United Church Social Policy Positions

In Ontario, the public debate on the merits of expanding gambling to include VLTs was muddied by government plans to create so-called "charity casinos." This development in gambling is especially important to the church because it is part of the charitable sector, whose need for funds is being used to justify gambling expansion by illegal plans.

The charity casinos have been proposed as the best way to generate new money for hard-working charities and community groups that have lost their government funding. They are also offered to charities that have relied on traditional gambling in the past (bingo, Nevada tickets, "Monte Carlo" events, etc.) These forms of gambling are expected to dwindle rapidly once VLTs or slot machines are introduced, as has been demonstrated in western Canada. In effect, governments have offered charities a chance to join the industrial revolution in gambling by switching from low-tech, traditional gaming operations to electronic gambling.

VLTs create a profound moral dilemma for charities, whether or not they use gambling-generated revenue.

• They privatize the funding for community services, taking it from taxpayers and donors and placing it on gamblers.
• Charity casinos risk the reputations of charities and their many volunteers to lend legitimacy to an expansion of gambling that is neither lawful nor socially responsible.
• Schemes for charity casinos change the relationship between charities and the communities they serve. They turn charities into tax collectors for the provincial government. They bring charities into the dependency relationship with commercial gambling interests and with gambling addicts in order to pay the costs of doing good work.

In the Ontario case, the charity casinos proposal attempted to buy the silence of most charities on the government's bigger plan to introduce VLTs outside major casino sites and outside the charitable sector. The illegal aspects of the plan have been scarcely explored in the public debate, unlike BC, where the Supreme Court has issued decisions. That is:

• Charities are prohibited from using electronic gambling to raise revenue.
• The majority of the money raised in charity casinos will go to government and commercial operators, contrary to the law.[13]
• The scheme brings charities, government, and commercial, for-profit companies—both Canadian and American—into a partnership.

This development in gambling is being debated in the charity sector under difficult circumstances. Few boards have had the opportunity to consider a policy on using VLTs or slot machines to generate their revenues, but find themselves threatened with the loss of existing funding. Timelines for decision-making in local municipalities are generally set by the applications for permits and licenses submitted by developers and commercial operators, rather than by a careful assessment of the fund-raising needs of charities.

13. See the BC Supreme Court decisions, 1998.