After eight months of researching studies that have already been done in regions where gambling has been expanded, a work group from The Family Foundation has compiled what it believes to be the four major societal areas that will be most heavily affected by the expansion of gambling in Kentucky. And now, they maintain, is the time to release their findings and challenge the people of Kentucky to act against the perennial legislative idea that government can be funded in a positive way through gambling.

"Every bit of data we have found indicates a sad, but predictable, progression," said Kent Ostrander, executive director of The Family Foundation. "First, families are targeted and they lose heavily. Small business is then affected because families have fewer dollars to spend. Then, several years after the expansion, the character of government is changed as the gambling interests ‘invest’ in political campaigns. And finally, this previously unseen group, which we call ‘the vulnerable,’ begin surfacing, suffering deeply in any number of ways, including child abuse, spouse abuse, divorce, bankruptcy, crime, alcohol and drug abuse and suicide."

Heading the research team was Ivan Zabilka.  Zabilka, who holds three Master degrees and a Ph.D., first became interested in the issue in 1989 when he was teaching math at Bryan Station Middle School in Lexington. "I became deeply concerned about a couple of my students who seemed to be getting sicklier and continually doing poorly with their studies," said Zabilka. "As I looked into their situations I found that their parents had become engrossed in Kentucky’s new lottery and were spending all the family’s food money hoping to get rich. The students were living on one meal a day — school lunch." It was then that he began what he believes will be a life-long search for reality about gambling.

The release of the information at this time, rather than during the legislative session "is just a function of the education process that we’re pursuing," said Zabilka. "We’re hoping to have the average Kentuckian understand what the research establishes, so that when a big-budget media campaign is launched for gambling expansion, it will not have undue influence."

The education effort Zabilka describes includes a library of information placed on the organization’s web site, (www.SayNoCasino.com), an eight-page publication which explains the team’s findings, and a video for use in churches and civic groups. The strategy is two-fold — educate people regarding the issue and ask them to help make a difference in their own community. The publications and the video are given out at no cost to the recipients.

Though The Foundation staff believe that there will be a number of actions people will need to take over the next several months to continue to defeat the expansion of gambling in Kentucky, only one action is on the horizon: Contact both candidates for governor and ask them to resist any expansion of gambling. "We know both are being courted with campaign donations by the gambling interests," said Ostrander. "But we also know that listening to the people is the best way for either of them to get elected."