 Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining. I'm Park Ko-Cheng from Niko's Chinese Health Coalition. Let me share my screen. Can you all see the slide? Yes, we can see. So today's topic is about the truth about gambling that you didn't know. And I'm a health educator at Niko's Chinese Health Coalition. A little bit introduction for our entity, Niko's Chinese Health Coalition. We are located right across Warden J. Lau Elementary School. And we are actually right in the center of Chinatown. Our mission is to enhance the health and well-being of San Francisco Chinese community. We were funded in 1985. So we have been serving the Chinese community for over 35 years. And we are a public-private community partnership of 30-plus groups. We have partnership with various nonprofit organizations across San Francisco just so that we can better serve our community. And this picture is just our storefront. A little bit background about the project, Chinese Community Problem Gambling Project. So back in the days in 1997, Niko's conducted a telephone survey and we interviewed 1,808 Chinese American adults in San Francisco. And the whole purpose of the survey was to evaluate health profile. And at this time, over 70% of the Chinese Americans identified gambling as a huge issue, problem in the community. That's why Niko's implemented the Chinese Community Problem Gambling Project just so that we can address this social issue. So what exactly is gambling? Can some of the audience share some opinions? You can just use a few simple words to define what does gambling mean to you. Anyone in tears? So in your opinion, what does gambling mean? The house always wins. And what do participants usually gamble on? They will gamble on money, right? So here we have a really specific definition for gambling. Gambling refers to any game of chance or skills that involves a financial risk. So here we have some gambling activities such as people can play on table games such as Blackjack or PyGal. And this is cock fighting, which is also called rooster fighting. But it is considered illegal in the United States but in developing countries such as China and Philippines animals fight is actually really common, especially in rural areas. But remember in United States, any animals fighting is considered illegal. And football or sport betting, sport betting is actually becoming really famous, popular as an at-home gambling activities because of the pandemic and horse racing in California. Currently, there are about 33 race tracks available in California. And this is a slot machine. Nowadays, because technology is so advanced, people do not necessarily have to go to a casino to play slot machine. They can just simply download an app and then they can play slot machine. And in time of the day, that's why gambling is becoming really accessible to people. But in the meantime, it's also becoming more dangerous because people can easily get addicted to it. And lottery tickets, mega millions. If you ever drive on highway, you might notice that they will have this giant screen telling you that how much money you can win by purchasing lottery tickets. And you can see all these lottery tickets machines in gas station, liquor store or grocery store. And the owners, they will put all these machines near the front entrance so that people will see them and they are more likely to purchase these lottery tickets. And this is mahjong. For those that speak Chinese, I'm sure you have heard of mahjong or you have seen your family play mahjong. In my own family, in Chinese culture, mahjong is a really popular gambling game. Although all of the Chinese people, they do not see playing mahjong as a form of gambling. And also during holidays, Chinese people, especially my family, they would just play mahjong right after eating just to spend some time and to entertain. And stock trading. A lot of people see stock trading as a form of gambling and in most greater skill and also greater risk as well if you are a day trader. So here we have another activity called Mythbuster. It's super easy, I'll read you a statement and then you just have to help me identify if it's a myth or it's a fact. So the first statement we have here in lottery, there are hot numbers that increase your chances of winning. Do you think in lottery, there are hot numbers or your favorite numbers will increase your chances of winning? Do you think this is a fact or it's a myth? Myth, myth. Does anyone think it's a fact? Okay, I can see all people agree it's myth. You all are smart. So it's actually a myth. In lotteries, all the numbers are randomly, sorry, all the numbers are randomly select. So no matter what numbers you choose, you have the same chance of winning. Even in Chinese culture, Chinese people really like the number eight because number eight represent good luck, good fortune. By contrast, number four represent death. But no matter if a Chinese person select all number eight or all number four, they will both have the same chance of winning. Even including your favorite numbers, it does not help increase your chances of winning in lottery. So there are books like this one out there, winning lottery for everyday players by Prof Jones. When you all first look at this cover, you guys come in to buy this book. Does this person looks legit to you, this author? And also what does the word Prof P-R-O-F stand for? Does it remind you of a particular word right here? Professor, a lot of people will automatically assume that this person is a professor, but don't let him trick you. He's actually not a real professor. This guy gambles for a living. He might be a professional gambler. And also think about this. If this person has the secret of