A UMass research on gaming attitudes and behaviors is thought to be the largest in US history.
Gambling is an important topic in Massachusetts at the moment, as the state prepares for the coming of at least two large resort casinos in the next few years.
Prior to that gaming expansion, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst) has released a research that gives set up a baseline for hawaii of gambling in the state now, one that can then be used to trace changes in longterm studies.
The research, which comes from the educational school of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst, surveyed nearly 10,000 Massachusetts residents.
That is enough in order to make it the biggest gambling study ever completed in america.
Survey Establishes Baseline for Future Studies
The study was praised by Massachusetts Gaming Commission Chairman Steve Crosby, who said it should provide an objective way to understand how a state is being impacted by gambling going ahead.
‘The most important point is that we are establishing baseline conditions for every socio and economic variable that could be impacted by the introduction of casinos,’ Crosby said. ‘Our researchers will then track changes in those variables on the life time of the gambling enterprises in order to know up to a certainty the consequences and also to inform mitigation that is data-driven for any potential negative consequences.’
The survey was conducted between 2013 and May 2014, with state residents being selected at random to complete the questionnaire september.
The outcome was a wide range of information detailing exactly how people in Massachusetts gamble and view various forms of gaming.
For example, it turns out that about 72 per cent of respondents reported gambling at least one time on the year that is past.
Many Massachusetts residents (about 60 percent) said they played the lottery, while 22 per cent reported that they’d gone to a casino during the previous year.
Residents Like Casinos, Yet Not Locally
One hot topic in the location was how Massachusetts’ brand new casinos will impact existing casino operations in Connecticut. The study suggests that officials in Connecticut are straight to be worried: 65 percent of these Massachusetts residents who went to casinos visited resorts in Connecticut, a percentage that should go way down when the Wynn Everett and MGM Springfield are operational.
The study also looked into how residents feel about the state’s gambling expansion, which includes a slots parlor or more to three full-scale casinos. The solution was one that is heard in many communities through the entire state: not within my backyard.
A strong 59 percent most of adults in Massachusetts said they think gambling expansion will either have a neutral impact or be good for the state.
But, 46 percent think that gambling expansion will be harmful inside their very own community, while only 28 % believe casino expansion would be useful locally.
The research also found that illegal gambling had been fairly common in Massachusetts. About 13 percent of residents had bet on sports into the year that is past while two % reporting gambling on unregulated online gaming web sites.
More analysis that is in-depth of data collected is expected to be released in the months in the future. However, principal detective Rachel Volberg claims that the true value in this survey had been collecting information before views could be shaped by the introduction of casinos.
‘Not many people realize just how uncommon it really is for the problem survey that is gambling be completed before some new type of gambling becomes available,’ Volberg said. ‘The Commonwealth is lucky that both the Expanded Gaming Act and the Massachusetts Gaming Commission so clearly and forcefully supported such an effort and I also am excited to share our findings before any casinos begin operations in our state.’
Interpol Disbands €20 Million Anti-Match-Fixing Relationship With FIFA
FIFA President Sepp Blatter (right) and then Secretary General of Interpol, Ronald Noble, seal the deal. Interpol has now concluded that FIFA does not share the essential values for the statutory police force community.’ No shit! (Image: cnn.com)
Interpol has frozen a €20 ($22.5 million) donation, paid to it by FIFA, to invest in a joint anti-match-fixing program.
The 10-year Integrity in Sport initiative was made to stamp out fixed games orchestrated by criminal betting syndicates, but Interpol said this week that the FIFA corruption scandal had made the relationship untenable.
‘In light of the context that is current FIFA, while Interpol is still committed to developing our Integrity in Sport program, I have decided to suspend the agreement,’ said Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock. ‘ All external lovers, whether public or private, must share the fundamental values and maxims of the company, also as those of the wider law enforcement community.’
The terms and conditions of the deal, signed in 2011, state that that FIFA must remain ‘compatible with all the concepts, aims and activities of Interpol,’ but, after the arrest of seven FIFA officials due to the fact outcome of a massive FBI corruption probe, Interpol may be forgiven for feeling that the soccer body that is governing not kept up its end of the bargain.
Why Now?
It begs the question, though, why had been Interpol, along with its wide-reaching access to an expansive network of law enforcement agencies, uninformed of FIFA corruption last year?
