Des Moines Register
03/12/06
Fickle Iowans gamble billions
In a state that once banned bingo, Iowans maintain a love-hate relationship with
games of chance
MIKE KILEN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Holly Garfield, by many measures, would be a typical Iowan. She works in the
Des Moines insurance industry. She's 44, educated, friendly.
And she has put money into a TouchPlay machine.
In eight months at the Fourth Street Pub in West Des Moines, patrons such as
Garfield have pumped $258,109 into the new and controversial Iowa Lottery
gizmos that look a lot like slot machines.
But Garfield wants them to go.
So do many vocal legislators, who this week are scheduled to debate whether
the TouchPlay machines should be banned.
"What I've seen in the past six months is people get high at first if they win,"
Garfield said. "But now they're ready for them to go.
"One guy looked over at me the other night and shook his head and said, 'I've got
to stop.' "
Garfield put in $10 and lost it.
She is typical of the Iowa paradox: We sometimes hate the gambling industry,
but we love to gamble.
In Des Moines Register polls the past few years, Iowans have been against
expansion of many gambling options.
In the same breath, they agree that the gambling money has been good for Iowa
and have spent billions on games of chance.
Some suggest that Iowans may have a distorted image of themselves.
"I predicted that gambling wouldn't be successful," said Paul Lasley, an Iowa
State University sociologist who has kept a close thumb on the pulse of
Iowans and their collective personality.
His reasons were based on stereotypes: Iowans are considered to be practical,
tight-fisted with a buck and likely to spend their leisure time on a porch swing.
But Lasley acknowledges that he miscalculated. He underestimated how much
senior citizens needed entertainment. He didn't factor in the possibility that their
nature and background in a farming culture made them comfortable with risk.
A stigma fades
Cultural observers have seen the stigma fade a bit every year since gambling
was first introduced in Iowa 30 years ago. After each new option surfaced, there
was an initial outcry, followed by a cooling-off period and then a sort of
begrudging acceptance, soothed by the pleasure of collective economic windfall.
At various junctures, Iowans told themselves: OK, this is fine, but no more.
"The way you account for the gap in what people say and what people do is that
there are some people who think it's best to present themselves to be against
gambling," said Peverill Squire, a University of Iowa political science professor
and longtime observer of Iowa attitudes.
"Iowans think of themselves, by and large, as traditionalists."
They still think of themselves as homogeneous small-towners wedded to
agriculture, yet today there's much more diversity, he said.
"It's a place that hasn't changed in a long time, but we are seeing change now,
and it conflicts with the way we see ourselves."
What is perception and what is reality?
In control. Yet Iowa ranks fourth among states in the percentage of residents who
are binge drinkers (18.9 percent had five or more drinks on the same occasion in
the last month), according to the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance
System survey.
Clean-living folk. Yet Iowa topped the nation in per-capita readership of Playboy
in 2004.
Fiscally conservative. Although many out-of-state visitors wagered money at
Iowa casinos, spending even their portion of a billion dollars is considerable for
Iowans. More than 1,000 people contacted the Iowa Gambling Treatment
Program last year for help with problem gambling.
Bingo to TouchPlay
This is how far Iowans have come in the evolution of their position on gambling.
In 1938, The Des Moines Register warned that "Iowa has been caught in the
swirl of a new get-something-for-nothing fad — and it is bingo."
In 1954, a headline on bingo continued the contradiction about gambling:
"Mothers like it, but so do sharpies."
As late as 1963, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that pinball machines were
"illegal gambling devices" if free games could be won.
Then-Iowa Attorney General Richard Turner began a crusade in the 1960s to
close bingo halls.
The shift toward legalized gambling began in the 1970s. In 1972, the Iowa
Constitution was amended to permit lotteries. In 1973, the Legislature authorized
games of chance, including bingo.
Hold on to the reins now, we're going for a ride: Wagering at horse tracks and
dog tracks was legalized (in 1983), then the lottery (1985), then riverboat
gambling (1989), then slot machines at tracks (1994) and, most recently, table
games at tracks (2004). TouchPlay is the latest in what some consider an
expansion of casino-like gambling into your local grocery store and gas station.