winning the entire lottery, he would keep it by himself, right? He wouldn't be generous and sure with the whole world. And also look at this. Why would this person spend so much time writing for a book and also selling for 995? It doesn't make sense, right? He would keep the secret and then he would just win the entire lottery by himself. So don't let him trick you. The second statement we have here in the long run, the more regular you play in the casino, the more you will lose. Do you think this is a myth or it's a fact? In the long run, the more regular you play in the casino, the more you will lose. I see two facts. Anyone else? Do you think it's a myth that the longer you stay, the more regular you play, you will have a higher chance of winning? Okay, I will read the answer. It's actually a fact because think about casino. They are not non-profit charitable organization. They have to win money from people who lose money and also think about all those beautiful lights, fountains, they sometimes offer free greens, free hotel stays. They have to spend so much money to maintain the operation. That's why in the long run, casino will always win. So what are some tricks that casino do to keep players staying longer? How many of you have ever walked across a casino or have stayed in a casino? No, there's some strategies, tricks that casino do to just keep players staying in the casino longer, free beverage, hard to find the asset. Yes, anything else? Like free foods? Okay, let me review. So free drinks, most specifically alcohol drinks, because when people drink alcohol, they tend to make worse decision rather than better decision. And then abstract cash. Casino, they require you to use abstract cash instead of a real money like cash because they want you to use this kind of toy, plastic chips and VIP cars so that you are more likely to overspend just like people tend to overspend on credit cards so that you have a hard time keeping track of spending. And no clocks or windows. Clocks and windows are not expensive items, but casino, they refuse to install them because they wanna make the players more likely to lose track of time. And game design, this is actually a slot machine and I can be honest with you, all that slot machines, they will play a really pleasant sound just like the cable car ding ding, ding ding, no matter if the person is winning or losing. So casino, they intentionally place all these slot machines near the front entrance so that they can treat all the newcomers, make them believe that all of this play has so many people winning money and this might be my destination to make a fortune, but remember, no matter if the person is winning or losing they will keep playing the same pleasant sound. Maze design, if you have ever visited a casino, you will have a hard time finding direction, especially when it's crowded, finding a bathroom can be a challenge as well because they purposely designed the interior like a maze. And lastly, heated carpets. Many people will question why casino, they spend so much money and time to clean these carpets. Well, studies show that our eyes do not like to look at busy, complicated patterns like these carpets. Our eyes like to look at things that are natural and smooth. That's why casino, they purchase these carpets so that they wanna make sure that players they can focus more on the things that they're doing which is gambling. And some people might criticize and also make jokes that if they drop the chips on the floor they couldn't find it. That's also possible as well because the colors are just so messed up. So how gambling works, now I'm gonna show you all some tips that you can learn how to gamble responsibly in the future. There are three important concepts to remember. The first one is randomness. The second one is independence of events. And the third one is house advantage. So we will go through each of this concept with an example. Let's say we're all gonna purchase these lottery tickets. You already have the first three numbers pre-filled, two, 10, 18, and which option will give you the best chance of winning? Option A, 19, 20, 21. Option B, 27, 39, 44. Option C, 23, 33, 43. Option D, 20, 30, 40. And option E, any of the above. So which one of these following options will give you the best chance of winning? I can see E, any of the above, any other answers? Does anyone like option A or option B? I can see most people voted, well actually all people voted option E, any of the above. The correct answer is actually option E, any of the above. But I can also show you all that a lot of times when we present this slide to, for example, high school students, some of them will choose option B because they think option B looks the most random. And some people might like option C because they will like the last three numbers to be odd numbers and option D because they just like even numbers. But if lottery tickets are randomly, are completely random, can any of the combination be possible? Option A to D. So remember in lottery tickets, there's something called randomness. That's why option E is the correct answer. And the second concept we have here is independence of events. That's a winning liquor store will guarantee the next jackpot winner. Do you think this is true? So it doesn't make sense. This statement does not stand, right? So if any of the winning liquor store they have sold some winning tickets in the past, it will not guarantee that this liquor store will become special or lucky to sell another winning tickets in the future. These two events are not related to one another. So independence of events mean what happened in the past will not influence what will happen in the future. So the last concept is called