The press that is british crying foul as far right back as 2006. This was the year that journalist Andrew Jennings published Foul! The World that is secret of: Bribes, Vote-Rigging and Ticket Scandals. The name claims it all.
Also in 2006, Panorama, a BBC current affairs program, broadcast a documentary asserting that Sepp Blatter was being investigated by Swiss police for attempting to wallpaper more than a FIFA bribery scandal.
The former chairman of the English Football Association, described FIFA as an organization that ‘behaves like a mafia family’ in it, Lord Triesman,
Swiss Humor
A follow-up Panorama documentary in 2010 accused Issa Hayatou, Vice President of FIFA, of taking bribes. He threatened to sue the BBC planet 7 oz ndb, but he don’t.
Interpol’s willingness to bury its head in the sand may have been more in regards to the fact that the €20 million FIFA paid to the international law enforcement agency constituted more than one fourth of its yearly budget.
Finally, though, with FIFA exposed and indicted by the usa, the nation that is only dared to hold the organization to task, it ended up being too much, or to embarrassing, for Interpol to stomach.
The FIFA communications director Walter De Gregorio cracked a ‘joke’ about his employers on Swiss TV this week, and believe us, it’s a zinger on a lighter note!
‘ The FIFA president, secretary general and communications director are all traveling in a car,’ grinned De Gregorio.
‘But who’s driving?’ he quizzed.
‘The police,’ he zinged.
Shortly afterwards FIFA announced that De Gregorio had plumped for to ‘relinquish his office.’
Ritz Club Sues Tycoon Safa Abdulla Al Geabury Over £2 million Gambling Debt.
Safa Abdulla Al Geabury, whose £2 million dud check bounced when Ritz staff attempted to cash it the time after their gambling spree. (Image: standard.co.uk)
The Ritz Club, London’s famously high-end, high-roller casino, is suing A swiss home tycoon over a £2 million ($3.1 million) bounced check.
According to the Ritz’s filing, Safa Abdulla Al Geabury had written out the check to invest in a gambling session one night in February last year, but it turned out to be a dud if the casino tried to bank it the following morning.
The Ritz can also be looking for an extra £200,000 ($310,000) in accumulated interest on your debt.
It’s been reported that the casino, that is owned by reclusive billionaire twins that are identical Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, has been plunged into the red with a series of unpaid gambling debts, forcing it to pursue its debtors aggressively into the courts.
In line with the London night Standard, the casino has litigated against 10 high rollers in the year that is last in an effort to recoup 2013 losses of £12.5 million ($19.4 million).
Al-Daher Case
Al Geabury’s protection is he is a gambling addict and his staff must have known this and stopped him from playing.
He wants the debts written off, but he is on shaky ground with this line; in 2014 the casino won the same High Court battle against Noora Al-Daher, the wife associated with the Omani minister that is foreign.
The Ritz sued Al-Daher after she had checked out the casino in April 2012 and proceeded to lose £2 million ($3.3 million) in a few hours. Al-Daher failed to honor £1 million ($1.65) of her financial obligation. She immediately counter-sued the casino, claiming that the casino had taken benefit of her.
Al-Daher had claimed in court that Ritz Club employees encouraged her to continue playing a game of chemin-de-fer, despite having been made conscious of her gambling addiction, and even allowed her to cash checks, which she claimed was unlawful.
She also said that the casino had been under a ‘duty of care’ towards her, a responsibility which it had neglected to fulfill.
Psychiatric Reports
Nonetheless, the court heard that Al-Daher and her family had apparently happily gambled away $5 million in Las Vegas a few months after her see towards the Ritz.
The judge said he had been particular that, had Al-Daher been refused authorization to carry on gambling at the Ritz, she ‘would have been eager and inclined to gamble at other casinos thereafter, and very probably during her stay in London during the times or weeks after 3 April 2012. in governing in favor of the casino’
The judge within the Al Geabury instance, Mrs Justice Simler, meanwhile, said at a hearing that is preliminary psychiatric reports have already been commissioned to assess Al Geabury’s state of mind regarding the day he lost the money and whether he was in control of his actions.
‘The essence is whether Mr Al Geabury has a gambling addiction as well as the claimant’s familiarity with that,’ she said.
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