The Negative Effects of Casinos

Because of the negative effects of casinos, the government should ban them from populated areas in the United States. Gambling is a growing addiction in America, and casinos will only provide residing citizens with a larger opportunity to progress in their gambling addictions and allow room for others to gain the ensnaring addiction. Gambling addiction is also called compulsive gambling or pathological gambling. It also is said to be a disease, like its neighboring addiction/sickness, alcoholism. As stated in the “Harvard Mental Health Letter, pathological gambling has 10 symptoms, which include :“preoccupation with gambling, gambling with increased amounts of money, returns to gambling after losing money in order to recover the losses, and asking others for money to solve financial problems caused by gambling.” According to clearleadinc.com, “about 2.5 million adults in America are pathological gamblers and another 3 million of them should be considered problem gamblers, 15 million adults are at a risk for problem gambling and about 148 million are low-risk gamblers.” There were many sociological and psychological tests done on the subject of casinos and gambling addictions; these tests support my final thought and opinion, that casinos will do more harm than help; although, I will show both views. They will cause many problems and may even cause a domino effect starting with personal problems, than expanding to sociological issues, and leading to governmental tragedy.
We will first look at the earliest effects of casinos which are the ones that effect Americans personally. When one enters a casino for their first time, they don’t realize the trouble lurking closely behind them. Upon premature gambling problems, most addicts don’t even realize there is a problem. Herbert A. Bloch stated in The American Journal of Sociology, “Its danger lies in the fact that it interferes with the normal assumption of responsibility which organized society compels. (216)”This