house advantage. Who is the house? Can anyone tell me? House advantage and who is the house here? The casino, the gambling operator. So a lot of the casino games they are customized so that the odds are always in casino favorite. So more advantage for the house and more disadvantage for players. So let's say we're all gonna play this roulette and if half of us will bet on color black and the other half will bet on color red, will the chances of winning be 50-50? So half of the people will bet on color black and then the other half will bet on color red. Do you think the chance will be 50-50? Or more? Okay, I will reveal. So in this particular roulette, okay, less than 50-50. That's correct because beside color black and red, there's one more column. You can see the green column, single zero. And I can tell you that in casino, they oftentimes have two green columns, one single zero and one double zero. And these two green columns belong to casino. So if people bets on either black or red, the chances of winning is actually less than 50-50. And in this particular roulette, if people spend one time and only 49% of the people will have win money, but most people will not just, sorry, most people will not just play roulette for one time, they'll play multiple times. So after 100 spin, 36% of the people will have win money, but after 1000 spin, only 19% of the people will have win money, but guaranteed by that, after 10,000 spin, all people will have lost money. So remember house advantage, there are more advantage for the house and more disadvantage for the players. The house gambling operator always win in the long-term. Now we'll talk about prevalence of gambling. So let's look at the maps here. Back in 1975, as you can see, only a few state have legalized gambling in the East Coast and in the West Coast, we have Nevada. But as we all know, Nevada is like the capital of gambling. But let us time travel to 2013, you can see a lot of the state are highlighted in colors, meaning that they have legalized gambling in some ways. And Nevada is still the same color because they have been the capital of gambling all the time. And can someone tell me what are some of the state that do not have legalized gambling? Right, Utah and Hawaii. So this is Utah and this is Hawaii. Some people sometimes my question what state is this? But don't think of this as a state. This is actually Lake Michigan. Now let's focus on California. So this is the California maps. And you can see there are so many dots here. There are blue dots and there are red dots. So the blue dots are Indian casinos like Dunder Valley, Grayton and the red dots are car rooms, sometimes also called car clubs. Although some car clubs, they will still label themselves as casino like Lucky Chance's Casino, but technically they are not a casino, they are car rooms. Car rooms meaning that you can only play a limited amount of car games and also Bay 101. And the most commonly used transportation for gamblers is buses. And Nikos conducted a study just in SF Chinatown. They are total of seven carriers from Monday to Sunday and up to 18 times a day. Sometimes up to 12 a.m. they will also offer buses because casino they won't attract more customer so that these people have a higher chance to lose money. And there are two other famous gambling destinations. One is Reno and the other one is Las Vegas. So what exactly is problem gambling? We have a spectrum here from no problem to severe problem. And based on a California Prevalence Study back in 2006 in California, about 17% of the people are non gamblers. They have never gambled one time in their life. But surprisingly they are 70% of the people are casual and social gamblers meaning that they only gamble for fun, for entertainment. And then roughly about 9.5% of the people are at risk gamblers meaning that if they do not pay attention to their gambling behaviors, they might get addicted. And then about 2.2% of the Californians are problem gamblers. They already have problem gambling and if they do not seek help then they might become pathological gamblers which is the most severe stage. About 1.5% of the Californians are considered pathological gamblers which is mental health professional can make a diagnosis of it. Some warning signs that I wanna share with you all so that you can learn how to identify if a person has a gambling problem. So they will need to gamble with increasing amounts of money just to reach the desired excitement. And then when they try to cap down or stop gambling they will feel restless or irritable. And they will make repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cap back and stop gambling but they always fail. And the mind is fully occupied with gambling like where, when and how they can gamble. They couldn't stop thinking about gambling. And when they gamble, they oftentimes feel in distress helpless, guilty, anxious, depressed. And after losing so much money gambling, they will have this stubborn idea that they wanna go back to chase back all the losses to get even. And they will like to significant others about the gambling movement because they feel ashamed. And they will tend to jeopardize or loss a significant relationship, job or educational or career opportunity because of excessive gambling. And lastly, they will rely on others to relieve the desperate financial situation caused by gambling. Some people might end up being homeless because they could not afford to pay rent. So if you know someone has one of these warning signs it means that gambling has become a problem. And if you know someone has more than four of these warning signs, a mental health professional to make a diagnosis of gambling disorder. Problem gambling and vulnerable