"Gambling has been legitimized as a business," said Frank Biagioli, executive
director of the Iowa Gambling Treatment Program. "Gambling has been
marketed as an economic development tool. As you listen to people talk about
gambling in the year 2006 versus back in 1976, it's really quite a change."
"It's not just in Iowa," he said. "You can turn on ESPN and watch poker. Thirtyfive years ago you played in the dark basement. Now you play with your whole
family around the table."
Odds are with house
The paradox of gambling is not only that we say one thing and do another, but
that people are told they have only a tiny chance of winning and still go for it.
Scott Wood lays it out to his class on gambling at Drake University by shaking
down the numbers and coming to a fairly simple conclusion: "The odds are
always with the house."
Yet people have always gambled. There is evidence that animal heel bones were
used in a dice-like game found in ancient pyramids.
People continue to gamble for the "infrequent positive outcomes," says Wood, a
psychology professor who prepared a report for the Governor's Task Force on
TouchPlay. "Why do we keep playing golf? Every once in a while we hit a really
good shot."
Gamblers go from there to thinking they've got it all figured out, which is really a
"cognitive error," he said.
"People have a lot of dreams," said the Rev. Tom Shinkle of the Waukee United
Methodist Church and a gambling opponent. "That's part of the American culture,
the temptation of materialism. We are bombarded with products . . . and you feel
like you need those things."
Why not get something for nothing — or very little?
Other experts say brilliant marketing has taken advantage of that desire to fuel
the rise in gambling in Iowa.
The common argument, and one held by many and not just in the gambling
industry, is that it's simply a form of entertainment.
"When you compare the cost of an evening at the casino, it may not be that much
worse than an evening at the theater," said Lasley. "I guess you'd say it's
become an accepted form of entertainment."
Says Ed Brown of Washington, Iowa's first Powerball jackpot winner ($5.2
million): "There's no shame in it. Money is more liquid now. People just have
more cash then they used to."
Gambling is everywhere and touches nearly everyone. But where does it end?
"I guess the natural progression here is that eventually everybody will have slot
machines," said Brown. "If we allow TouchPlay, why not allow slot machines?"
An odd conundrum
Here's the fundamental dilemma. Governments and organizations now depend
on revenue from gambling, even if they're a bit uncomfortable about it.
The Institute for Character Development in Des Moines, which works with
schools and community organizations to develop character, also takes donations
from Prairie Meadows.
"We have no position on gambling," said Amy Smit of the organization. "The
board decided the money would be great to enhance our program. It's going to
go somewhere."
It's an old conundrum. Remember bingo? It was often, and still is, held in
churches.
St. Anthony's Catholic Church in south Des Moines packs in 100 to 150 for its
bingo games one Saturday a month. It costs $15 to play. Some people take
home $150 or more.
Tom Chapman, chancellor of the Diocese of Des Moines, says the church looks
on gambling as a vice, not a moral issue, as long as the person keeps it under
control.
Others have a different view. The Iowa Conference of the United Methodist
Church says gambling is "a menace to personal character and social morality"
because the industry feeds on the poor, said Inez Dawes, a legislative advocate.
It even has a righteous connotation in the Iowa Code, which lists gambling
penalties under the "vice" section, after prostitution, pimping and pandering.
The values discussion continues, leading many to talk out of one side of their
mouth and bet on a horse with the other.
"Most agree that it is a vice but say they are morally not against it," said Deepak
Chhabra, one the authors of a 2005 University of Northern Iowa study on the
socioeconomic impact of gambling in Iowa.
It's a vice that 38 percent of people who live 50 miles or less away from a casino
participated in, according to the study.
The speculation among some observers is that the TouchPlay outrage will pass,
just as it did when other forms of gambling were introduced.
"Studies show more negative reactions by people when a casino opens," said
Chhabra.
"But in five years it's part of everyday life."