Grey seizes on gambling addiction issue

Saying he's already conquered one battlefield, casino foe Tom Grey is in Las Vegas this week to open a new front in his war against gambling.

"We've won the political battle," the Illinois minister and founder of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling told the Sun editorial board Wednesday.

"No one in America is going to run on a platform to add more gambling, except for maybe (New York Gov. George) Pataki and (New York City Mayor Rudolph) Giuliani," Grey said.

"The new battle is over research and treatment of addictive gambling," said Grey, whose anti-gaming group will sponsor a booth at the National Conference on Problem Gambling under way at the Alexis Park.

Grey said casino funding of research into problem gambling was "a conscious move by the industry to control the results ... in anticipation of liability," similar to the tobacco industry's efforts to negotiate a blanket settlement over the health consequences of smoking.

"Las Vegas lost its cover when it took gambling out of here and out to Mail Street," he said, referring to gambling's domestic expansion.

"Americans want to gamble because we're risk takers," Grey said. "There's no doubt in my mind about that.

"The problem is, the more you make it available and accessible, the more dangerous it becomes."

Grey pledged his anti-gaming efforts will continue in Missouri, where the the future of non-cruising riverboats is winding its way through the courts and the ballot box.

"If you own stock (in certain riverboat operators), get rid of it because we're going to throw gambling out," he said.

"I predict that by November, national television networks will be reporting that gambling has crapped out in the Midwest," Grey said. "Gambling is not the wave of the future."

But he said the NCALG and Las Vegas casino operators are on the same side in efforts to keep full-scale tribal gaming operations from spreading throughout California.

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