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Tales of Woe
Chicago, IL – When he stood before the court last November to admit his crimes, George T. Lycos of Elks Grove Village near Chicago was begging for mercy. Through his tears, Lycos blamed his criminal behavior on a 15-year gambling addiction that he said had “battered me and beaten me down and choked me to the point where I hurt my kids and the kids that I coached.”
As a commissioner of his son’s baseball league, Lycos, 42, stole $77,000 from the league’s bank account. He also confessed to bilking 15 investors out of more than $800,000 by getting them to give him money for a phony furniture business. According to prosecutors, Lycos gambled away more than $1.3 million of stolen money at four state casinos.
But instead of getting the probation that he sought, Lycos was sentenced to eight years in prison. A key reason was because even after Lycos admitted his addiction and claimed he was getting treatment, he was spotted in a casino slot machine while he was free on bond, unable apparently to end his powerful addiction. A casino employee recognized him from news reports about the baseball theft, and urged him to sign up for a voluntary program that would ban him from the casino.
But the casino worker said Lycos wasn’t interested. Lycos said he had 10 more days left before the sentencing and he wanted to enjoy himself.
“The court system was scammed, just like all his other victims,” said Cook County Judge John Scotillo.
Besides being sentenced, Lycos became the first known compulsive gambler to be added to the state's casino blacklist. He is now considered a person of "unsavory and notorious reputation" to be banned from state casinos--a distinction usually reserved for mobsters. (Chicago Sun Times)
Will Mass Be Vegas East?
The move by Gov. Patrick to open Las Vegas -style casinos can no longer be considered a meager attempt to capture a piece of the legalized gambling business. Based on the latest numbers being bandied about by the pro-casino group, the Bay State would rank at least fourth in the nation for revenues from gambling. That means Massachusetts would rank higher than:
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New Jersey, with all of its Atlantic City casinos -
Connecticut, home to two of the world’s biggest and most successful casinos
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New Orleans, the Big Easy state wouldn’t match the Bay State for gambling.
No, Gov. Patrick’s proposal is a move to transform Massachusetts to the gambling capital of the Northeast, a dominant player in the industry. The image and reputation of Massachusetts as a clean, family-friendly state that is finally attracting businesses would be transformed into a “casino culture.”
Of course, with Foxwoods and Twin Rivers in Rhode Island expanding, New Jersey contemplating opening other parts of the state to casinos, and most of the other New England states eyeing “destination” casinos, that dominance won’t last. Their solution, no doubt, will be to build more casinos which will only attract local residents, not tourists.
Studies have shown that a casino can negatively impact the quality of life in communities as far as 50 miles away. This map demonstrates the influence three such casinos, located in Middleboro, Palmer and East Boston, could potentially have on Massachusetts.