populations. Here we have a quote I really like. You are not alone, there's hope. There's hope. There's always a way to have a normal life again. And research indicated that approximately 83% of adults 21 and above in California have gamble at some time in their lives. Roughly 3.7% of adults are problem of pathological gamblers. This means that about 1.2 million Californians have a gambling problem. So as you all can see that roughly about 1.2 million Californians are potential gambling. They have gambling addiction. That's why it's important to help those in needs and know some of the gambling resources so that we can help those people out when it's needed. And here's some statistic I wanna share. I will quickly go over the slide so that I don't run out of time. Some data's out. For example, this is data from 1999. Some Chinese researcher, they conducted a survey, a research in San Francisco among Chinese adults and they identified that 14.5% of the Chinese adults met the criteria for problem gambler and 21% met the criteria for pathological gambler. So gambling was a really severe issue within the Chinese community. And also a study conducted by researcher among university student. 12.5% of the API population have gambling problem versus 4 to 5% among African American whites and American Indians and 11% among Latinos. But API populations do remain the highest prevalence of problem gambling. Yes, API stand for Asian Pacific Islanders. And some most recent statistic from 2016 by some university student, San Francisco State University student conducted survey on campus and then they found that 12.8% of the API student are probably pathological gamblers meaning that they might have gambling problems. And among those people, 15.7% are foreign born API students. And lastly, problem gambling among San Francisco youth, 11% among API youth and versus 2 to 6% national average. So it is a significant difference among API youth in San Francisco. There are a lot of challenges and triggers that make people become addicted to gambling such as immigration related issues. A lot of the, for example, a lot of the Chinese immigrants when they came to the United States, they would, many of them would just work in a service industry. So they will get off work really late. And sometimes they do not find many other ways to relax because of cultural and language barrier. That's why gambling seems to be a good resource for them because casino, you do not necessarily have to speak English and some staff can even speak your own language and some people might even joke that gambling is a universal language because as long as you know how games work, you do not have to say English or anything else. And also cultural acceptance in Asian cultures, also in Chinese culture, gambling is pretty common. Even in my own family during holidays, I actually grew up watching my family play mahjong during holiday and they also taught me how to play mahjong and poker cards when I was a kid because they just kind of assumed that playing mahjong or poker games with family is a good way to bond with each other. And also target marketing. I will later talk about target marketing and some stigma helps seeking behavior. In Chinese culture, it is not easy to reveal that you have a problem gambling because when you say that you are addicted to gambling, people will assume that you must have lost so much money. You should be ashamed. That's why a lot of the problem gamblers, they do not want to tell the significant ones about their gambling involvement because they will feel ashamed and they would just hide from the gambling addiction and then they never seek help. And also lack of culturally, linguistically appropriate resources, but in the days, there weren't that many culturally, linguistically appropriate services. That's why Nicos as one of the nonprofit organization, we implemented the Chinese Community Problem Gambling Project so that we can create more in language materials, resources for those that monolingual Chinese Americans. And gambling industry, they have this special target marketing. They purposely use Asian Americans just so that the flyers poster will look more attractive like an Asian guy is playing a table game. And I can tell you that this Chinese means you got a big chance. This is the Chinese word for big, like saying that if you come, then you will get a big chance for winning money. And this is actually created by Grayton. Grayton is actually not far away from the Bay Area. And nowadays, if you pay attention to some of the bus station, they have the signs, the ads from Grayton. They actually pay a lot of money for this target marketing and they have all this in language advertisements. And for many community-based events, they have the biggest sponsor from all the casinos. And here we have the Dunder Valley. Dunder Valley is also not too far from Bay Area. And bilingual bi-cultural staff, casino, they will hire a lot of this bilingual bi-cultural staff so that they wanna make sure players, they will feel welcome and encouraged to gamble. And you do not have to speak English, you can directly speak to them in Chinese, Tagalog, or Spanish. And you will feel like home, they will treat you like VIP. That's why I love the customer. They will feel like casino may be a good way for them to relax, to escape from reality. And culturally competent physical space. This is the old MGM building. You can see this lion gate here. But in Chinese culture, there's a thing called Feng Sui, meaning that if you believe in luck, Chinese people will think that going through a lion's gate means bad luck. So shortly after that, MGM, they actually will build a whole casino. You can see they just bowed the lion's