Judge Joe Anderson (my fellow Rotarian) says Rachel Duncan can’t be held responsible for Tom Sponseller’s suicide. And I think he’s probably right. A good, dispassionate ruling.
Was the 2½-year sentence adequate? I’m sort of torn about that. On the one hand, I have a problem with crowding our prisons with anyone who isn’t violent, for any amount of time. Far more to the point is the restitution she’s been ordered to pay when she gets out. If I wanted anything to be harsher, it would have been upping that $100-a-month minimum, seeing how at that rate it would take her 306 to pay back what she stole. This sort of case poses the question we so often face — aside from prison, how do we punish people who can’t afford to make monetary restitution?
But set that aside. Today I want to talk about video poker, which Ms. Duncan blames for her gambling addiction.
Make no mistake, I hold her responsible for what she did. But I do wonder whether she would have decided (over and over and over again) to do it had she not been in South Carolina in late 90s.
I had occasion to read up on gambling addiction a good bit back when that was one of our state’s hottest topics, and the thing about video poker is that it tended to ensnare people, particularly women, who would not have become gamblers through other forms of gaming. It was a combination of factors. First, if women are going to gamble, then tend to go for the more solitary forms that have a minimum of social interaction — which means they have less social stigma to overcome as they’re getting hooked. Then, there was something hypnotic and seductive about the electronic form of the game — the flashing lights, the instant gratification.
That would explain why such an addict might move from video poker, when it was no longer easily available, to online gambling. As did Ms. Duncan. No sports betting or poker night with the guys. Just a personal, private dive down the rabbit hole.
Now, you have to seek out video poker or its close relatives. Back when she got started, it was everywhere. In convenience stores, bars, restaurants — all over the place, just waiting for people with the right weakness.
As I said, she stole, and that is entirely her fault. But I do wonder whether she would have ever wanted to steal if it hadn’t been for the ubiquity of video poker at that time…
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Tom Spponseller was a friend, and I believe the Citadel culture of honor, and possibly depression, killed him. He had no other means of dealing with disgrace, as he saw it.
I believe Rachel Duncan had the kind of issues that would have found a “drug” of choice even if video poker had not been so easily available.
How do you suppose she’s going to find work to even support herself when she gets out? $100 a month may be tough enough.
Not disagreeing. I like the idea of a pro-rata fine. If we can catch Bill Gates with a bag of pot, we could pay for Social Security. What about a Bernie Madoff? He ruined the lives of hundreds of investors. He gots no money no more.
Her problem was ONLINE internet video poker. How are you going to stop that? It appears she was able to control her habit when it was being done in person… which makes sense.
No matter what you do to make it illegal, people who want to gamble will gamble. As many have said before, more damage has been done as a result of drinking alcohol (including many, many more deaths than gambling) yet we allow that vice to be abused right up to the point of disaster.
Wouldn’t it be better if gamblers had to register with the state and link their gambling accounts to a bank account? The benefits would be:
1) Harder to hide excessive/compulsive behavior
2) Winnings can be taxed easily
3) Limits can be established
4) Spouses could petition to close the accounts or deny access
I could see a system in place that would generate a statement each month showing current balance, winnings for month, losses for month, etc. That could help curtail some addicts but never all of them.
As for non-violent offenders going to jail, if it involves theft over a certain amount or physical harm to another person, jail should be mandatory. If it involves any victimless “crimes” like drugs and prostitution, no jail time should EVER result.
Why wouldn’t you jail non-violent offenders? What do you want done with them? In Bradland, will burglars just be required to repay the victims $50/month for the things they stole from houses? Will drug dealers be required to make $25/month restitution to drug programs?
If we want public works to create jobs, let’s start building mega-prisons and require everyone to complete 100% of their sentences.
I see, in Bradland laws wouldn’t matter to those who can afford to pay the fines.
You could be right. And that’s probably what Judge Joe was thinking. He’s a pretty smart guy, just chock full of Joe-ness.
By the way, on the subject of not jailing non-violent offenders…
Here’s what I wrote about the subject back in 2008, in connection with my proposal for a Grownup Party:
“Here’s an example: On Friday, I posted an item on my blog headlined, “Free Thomas Ravenel.” Yes, it’s childish to cry out for attention with such misleading stunts, but I did it in the service of a Grownup purpose (and besides, it helped my three-year-old blog reach its millionth page view later that day). That purpose was to raise the question, Why do we want to pay to feed, clothe and house Mr. Ravenel for the next 10 months?
