Anti-gambling coalition demands moratorium on VLTs

Compulsive gambling will increase in Quebec if the province goes ahead with a plan to install video lottery terminals at horse racing tracks, an anti-gambling coalition warns.

The Emjeu coalition held a news conference Wednesday to demanda moratorium on the VLTs until the province's public health authority has time to further study their impact on compulsive gambling.

The coalition's call comes as the province's gaming commission, Loto-Qubec, takes steps to remove from bars about 2,500 VLTs about one-third of the total provincewide. Instead, as part of a government-approved plan, the terminals are to be installed in four centres being created athorse racing tracks.

Loto-Qubec says moving the VLTs tothe tracks will restrict everyday access and help control their use.

But the activists argued that therelocation would not eliminate the temptation to gamble but would instead increase it.

"They remove machines from bars that were not truly profitable for them, and they move them into these buildings. By virtue of the fact that it's a novelty, they're in new locations,they're going to attract new customers," said Sol Boxenbaum, a gambling critic with Viva Consulting who supports the call for a VLT moratorium.

VLTs are ubiquitous in Quebec bars and represent about $118 million in annual revenues for the provincial government. Loto-Qubec estimates that moving them to tracks will increase profits by as much as $3 million a year.

Loto-Qubec, which has already started removing some of the VLTs from bars, defended the move.

"Everybody looking [younger] than 30 years will be asked for ID," said Marie-Claude Rivet, a Loto-Qubec spokeswoman.

The VLT centres will open in Quebec City and Trois-Rivires in fall 2007. Two other centres, in Mont-Tremblant and Montreal, are scheduled to open in 2009.