MEDILL NEWS SERVICE
Gambling Addictions Increasing, but Help is Not
By BEN HARPER and BETH LAWTON
MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON - Jeff, an accountant from an affluent part of Connecticut, speaks of his addiction with an intensity contradicting his tussled, graying hair and laid-back appearance.

"I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. I got some people I don't like out there, I wouldn't wish my problem on them - to me, it's like insidious," Jeff said. But he's not an alcoholic or a drug addict. Jeff is a pathological sports gambler.

Problem and pathological gambling is often overlooked among addictions. But addicted gamblers can cost millions in lost productivity, social services and crime. With easy accessibility to casinos, lotteries and other gambling increasing, it's getting harder for addicts to find help, according to gambling counselors.

"The problem is that I went on the Internet and put in compulsive gambling treatment center, and only three places came up," said Jeff, who underwent counseling in August and asked that his real name not be used.

The commercial casino industry spends millions on research and supports a national hotline for gambling addicts, but other gambling industries, such as lotteries and Indian-owned casinos, do little to assist in financing research and treatment, American Gaming Association President Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr., said.

"We've got to admit that there are people like that, and then we've got to do something about it," Fahrenkopf told Medill News Service in July. "And what we've got to do about it is put our money where our mouth is."

Many states faced with budget crises are cutting funding for treatment of gambling addictions, while looking to gambling for new sources of revenue. The Texas chapter of the National Council on Problem Gambling lost all $375,000 of its state funding this year, said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling. The Oregon and Massachusetts legislatures prepared budgets without assistance for addicted gamblers, but reinstated the funding.

Whyte said states spent $20 million helping addicted gamblers in 1998. He estimated the spending might be $30 million now, still just a fraction of the nation's $65-billion dollars in gambling revenue.

"One problem gambler can embezzle more than some states spend in a year" on treating gambling addicts, Whyte said.

Gamblers Anonymous, a support group for addicts, does not keep statistics. Estimates of problem gamblers vary greatly. Fahrenkopf puts the number at about 1 percent of the population. A 1999 report from the National Gambling Impact Study Commission estimated it to be 1.5 percent of the adult population.

The commission, convened by Congress to study the impact of gambling in the United States, also found between 3 and 7 percent of people who had gambled in the past year reported symptoms of problem gambling.

The Commission's study included more than a dozen recommendations to combat gambling addiction, ranging from refusing service to any customer exhibiting signs of problem gambling to posting hotline numbers in casinos. More than four years after the study's release, the gambling industry has disregarded most of the guidelines, Whyte said.

Social, problem and pathological gamblers differ in their ability to control themselves. While social gamblers have more control over the time and money they spend gambling, problem gamblers have less discipline, and pathological gamblers have little control over their gambling, said Ken Abrams, a clinical psychology professor at University of Richmond.

"Ultimately, this loss of control and loss of money causes problems outside the casino," Abrams said.

Gambling addiction affects men and women of all races and ages, and is frequently accompanied by psychological issues and physical addictions. Several high-profile gamblers reportedly have lost millions, including Bill Bennett, the former drug czar and secretary of Education; singer Celine Dion's husband, Rene Angelil; and the late Leonard Tose, former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team, who testified before Congress that he lost $50 million playing slot machines.

But while such prominent high rollers have been in the spotlight, millions of gambling addicts like Jeff have received less attention.

For many gamblers, the financial hurdles they must clear to get help are almost as difficult as the emotional ones.

"Here's the deal - most gamblers go through their money," Jeff said. "And most gamblers go through relationships like a buzzsaw, and when it's time to get better, there's no funds for them to get better." He estimated he lost $700,000 primarily on sports betting. He was lucky to be from a financially stable and supportive family and have an insurance plan that helped pay for his four-week inpatient treatment at the Harbour Center in Baltimore, a facility for gambling addicts.

Dealing with insurance companies has been a "constant problem" and many insurance companies do not cover gambling addiction treatment, said Dr. Ken Martz, clinical director at the Harbour Center. The Americans with Disabilities Act specifically excludes gambling from its protections.

Though there are no physical characteristics of problem gambling, signs of it include mood changes, bragging about gambling wins without mentioning losses, frequent requests for loans, and marital problems, according to the Harbour Center.

"With an alcoholic, you can maybe see them shaking or their face is all red and whatnot, but a gambler can look you in the eye and tell you he's not gambling, and be gambling," Jeff said. "You can't smell it."

Because it is not substance-based, some gamblers think they should be able to stop gambling without help. Jeff couldn't.

"Gambling is like cancer," he said. " It's a disease. It's a very, very sick disease and a lot of people think ëoh, gambling, it's when you scratch off a couple tickets, you go to a horse race, you go to casinos because its legalized and it's acceptable behavior.'"

Many gambling addicts have multiple addictions or disorders, Fahrenkopf stressed.

"What the research has showed is they don't just have problems with gambling," he said. "They have problems with drugs, alcohol, they're emotionally unstable, they have psychiatric problems. And that's where the research is now going."

That can make treating gambling addictions difficult. Fahrenkopf said researchers are close to developing "a pill that's going to help pathological gamblers."

But Whyte and Martz said any development of a gambling pill is still far away.

"There's no such thing as a magic pill for any mental disorder," Martz said. Most clinical treatment programs include some anti-depressant medications, but studies about medication's direct effect on gambling are few and far between.

"These clients are depressed and anxious and that feeling is uncomfortable so they gamble as an escape," Martz has found. "So if you take away the depression, there's no reason to escape into the addiction."

Some trials are being conducted on more controversial methods, such as exposure, when a gambler is allowed to enter a casino but not gamble. The hope is that the impulse to gamble will decrease over time, but results are inconclusive, Abrams said.

The Harbour Center's inpatient four-week program that Jeff recently completed does not have a lock-in policy, the way many drug treatment centers do.

"You're going to walk down the street, you're going to watch the evening news, at least in Maryland, and the lottery ticket numbers come across there. You can't escape the triggers," Martz said. "So it's really important that when they leave here they know they have a month clean-and they know they did it on their own."

A few days before Jeff was supposed to leave, he said he was anxious to see his family, including his four-year old twin girls and infant.

Of his gambling problem, he said, "I'm cautiously optimistic."

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