“That’s what we, the taxpayers, are going to do. Ravenel attorney Bart Daniel told the press last week that his client will report to federal prison May 29 to begin serving his sentence for conspiracy to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute.
“Yes, he needs to be punished for flouting our laws (especially since he was our state treasurer at the time), but think about it: Mr. Ravenel is a multi-millionaire. Wouldn’t a multi-million-dollar fine — him paying us — make more sense than us paying for his incarceration? Yes, he was fined $221,000, and had to pay $28,000 in restitution. But we’re going to turn right around and spend a lot of that to keep him locked up over the next few months.”
For the most part I can agree with that sentiment, though I’d imagine there are exceptions.
I wouldn’t be seriously bothered with a “cool down” period when some red flags come up. An addict with a monkey on their back is never a good thing for society.
My nephew was participating heavily in online gambling. As a family we were very worried.
He killed himself when he couldn’t face his situation.
I’m not sure what the solution is…
What about going after those who work to make these things possible, for their own profit? What of those politicians and attorneys who are lobbying on behalf of video poker? The Free Times names some of them in the current issue. Are they good citizens?
Doug wrote
“Wouldn’t it be better if gamblers had to register with the state and link their gambling accounts to a bank account? The benefits would be:”
Better? No. Wouldn’t prevent anything. A lot of the gambling industry is sleazy and full of crooks anyway.
Jody Barr’s report on WIS last night, today, and tomorrow is showing that. He has some excellent tweets this morning detailing the crooks involved in video poker type stuff.
One video poker place- with the owner admitting to paying out in direct violation of the law is 1/2 mile from the Lexington County Sheriff’s department.
I guess if Paktistan didn’t know about Bin Laden living down the street, Metts can’t keep up with a video poker place giving cash money handouts down the street (a place his officers undoubtedly go in hundreds of times a week).
This poker machine, 1/4mile from sheriff’s office, has name of Metts contributor on label. Vendor is Brett Blanks. http://pic.twitter.com/4T8WDzlb
Jody Barr @JodyBarrWIS
We found 3 poker machines in this Lex store. Spotted people gambling and taking pay outs.
Jody Barr @JodyBarrWIS
Of Knotts’ contributions, $4K from @MagicMinutes owner LW Flynn camp. Judges deem MM machines
Jody Barr @JodyBarrWIS
Sen Knotts was mentioned on Frazier tape. Knotts denies any protection or knowledge of Frazier operation. http://pic.twitter.com/d2zqQIPF
Jody Barr @JodyBarrWIS
Sen Knotts took $7K from Frazier poker interests. Knotts says he’ll take more of they have it. Supports legalizing it. http://pic.twitter.com/trcKhpDQ
Jody Barr @JodyBarrWIS
Sen. Knotts on taking video poker money: “I can take the devil’s money and make it do God’s will.”
I saw that story about the tape this morning, my attention being called to it via Twitter.
It was interesting on a number of levels. Of course, for me, one of the MOST interesting things about it is the illustration of media crossover, or fusion, or whatever you want to call it.
WIS is aggressively moving into the territory once held firmly by newspapers. For some time, of course, the text stories on TV websites have been more than mere come-ons for the video. And the networks have gone deeply into the realm of publishing the written word. But this sort of extended investigative report — 1,866 words, close to twice the length of one of my columns at The State — seems to go well beyond anything local television has attempted to do in the past.
Digging down into a subject to this extent simply isn’t anything I’ve seen local TV do in the past. It’s going to be fascinating to watch this going forward…
And Doug, my point was that I doubt she would have gotten into online gambling had she not gotten hooked on video poker back when it was legal.
It’s unlikely she would have stumbled across online gambling and decided to try it the way it was so easy to do with video poker. Everywhere you went, practically, the machines were right there. And the entry was so easy for a middle-class average Jane who’d never, say, seek out a bookie to make a sports bet. Say she’s waiting in the bar for a table at her favorite restaurant. You have time to kill, there’s the machine; it only takes a quarter to check it out, and hey! you win your first hand. You didn’t even know you could play poker. Wow. Table’s still not ready. You put in another couple of quarters…
Today, I think people could possibly do the same thing with internet gambling. Back in those days, most people weren’t yet as comfortable on the Internet. Relatively few people at that point had experience with e-commerce, and would have hesitated to plug their credit card info into a web form. The barriers were greater then. You had to really WANT to gamble. So it helped to already be hooked on another form that was suddenly outlawed…
So many people today still seem to demonstrate a timidity on the web. For instance, they use Facebook almost exclusively as their interface to what we used to call cyberspace. That’s why I call it the AOL of our day — it tries to be all things to users, and a lot of people are content to let it be that.
