NATIONAL GAMBLING IMPACT STUDY COMMISSION

JAMES TOWER

MR. TOWER: Good afternoon. My name is James Tower, I'm the President of Up Discount Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts. I'm the fifth largest agent in the state. I see approximately, maybe 25,000 gamblers a week. I haven't run into any problems, in terms of a few gameaholoics, I'd say out of that 25,000 maybe one percent are gambleaholics.

Myself, my company will barr anybody from gambling when they find there is a gambleaholic in our store, it's easy to find out when they run over to the ATM machine and keep pulling money out to play the Lottery. I'm for the Lottery, I've been with the Lottery since 1972, that's when Mass. State Lottery started. We started in March of 1972 with the Lottery. Our sales went from $100 a week to approximately over $100,000 a week.

I see a lot of people come in my store every day, they play a dollar, they play the dollar and they sit around and talk to other people. But I guess what I'm trying to say is as a lottery agent, it's our responsibility to be aware of gambleaholics. Just as much as we're in the liquor business now, it's our responsibility to make sure we're not serving to an alcoholic or somebody that's drunk.

I do say, I've got 45 people working in one store and I would say 15 of those people just do lottery bets. We have Keno, we actually have Keno in the front of our store, we made a section for the Keno, we didn't hide it, we just showed it where it is.

And I guess there is nothing much more to say other than I'm for the Lottery and I think it's helped me employ a lot of other people, kept my company going. I don't know what convenience stores would do without the Lottery, or liquor store do without the Lottery. It's supposed to be a substitute to your business, that income, to help you pay for help and pay for rent and whatever.

So I guess I'll just leave it at that. Thank you and --.

CHAIRPERSON JAMES: Thank you.

Kathy Morrell.