Casino-Free Philadelphia

Casino-Free
Philadelphia is a grassroots, direct action, organizing organization
that was founded June 1, 2006 in order to stop casinos from being
built in Philadelphia.

We are a small budget, high impact group of committed citizens that
build power through campaigns. Past campaigns include Operation
Transparency, Public Filibuster, No Way Without Our Say, Philly's
Ballot Box, and Operation Hidden Costs. Our next campaign launches on
January 27th and is called the Declaration of Independence from
Casinos. Our efforts are covered frequently in local press and just
recently we were featured in a great column in the Wall Street
Journal, which stated: "shouldering into Philadelphia may prove to be
the American casino industry's Waterloo."
We are strongly opposed to the predatory gambling trade which has
three main components: the machines, the facilities and the marketing.
These components combined with government complicity and partnership
(in PA slots ar taxed at 55% making the government a majority
share-holder) make it necessary for citizens to organize not just to
build power to move elected officials but to move the population to
oppose the trade through direct means.
For almost three years we have stopped the casinos from moving forward
in Philadelphia. In September we came to Maryland for the annual
stoppredatorygambling.org conference. We met many people from
Maryland working to stop the introduction of slots through the
referendum which unfortunately passed. In Pennsylvania there was no
referendum. But we do not feel that Maryland's vote legitimizes the
introduction of this predatory trade. We expect that our presentation
and discussion and our participation in the conference will lead to
critical alliances and insight that will help us forge common purpose
with residents in Baltimore and Maryland interested in stopping the
casinos from opening up in your city and state. These alliances are
critical to building an effecitve national movement that is required
to challenge predatory businesses that have thrived in the last few
decades. Where once we had a nation of savers, our government is now
in the business of creating a nation of debtors and addicts. But
something can and is being done about it.