I still wouldn’t invest in the stock, though…
“It’s unlikely she would have stumbled across online gambling and decided to try it the way it was so easy to do with video poker.”
That’s a huge leap of logic there.
Do you think the existence of liquor stores creates alcoholics? Do you think if we got rid of the sale of alcohol the desire would go away (we already know the answer to that question)?
An addictive personality will find a way to feed the beast. Video poker responds to demand it doesn’t create it. You have to go into the place and drop the first quarter in the machine to begin the process. They aren’t coming to your home.
@Lynn T regarding going after lawyers who represent anyone: wrong! Everyone has a right to legal representation, and lawyers are ethically required to provide representation to everyone, specifically those who are pariahs. They are not required to lobby for them, and I lose respect for Mayor Bob, for one, for doing so. Politicians have no defense, in my view!
Doug, I would ask whether you are willfully missing my point, but then, I’ve learned over the years that you honestly, truly don’t perceive things the way I do.
To seize upon the analogy you offer: Do you think the existence of liquor stores creates alcoholics?
Absolutely not, and that’s an excellent illustration of my point. An alcoholic will first experience alcoholic under circumstances in which it is incidental — someone is setting the glass before him; it’s right there, and he doesn’t have to seek it out.
That was the situation with video poker. While there were poker “parlors,” those were for the people who were already hooked. It was the ubiquity of them in places where the unwary didn’t have to seek them out that caused so many people to get into them, including people who may never have been interested in gambling before.
I just think you are incorrect.
Nobody walks into a poker parlor without knowing what they are there for. It’s not like they are in malls and fast food restaurants. All the ones I have seen have been stuck in the back of convenience stores in a small room. You have to go to the machines on purpose to use them.
Plenty of people walk past the machines without getting hooked. Addicts will find an outlet.
I’ll stick with my alcohol analogy. Plenty of people drink. The majority of people drink in moderation despite having complete access to alcohol pretty much anywhere, anytime. Alcoholics are pre-disposed to abuse it. When they can’t get it, they will find other substitutes.
The problem isn’t supply, it’s demand.
There’s no question we disagree, but not as much as you think. Look back. I didn’t SAY anyone walks into a poker parlor without knowing what they are there for. I said the exact OPPOSITE.
I said, “While there were poker “parlors,” those were for the people who were already hooked.” I was likening them to the liquor stores, which I agreed were not the places where people became addicts. You had to be hooked, or at least have developed enough of an interest to want to go there, to enter a parlor. Just as you would normally already have a taste for booze before going to the liquor store.
If you found video poker easy to miss, your experience was not mine. Every time I had to go into a convenience store to pay for gas, I had to breathe the cigarette smoke of the addicts.
And yeah, I tried the games a couple of times, to see what those guys (and gals) were obsessing about. After all, it was just a quarter, right, and it was right there…
But I don’t have the personality type to be a gambler. It doesn’t stroke the pleasure centers of my brain at all. It is so obviously a losing proposition…
“But I don’t have the personality type to be a gambler. It doesn’t stroke the pleasure centers of my brain at all. It is so obviously a losing proposition…”
Which is exactly what I am saying. Video Poker didn’t kill Tom Sponseller – a gambling addict did. She was not made by video poker machines, she was predisposed to find them… just as she found online internet poker over the past 12 years.
It’s like trying to blame Budweiser for a person who drinks four vodka martinis and kills someone while driving drunk. Just because that person had a beer a few years ago doesn’t make Budweiser liable.
As for me, I like to gamble. I’ve been to Vegas a half dozen times in the past few years and enjoyed every minute of it.
I also buy a scratch ticket on my weekly drive home from Birmingham. At the Georgia border is a convenience store with a big sign claiming to be the biggest seller of lottery tickets in the state – no coincidence that there is no lottery in Alabama. The Alabamans make the drive specifically to buy the tickets there. It’s about demand, not supply.
There you go again, Doug, extrapolating from your own exceptionalism. You are extraordinary. Most people are not in your league.
Doug wrote
“It’s not like they are in malls and fast food restaurants. All the ones I have seen have been stuck in the back of convenience stores in a small room. You have to go to the machines on purpose to use them.”
Hmmm, you are “misremembering.”
SC created a law to try to control video poker machines- before they outlawed them- by passing a law that said the machines had to be behind a wall and separated from other portions of establishments.
Video poker operators – in direct violation of the spirit of the law-started erecting these small partions that wouldn’t even classify as a cubicle to go around the law (because they weren’t interested in following any law anyway).
