Addendum: Stop Predatory Gambling Releases Report of Each Presidential Candidate’s Stand on Gambling
By Hunter Hines
Christian Action League
November 13, 2016
RALEIGH – Wake County’s District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has requested the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) examine whether any state lawmakers and Governor Pat McCrory received illegal political contributions from the sweepstakes industry.
Sweepstakes gaming parlors or cafes have computer terminals inside, where patrons pay money for chances to win a prize by playing a casino-style game, similar to a slot machine. Sweepstakes businesses were banned in 2010.
In 2012 Chase E. Burns, as well as other sweepstakes operators, were vigorously pushing members of the North Carolina General Assembly to make the games legal again. According to WRAL News, “Burns alone made $274,500 in donations to North Carolina candidates, Democrats and Republicans, making him by far one of the biggest donors to political campaigns and causes during the 2011-12 cycle. McCrory received $70,000 in contributions from Burns and others.”
The government watchdog group, Democracy North Carolina, filed a complaint in 2013 that initiated an investigation by the state’s Board of Elections. Democracy North Carolina’s director, Bob Hall, had expressed concerns that Burns may have violated state laws banning the use of corporate funds for campaign contributions.
After a two year probe, the Board of Elections concluded this year that no laws had been broken. Elections board members, however, did express frustration with the limits of the state’s current law. North Carolina prohibits corporate contributions to campaign coffers, but not the source of the corporate money.
Board Elections Director, Kim Strach, said at the time there wasn’t any evidence of mixing resources, but it wasn’t possible to know with certainty if illegal money had not come to North Carolina from Burns’ trust fund.
Bob Hall said the Elections Board’s report raised more questions than it answered and called upon law enforcement agencies to look into the donations made.
According to WRAL, Freeman wrote in an email on Tuesday, “I have asked the SBI to conduct an investigation into contributions made by Burns during the 2012 election cycle and into ancillary matters that came to the attention of the Board of Elections during its investigation.”
Dr. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, said he doesn’t want to believe there have been any improprieties by the Governor or lawmakers and neither did he want to believe politics against McCrory’s re-election campaign were motivating the actions by the Wake County D.A, who is a Democrat.
“Still, what I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, is the sweepstakes industry is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg,” said Dr. Creech.
Dr. Creech added, “I have, on a personal level and professionally, in my capacity as a lobbyist, begged our state’s lawmakers to stay away from this mess. Gambling stains and corrupts everything it touches, especially forms like video poker and sweepstakes. It presents itself as an angel of light, but its nature is to rob, kill, and destroy. I was very disappointed to see in the Elections Board’s report that so many of our state’s lawmakers had taken money from Burns. Whether their campaigns really knew where the money was coming from or not, I don’t know. But it does make me wonder how resolute they really are against gambling. Whether anything illegal was done or not is not the whole issue. The fact is, it’s unethical to take money tainted by an illegal and corrupt operation, even with the prospect of making it legal. We’ll just have to see how the SBI responds.”
Addendum: Stop Predatory Gambling Releases Report of Each Presidential Candidate’s Stand on Gambling
In other gambling-related news this week, Stop Predatory Gambling (SPG), a national government reform group against state-sponsored gambling operations, released a report that looks at the positions of each of the Presidential candidates on gambling.
“There is one big policy idea that would dramatically help low-and-middle income citizens and its not ideologically divisive: Help everyday Americans by refusing to defraud and exploit them through government sponsored gambling, whether in the form of lotteries, regional casinos or online gambling,” said Les Bernal, National Director of SPG.
“[T]he next President will face nationally important policy questions about the massive lobbying push for internet gambling and the spectacular failure of putting Las Vegas-type casino gambling on Main Street across America…government sponsored gambling is a defining issue about who we are as a people. No political leader has a bigger pulpit to stand up for ordinary Americans than the President,” Bernal said.
To see where the Presidential candidates stand on gambling, click here.
For further reading, see Dr. Mark Creech’s editorial: Donald Trump, Gambling and Character