each year and state tourism statistics indicate they spend about $620 each on gambling–about $400 more than the overall $228 average for Nevada visitors.

“It is significant,” says Barry Protchard, another Alberta casino owner. “I would think it’s evidence that the gambling industry is on the upswing everywhere, including Alberta.”

If people didn’t come here, they would go to Las Vegas or across the border to gamble,” reasons Barb Manly, president of the Lupus Society of Alberta. “At least this way the dollars stay in Alberta and go to a worthwhile cause right here at home.”

The society has held casinos since the late ’70s, finding them the most effective way to make money. Thousands of dollars can be raised when a charity has a two-day casino, and it’s easier to get volunteers to work on this concerted effort than to spend countless hours on bake sales and garage sales, Manly says.

The charities reap all the profits from the casinos, after paying the casino rent for facilities, equipment and staff.

While the government receives license fees from such events, the major gambling revenue it generates is through lotteries. Alberta received $114 million in lottery funds in 1991-92, passing it on to cultural, recreational and community facilities.

For example, almost 3,000 rinks, halls, playgrounds and libraries received lottery funds under the Community Facility Enhancement Program in the past three years.

That program, which is now winding up, has been criticized by opposition MLAs as a tool to solidify support in government-held constituencies.

Keeping charity-run agencies afloat through gambling is a band-aid approach to social problems, says Carl DeLine, whose The Back Door agency helps street kids.

“Instead of nurturing a safety net, with some source of support for the individual, we now condone the casino or whatever as the legal way and the responsible way to take care of social problems,” says DeLine. “We have systematically created a way for society to opt out of seriously addressing the nature of social problems.”

Ironically, a lot of Albertans see gambling as a way out of their own social problems.

Laid off 3 1/2 months ago from an oil company as a shipper-receiver, Ted Sharratt finds himself in bingo halls hoping he’ll hear the right numbers and win some extra money to give to his ex-common-law wife and their two kids.

Dragging on a cigarette, adding to the blue haze smothering a bingo hall last week, Sharratt muttered as the caller announced the next number–B12.

“I needed the 14,” Sharratt said, looking down at 15 cards in front of him and explaining why he plays bingo.

“I know this seems weird. You think that most people who play bingo are little old ladies. But there are lots of people like me, too. We’re unemployed.”

There’s a psychological attraction to gambling for those with financial problems, says Marilyn Seelye of the Calgary Poverty Focus Group. “You believe that all your problems are going to disappear if you win a large lottery.”

“It reinforces the belief that things are beyond your control. It even compounds the problem. Step-by-step efforts to improve the situation are overlooked in favor of a belief that I’ll win something.”

But gambling, says Seelye, also represents the hopes and dreams we all need. “It’s understandable that a welfare mom will spend her last $20 on bingo so that she can feed her kid something better than the macaroni they’ve lived on all month.”

Jackie is one such mother. She doesn’t want to use her last name when she talks about bingo because any winnings she claims will be deducted from her welfare payments.

“This is a chance to make things better for my kids. It’s the only chance I have to do that right now.”

Jackie lays down $60 a week on bingo and almost always wins something. “That money I win, it isn’t for me. It’s for the kids.” She uses it for treats–to buy her 12-year-old daughter the trendy clothes she desires or to purchase the toy that her nine-year-old son saw advertised on television.

But just down the bingo table from Jackie sits 71-year-old Mavis Wright, who says bingo should be seen as a form of entertainment, not income.

“Three times a week I play bingo. I see people. I talk to people. I socialize. That’s what bingo is about,” says Wright.

Gambling should be done in the spirit of fun, agreed card player Mark Martinez, patting his pocket and stepping out of a crowded casino into the bright spring sunshine last week.

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Today I won.”

He visits casinos three times a week and spends about $200 a week, mostly on blackjack.

“I do win some of it back, but I probably don’t come out ahead. But that’s okay. This is my fun, my entertainment. It’s gambling that I’m here for. Not winning.”

Gambling is nothing more than entertainment to most people, with people drawn to what’s called “the action.”

“It is the moment in time after you’ve made a bet and before the outcome is revealed,” explains University of Calgary sociology professor Robert Stebbins.

But for two or three percent of the adult population, gambling is a dangerous compulsions–with some victims ending up in Gamblers Anonymous.

“We have no concerns about what kids of gambling are legal or not,” says Thomas, a Calgary chapter member. “Our concerns are with the compulsive gambler. He or she is going to gamble, whether it’s legal or not.”

But Thomas’s old game of choice, horse racing, is one of few forms of gambling not feeling the boom. The spring thoroughbred horse racing wrapped up last week with a nine percent drop in daily on-track wagering. Daily attendance was down seven percent.

Lotteries and casinos have eroded their returns, but technology and liberalized gambling laws have allowed the industry to stay afloat. Telephone betting is allowed and people can lay best at 25 tele-theatres located in small communities across the province.

“As far as the majority of people is concerned, racing is a form of entertainment. It’s entertaining a lot of people and it’s supporting a lot of people,” says Don Buchanan, of the Alberta Racing Commission.

“There are more people working in Canada in the horse industry than there are in the automobile industry,” he says, noting it employs 8,000 to 10,000 Albertans alone.

Despite any arguments about government-approved gambling and its impact, there is general agreement that individuals are responsible for their own actions.

“If people want to come in and have some fun, we try to provide them with as much enjoyment as we can,” says Klewchuk. “If casinos weren’t available, those people who want to gamble would go out and find it anyways.”

With legalized gambling, government can control it, players get a fair game, jobs are created and millions of dollars are raised for charities, he reasons.

“There is really no way to suppress gambling,” concludes U of A professor Smith. “What we need is a master plan, a coordination of what is going on in the province with gambling and what the impacts are.”

Originally published July 7, 1992 by the Calgary Herald (Calgary, AB), credited to Monica Zurowski.