I walked into many gas stations to see video poker machines just inside the front door, with patrons sitting at them all lined up like birds on a wire. I could name a lot of them right now- but won’t.
A lot of these “gas stations” weren’t interested in selling gas- some even had gas prices 250% higher than other stations nearby because they were in the video poker business- not gas and soft drink business.
It costs us the taxpayers approximately $30K annually to incarcerate someone at DOC. When non-violent offenders are supervised by DJJ they pay a fee. Additionally when we keep people in prison the State of SC is responsible for all their medical costs.
Folks who have an addiction problem we now know have a brain disorder which requires treatment and that treatment for the long haul. Putting the mentally ill in prison hasn’t worked. But we keep doing it.
In the end I trust Judge Anderson’s judgment he is a fair and hard working judge.
@Barry
So how much money did you lose in those machines? Or were you able to control your impulse to gamble?
The people who played those machines went there because they were there. They knew what they were doing – trying to find an easy route to making money.
You can’t cure stupid.
@Kathryn
Literally millions of people go to Vegas each year and don’t turn into gambling addicts. There is nothing exceptional about it.
The seed has to already exist inside the person.
@Kathryn – I’d say I’m in Doug’s league… and I don’t gamble more than a lottery ticket a few times a year. I stand behind people who live welfare check to welfare check who buy 10x the number of tickets I buy. There’s a saying about a fool and his money… and I’m not that big of a fool with my money.
Right, but plenty do get into trouble, especially when it isn’t just a vacation thing.
@Kathryn
“Plenty” is not a high percentage. And there will always be plenty of people who screw up no matter how much you try to do to prevent it.
Video Poker wasn’t the cause of the problem. Playing video poker too much caused the problem.
I think she ought to have to substitute teach everyday for 2 1/2 years. Or drive a school bus.
Out of prison. But doing something.
@ Doug
I didn’t play any because I have moral objection to playing them.
I have no problem with people that can go to Vegas gambling.
I do have a problem with video poker and it’s off-shoots.
It’s the crystal meth of gambling.
I don’t want the pure trash that operate or run those things in or near any town in which I live – and I am glad they are against the law in South Carolina.
“Video Poker wasn’t the cause of the problem”
The General Assembly tried for years to work with Video Poker operators. They tried hard – over a number of years – to put regulations in to try to control the spread of the games, to try to control where they were located, etc.
AT EVERY SINGLE TURN- video poker operators bucked those regulations. They would agree to them, only to back away and then fight them.
Then when there were passed, they would fight the very laws they had just openly and publically agreed to support. In other words, they weren’t being honest.
No surprise there.
Did video poker kill Tom Sponseller? No, it was probably milk or coffee or tennis or PG-rated movies. Just because something existed at a time when someone was living in a certain place doesn’t make it a cause of something unrelated. The sad truth about Tom Sponseller is he was likely a very depressed individual that could not face up to the world any longer. Ms. Duncan’s poor choices, horrible as they were, were not the cause of Mr. Sponseller’s actions. So we don’t even need to address the issue of how Ms. Duncan became addicted to gambling, it’s irrelevant and I think Brad knows that. He’s just trying to be provacative.
“I don’t want the pure trash that operate or run those things in or near any town in which I live – and I am glad they are against the law in South Carolina.”
Doesn’t appear that they have gone anywhere… and there’s a whole lot more trash playing the games than running them.
I don’t want the pure trash that operate or run those things in or near any town in which I live –
-Barry
One mans trash is another mans treasure. Just because someone finds something offensive doesn’t make it a legitimate target for banning. Heck I find McDonalds offensive. All that fattening, unhealthy food being peddled to children. The result is a serious obesity problem that is killing millions each year from diabetes, heart disease, strokes and an abundance of other weight-related health issues. Video poker on the other hand probably doesn’t account for more than a few hundred deaths per year. So let’s focus on what really kills people and not get worked up over something that may offend people.
Every person hurt by video poker in SC. should get a long term P.I.If they cannot afford it either ask a family member or panhandle.This article states one obvious fact.The victim did not put the machine there.No one held a gun to people’s head saying that it has to be put in every nook and cranny of SC.Alot of people’s opinion would quickly change if they were the one hooked on the machines.Guess they saying walk a mile in another person’s shoes does not hold much meaning anymore.The argument that people are going to gamble does not hold up.When people thought of gambling it used to be Vegas and Atlantic city.Quite some distance away.Something is wrong when the word loophole is used time and time again to justify the problem.