statue. So they believe this kind of cultural belief so that they wanna feel that all the customer are welcome and they will come to gamble more often as well. Familiar flavors. One of the key elements of casinos is they parfait because they offer all kinds of food like Chinese. You can have dim sum and have other Chinese cuisine as well. And cultuating customer loyalty. Casino, they have set out many buses in various location. Like I mentioned earlier, just in SF Chinatown, there are seven carriers that provide bus service. And this is like in language, bus advertisement. They just want to invite more people to gamble. And some problem gambling prevention tips so that you can learn how to avoid gambling excessively. So we should learn the facts. Like I mentioned three important concepts to remember, randomness, independence of events and house advantage. And you should always set a money and time limit and leave credit and debit cards at home. Avoid borrowing money because when you stop borrowing money, you will just borrow more and more. And lastly have a plan, win or lose. Do not be stubborn that I will not stop unless I win. And remember the house, gambling operators always win in the long run. Lastly, some resources I wanna share with you all. So there's a survey created by Office of Problem Gambling. You can just simply fill out the survey and then to identify if you have problem gambling or not. And this is the link problemgambling.ca.gov. And in California, actually in United States, each state has its own independence gambling hotline. In California, we have the 1-800-Gambler. I'm sure you all know how to dial gambler. And they have this 24 hours English, Chinese, they have various language assistance. And this is more for English speaking callers. And then at Nicos, we also operate this SF Bay Area bilingual English and Chinese gambling hotline. The number is 1-A-A-A-9-6-A-7-A-A-A. I said it before, Chinese people really like the number A. That's why our entity selected this phone number with so many A on it. And also in California, there's a program called CalGet, it stands for California Gambling Education Treatment Services. And they will provide free counseling treatments and also confidential. Some other online resources. I will just share the PowerPoint with SF Main Library. And I think you can just download the PDF and then you can check out all the links. Some websites such as California Console on Problem Gambling and National Console on Problem Gambling. And also self-exclusion, self-restriction form. At Nicos, we also assist clients with self-exclusion and self-restriction forms. And if you need help, you can call us and we can make an appointment and work for you. So this is the end of my presentation. And if you have any questions, you can call us or email me. Our office number is 415-7-A-A-6-4-2-6. And this is my work email address. Thank you all for listening. I hope I didn't run out of time. Okay, 41. You didn't run out of time. That was really interesting. How does self-exclusion work? So in California, I want to specify that in California, self-exclusion only works for car games. That's not worked for Indian casino, like tribal casino, because tribal casino, they have their own individual self-exclusion form. You will have to go through each individual Indian casino. But for car games in California, they have the standardized self-exclusion form. As long as you fill out the standardized self-exclusion form that it will apply to all car games, oh, sorry, car rooms. Also, you had another announcement you wanted to share. Oh, yeah. So Nicos-Chinese Health Coalition, we have this annual health fair event. I will just show the flyer one minute. So we have the Chinatown Community Health Fair. You all are welcome. It's free. It's taking place on October 22nd from 10 to three. And it's Chinatown YMCA. You can get all these free health screening. Such as blood glucose, blood pressure, bone density, dental vision. And for vaccine, we have COVID and flu shots as well. Plus, you can also have access to many online workshops as well. Can you all see the flyer? Yes, thank you. So a few people joined while you were talking. So I just want to remind everybody that we are recording this. So everybody will receive an email with a link to the recording if you want to watch it again or if you want to watch this later. And the slides as well. And we will also include this flyer. So you'll get all that information later this afternoon. That was very interesting. Thank you very much. Is there any? Sure, yeah. Oh, there's something in the chat. So you got some nice, you got some thank yous. So I want to thank our presenter, Paco Chang. And everyone, you know, if you know someone who could benefit from this information, please share it with them. Later, I will share the slide with you Doreen so that if some participant would like to reveal the PowerPoint, you can also share with them. Okay. Yeah, all the information that you see on the screen will be emailed. So again, I don't see any more questions in the chat and it looks like it's about quarter till. So I want to thank everyone for coming. Thank you, Paco, for presenting. And I'm sure we'll see you again soon. Oh, and I want to remind everyone whether you're watching this live or you're watching the recording, you can come to the main library fourth floor and pick up a goodie bag from the Nicos Health Center. And that's free for everyone. So we will have them at the business and science desk. You can just come and ask for that. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. I want to wish everybody a good day and a good afternoon. And thank you, Paco, for presenting this today. A pleasure. Thank you.