As I already noted

As I already noted in yesterday’s post, I think the ‘he never criticized gambling‘ defense of Bill Bennett is pretty feeble. For the moment, though, let’s concede this: he never criticized gambling. But how about telling the truth? Did he ever mention that?

There’s a lot we don’t know about the details of Bennett’s gambling. And on their own, perhaps who cares about the details. But in his responses to Newsweek’s Jon Alter, Bennett said: “Over 10 years, I’d say I’ve come out pretty close to even.” Now, ‘pretty close’ leaves lots of room for wiggle. But Bennett is clearly telling us he’s basically come out even, that he hasn’t been a consistent loser of money as a gambler.

Bennett also said that he gambles almost entirely on slot machines and video poker. Now, just given how slot machines work, it seems very hard to believe that anyone playing slots wouldn’t lose money over time. And, if you were working with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, it’s pretty hard to figure how you wouldn’t lose a lot of money. This isn’t guesswork or speculation. It’s statistics. (Remember: casinos run the slots pretty much on a profit basis…)

Video poker is a little less clear-cut, since it’s not pure chance.

But how believable is it that Bennett has come out even or close to even in a decade of very high stakes gambling on games in which little or no skill is involved? Bear in mind that the Newsweek and Washington Monthly articles note documentation of an 18 month period in which …

there were only a few occasions when Bennett turned in chips—worth about $30,000 or $40,000—at the end of an evening. Most of the time, he drew down his line of credit, often substantially. A casino source, hearing of Bennett’s claim to breaking even on slots over 10 years, just laughed.

Perhaps there were other year or two periods in which Bennett won big. But the passage above is about what you’d expect — having some occasional big wins, but on balance losing money most of the time.

You have to keep tax records of wins and losses when you play high-stakes like Bennett does. So he knows — or could easily find out — how much he’s won or lost over the years. I don’t think Bennett’s under any obligation to tell anyone how much money he’s lost in Vegas and Atlantic City. But he’s gone on record saying something that is at best extremely improbable. That seems very fair to point out.