Paid for by Virginians Against Neighborhood Slot Machines
ICYMI: Gambling Expert Says Skill Games Are Just Like Slot Machines
At a webinar hosted last week by the North Carolina Problem Gambling Program, gambling behavior expert and former gambling addict Dr. Michelle Malkin said “skill games are not skill games – they’re games of chance that we call skill games…skill games are just like slot machines…[and] we know that people with lower socioeconomic status are going to go closer to home to engage in these types of things.”
In Virginia, this isn’t new news. We know that, during the brief period when these devices were legal in the Commonwealth, 70 percent were placed in lower-income communities.
Virginia’s elected leaders should listen to the 67 percent of Virginians who oppose these machines and act to keep predatory so-called “skill” games out of our neighborhoods.
Dr. Malkin’s full quote:
“Skill games are not skill games – they’re games of chance that we call skill games. The definition of gambling is putting something of value, usually money, but can be anything of value, up for the possibility of losing that, for the potential of a gain. And these skill games are just like slot machines. They’re just like iGaming. They’re just like lottery tickets. You’re giving money into a machine in hopes to win more money, right?
They have the same type of risk as a slot machine, and we include video gaming terminals, video lottery terminals, these skill games. The other thing is, it’s called a skill game – don’t tell me there’s no skill in, like, poker, right – skill is part of some forms of gambling, not all gambling is choice, but those (skill games) are more chance than they are actually skill. It’s just kind of an interesting way [that] they’ve been classified, but they’re just like slot machines, unfortunately, which means the level of opportunity to bring somebody into gambling disorder faster is there.
But the other thing connected to them (skill games) is that we know that people with lower socioeconomic status are going to go closer to home to engage in these types of things. And so we tend to see people with lower SES, and we see certain communities having more of these games or even hidden back rooms. And so we do see people with different racial and ethnic minority populations engaging in these at higher rates.”
Learn more about the dangers of neighborhood slot machines HERE.