Gambling report shelved due to VLT focus: author
Posted May 27, 2010 06:20:06 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
An Alberta consultant says the Nova Scotia government fired him and shelved his study on problem gambling because it wasn’t really interested in the issue to begin with.
After viewing government memos that criticize his unreleased 325-page draft study, Mark Anielski says his work was stopped because he was focusing too much on gambling addiction, specifically the fallout from VLT use.
“Right from the get-go I sensed their was never any appetite amongst the steering committee to actually do this study,” said Anielski. “I just question whether there was any real, genuine commitment in the first place to have this ever finished.”
By focusing on addiction and a possible link to suicides he says his research may have made the government wary of lawsuits.
“Clearly the risk, of course, is that if you somehow imply that there were six suicides related to problem gambling, there may be a smoking liability,” he said.
The socio-economic impact study was originally commissioned by the previous Conservative government.
The NDP government agreed with conclusions by bureaucrats that it was flawed and has no plan to release the work.
