Slot Machines - Pay No Attention to That Man Behind The Curtain

The legislature will soon vote on Rep. Flynn's two bills to bring machine gambling to area racetracks, including Raynham Taunton Greyhound Park. In Indian Country, several tribes have gone on record opposing the "bright line" that National Indian Gaming Commission Chairman Phil Hogen plans to draw, to reinforce the distinction between class II electronic bingo games and class III slots.

Look into machine gambling, and how these machines are designed to separate the player from their money as swiftly and efficiently as possible, and I am confident that you will come to the conclusion that introducing machine gambling to Massachusetts will likewise have negative effects on hundreds of individuals and by extension, the economy. This negative effect will more than offset any "benefit" of revenue captured from taxing this income stream. This video is very instructive and quite easy to understand





Modern computerized slot machines with their virtual reels and their reel-mapping practices are inherently deceptive and ultimately cause harm to the consumer. They hide the rules of the game, and the true odds of winning from the player while appearing to be transparent (i.e., to behave in exactly the same manner as the earlier mechanical devices they appear to emulate). These machines are designed to optimize the money captured from the player, ultimately distorting the player’s perceptions of their odds of winning, and encouraging the player to chase and play to extinction – until all of their cash, and their available credit, is exhausted.

Equally if not more troubling is the fact that practical oversight and consumer protection standards are currently up to the manufacturers, and their customer – the gaming industry – to set.

All expansion of slots should be halted until the Federal Trade Commission can investigate their legality. Electronic gaming machines would not pass muster if held to the standards of consumer protection laws, but if they are approved and regulated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, they become exempt from MA state consumer protection law. Please, tell your elected officials that you do not want to open up the economy of the Commonwealth to an industry that will not have to abide by our consumer protection laws. Ask them to vote against Rep. Flynn's slot machine bills.

I thank you for your support.