Gambling is bad for the economy, bad for the individual, and bad for the society at large. Various groups of concerned citizens have been trying to make this point in various ways over the past years as greater and greater numbers of state legislatures have turned to raising revenues through state-run or approved casinos and lotteries.
In the fight against gambling, just about the entire gamut of strategies has been employed: from calling in major scholars and research specialists to conduct studies on the short- and long-term effects of gambling to concerned citizen groups gathering to write letters to the editor. Recently, however, a small grassroots movement has sprung up in Lynden, WA with a novel way to fight the growth of casinos in their hometown and across the nation.
On February 13, 2008 a group of approximately 30 Freedom Players entered the Northwood Casino in Lynden, WA, sat down at as many slot machines, placed their money in the machine and . . . pulled out magazines, unwound balls of yarn and knitting needles, and struck up conversations with the people on either side of them. A new spin on an old technique, the Freedom Players effectively filibustered the Northwood Casino for 90 minutes until the local sheriff department peacefully escorted them off the casino property.
While inside the casino, the activists attempted to find out more information about the slot machines before pressing the Play button. They were concerned with their odds of winning, the sort of virtual reel mapping controlling the slots, and the various techniques used by the casino management and game producers to manipulate the users into gambling to “the point of extinction,” a cynical euphemism for going broke.
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