Kenosha County is one of the most prosperous counties in Wisconsin, a far cry from where we were even a decade ago. The prosperity we now enjoy is due to the deliberate effort to attract good economic development such as Uline and Nosco corporate headquarters and landing large new distribution and production facilities like Amazon and HARIBO.   This kind of sound economic development creates a bright economic future for Kenosha County even through catastrophic events like the COVID pandemic. Most...

Predatory gambling is when state and local governments partner with powerful corporate gambling interests to use commercialized gambling to exploit and defraud citizens and their communities across the country. The business model for state lotteries and local casinos depends on blatantly exploiting the financially desperate and the addicted. It cannot survive without these citizens. Government’s primary responsibility is to protect citizens – but for the government to win, its citizens must lose. Over the next eight years, the American people...

Daily Fantasy Sports has a fundamentally different relationship to chance than do season-long fantasy sports leagues.  Daily Fantasy Sports operates on a per-game basis. Therefore, on any given day an injury, a snowstorm, or a ball bouncing strangely could affect a Daily Fantasy Sports result.  In this regard, placing a wager with a Daily Fantasy Sports operator is very similar to placing a bet with a bookmaker. This legislation represents the largest expansion of gambling in Wisconsin’s history as it...

A Brief History of Gambling in Wisconsin Wisconsin’s legalized gambling began with the State sponsored lottery and the Legislature’s approval of dog racing. Soon afterward, the state’s Native American Tribes, which had been operating high stakes bingo parlors, entered casino gaming, having won federal government approval in the courts after Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Gambling flourished, growing exponentially through the 1990s.  No one has more than a two hour drive to get to one of Wisconsin’s 22...

LEGISLATIVE MEMORANDUM   To:        Members, Wisconsin State Senate and Assembly From: Julaine K. Appling, President, Wisconsin Family Action               Lorri Pickens, Executive Director, Citizens Against Expanded Gambling Date:    September 11, 2017 Re:        LRB 2122 – Daily Fantasy Sports Registry, relating to: registration of fantasy contest operators, requiring the exercise of rule-making authority, and providing a penalty  ______________________________________________________________________ We are writing to urge you to not co-sponsor LRB...

MADISON – Citizens Against Expanded Gambling and Wisconsin Family Council are sponsoring educational forums across Wisconsin to highlight the dangers of legalizing Daily Fantasy Sports.  The first two forums will be held at the Charcoal Grill in Burlington, WI on Tuesday, January 24 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, and the Sheboygan Pizza Ranch on February 2 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. Assembly Bill 800 from was introduced in the State Affairs committee on January 25, 2016. A hearing was scheduled...

According to a recent study by Wisconsin Public Research Institute, every Wisconsin resident is within a two-hour drive of a Native-American gaming facility.   The casino market in Wisconsin is saturated, and introducing a new casino into a saturated market has consequences both economic and social. In a saturated market, any new revenue that is generated by the new casino would in fact be taking away revenue, jobs, and any economic multipliers from other established casinos and their respective communities.  There...

As the nation’s annual April 15th tax filing deadline nears, one reason why we are paying more taxes for less government services than we should is because of regional casinos and lotteries. State governments have relentlessly pushed these extreme forms of gambling onto the public in a bid to collect more money. Yet a new report this week by the Rockefeller Institute of Government at SUNY Albany confirms what is becoming obvious to most Americans: “In the long-run, the growth...

Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) has been a highly debated topic in recent months.  Forbes reported that daily games were projected to generate $2.6 billion in entry fees alone in 2015 while only paying out around $1 billion in contest prizes.  More concerning, is that 80 percent of bettors will lose about half of their money. A few weeks ago, DraftKings, Inc. and FanDuel, Inc. lobbied the legislature to consider a bill that, if passed, would have made Daily Fantasy Sports...

Teenagers today have the world in the palm of their hands.  Literally.  Smart phones, laptops, tablets and any devices that access the internet makes just about anything in any part of the world at their disposal.  The good, the bad and the ugly. The internet exposes children to gambling well before they’re 18 – they encounter ads for gambling in emails, pop up ads and online advertising. These ads send the message that gambling is fun and exciting, that the...