gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

Ethical Issues
Another potential impact is a philosophical one. As mentioned earlier, the ability of
community/charitable groups in Alberta to directly provide and directly or indirectly receive
revenue from slot machines and casino table games is different than in most jurisdictions,
where charity groups are more typically limited to providing bingos, raffle tickets, pull-tickets
and/or having access to jurisdictional gambling revenues just through a granting program. This
has created conflict within some organizations uncomfortable with receiving direct funding
from something that potentially is creating harm.
There have only been a few studies that have looked at this issue within a Canadian context. In
a survey of Canadian charity groups, Azmier & Roach (2000) found that among the 66% of
Canadian charity groups that opted not to use gambling revenue, ethical concerns were cited as
a factor behind this decision by 63% of these organizations (90% for religious organizations).
Even among the organizations that did use gambling money, 49% reported that someone in
their organization had voiced ethical concerns about this source of revenue, 58% indicated that
they would prefer to raise revenue through other means (but were unable to), and 27%
indicated that they did not personally believe that charitable gambling was an ethical method
of fundraising. Very similar findings were reported in a very similar study conducted by Berdahl
(1999).
The main stated reasons for these ethical concerns were: a belief that gambling is related to
addiction, family breakdown, and crime; charitable gambling increases the number of problem
gamblers; and perceived hypocrisy in using a fundraising method that would increase the
number of people who turn to the charity sector for assistance (Azmier & Roach, 2000). There
were also differences as a function of type of gambling, with the majority of respondents
indicating that raffles and bingo were acceptable forms of gambling for charities, but only 20-
21% indicating that VLTs and slot machines were acceptable.
Suffice to say that this ethical issue has not been resolved and is as prominent and polarizing in
2011 as it was in 2000, with certain groups (particularly the Catholic church) being particularly
vocal in their public opposition to charity fundraising in Alberta through casinos (Bounds, 2011;
CBC News, 2010; Ramp & Badgley, 2009).
Saliency
A final issue concerns the fact that charitable groups that rely on gambling revenue for
fundraising often will have less need for ongoing fundraising efforts, as revenue from the 2-day
casino event supplies much of their needs. Consequently, the visibility of these groups in the
community can be lessened. This is an issue explored further in the Key Informant section of
this report.
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