{"id":328244,"date":"2016-05-09T03:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T01:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/slotmob-a-small-idea-thats-growing\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:04:02","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:04:02","slug":"slotmob-a-small-idea-thats-growing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/slotmob-a-small-idea-thats-growing\/","title":{"rendered":"Slotmob: A small idea that\u2019s growing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Slotmob\"<\/a>It was the summer of 2013 when an idea came up among some teenagers from Rome <\/strong>of doing something to curb the proliferation of gambling in the city. It was becoming more and more common to see both old and young people glued to the slot machines that are found in many Italian bars. Despite the economic crisis, in recent years the supply and consumption of gambling in Italy has increased dramatically. Italians spend 85 billion a year on the more than 50,000 latest generation slot machines, and the latest estimates are that more than 800,000 people suffer from gambling addiction. We see how the gambling business is devastating our cities, depleting the fabric of society and creating isolation and loneliness. At the helm of this exponential growth of gambling is an economic vision in which the only thing that matters is profit for the multinationals with the consent from a state that also sees it as an opportunity for profit. In front of such a bleak scene the teenagers from Rome wondered what they could do . . . and from there came the idea of rewarding the barkeepers who have chosen not to make gambling available at their establishments. They went to breakfast at their bars en masse as a Slotmob<\/a>. Initially they proposed doing it in Rome and Milan, but the simple and practical idea fascinated many Italians from north to south of the peninsula. There have been 120 Slotmobs in the past two and a half years,<\/strong> with the participation of over 10,000 people<\/strong> and a network of more than 200 associations. The project has created relationships with very diverse groups, created meeting spaces, awareness and mended the social bond that gambling had disintegrated. \u201cIn Rome we concentrated our efforts on an area known as the Italian Las Vegas,\u201d Maria Chiara explains. <\/strong>\u201cIn a short time a network was formed with 7 local associations that deal with different aspects of gambling. A sincere relationship was created, not without the usual difficulties of working with one another. That\u2019s how the Let\u2019s Not Gamble Ourselves Project began and now involves several city schools. Talking to teenagers about the power of our choices and of how we can change unjust situations beginning from ourselves, is not in fact very easy. But it actually is important to build a more just world and to involve young people in the change process.\u201d \"1462534289\"<\/a><\/strong>Maria Chiara continues:<\/strong> \u201cThe Slotmob experience <\/strong>is making us meet many people, many stories that show us that gambling is an open wound on our society. During one Slotmob a man that had helped us to organise some games with the young people took the microphone and told his own experience as a regular gambler. He said to us: \u2018My life is made of bright spots and shadows, and what makes me gamble is the solitude. But today seeing all of you here I no longer feel alone. So I commit to stop gambling. If you see me in front of a slot machine, you\u2019re authorised to reprimand me and remind me of this promise I make today\u2019.\u201d <\/em> \u201cWhen we look back,\u201d Maria Chiara concludes, \u201cwe see that we\u2019ve had unimagined results. <\/strong>Two laws were blocked that would have reduced the power of mayors in limiting gambling; we got a partial ban on television advertising, and increased media attention on the problem of gambling. We\u2019re aware that we have a long road ahead of us, we\u2019d like advertising for gambling to be completely banned and we want to re-open the discussion on whether gambling should be in the hands of multinationals. For this reason on May 7 we will be on more than 40 public squares across Italy restating our yes to a different economy and rewarding bars that have said no to gambling.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A project begun by a group of young people from Rome that is spreading across Italy like a drop of oil on a pool. It was presented to Pope Francis at the Mariapolis in the city of Rome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}