[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 72 (Thursday, June 8, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1061-E1065]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    COMMENDING THE LAWRENCE-EAGLE TRIBUNE FOR ITS SERIES ON GAMBLING

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MARTIN T. MEEHAN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 7, 2006

  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, recently a paper in my district ran a series 
of columns on the problem of gambling addiction, and its effect on 
society, and individual families. I commend the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, 
its editor-in-chief, William Ketter, and the series' author, Denise 
Jewell, for their hard work and attention to this serious issue.
  One piece in the series focused on the federal role in help for 
gambling addiction--and in some cases, where there is no federal role. 
Gambling addiction can be as destructive as addiction to alcohol or 
drugs, and destroys countless families every year.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include these articles in the 
Congressional Record, and once again, offer my gratitude to the staff 
of the Eagle Tribune for their fine work.

                   [From the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, 
                             June 4, 2006]

        Gambling Series Shows Value of Public Service Journalism

                         (By William B. Ketter)

       The gravitational pull of state-sponsored gambling to stave 
     off traditional tax increases, pay for public services and 
     drive economic development has created a split-screen social 
     condition in America: a lucky few people and the hapless 
     many.
       Sadly, that is the message that underlies much of the 
     economic as well as cultural conclusions of our three-part 
     Sunday Forum series on the causes, costs and consequences 
     associated with the rapid spread of legal gambling across the 
     country.
       The state-by-state study--which concludes with today's 
     installment--was conducted by the Community Newspaper 
     Holdings Inc. News Service, the editorial arm of our parent 
     corporation, under this editor's oversight. It was ambitious, 
     public service journalism that encountered numerous 
     obstacles, including uncooperative casino operators, tribal 
     leaders and state officials.
       It was a measure of reporter Denise Jewell's persistence 
     that she got around the roadblocks and produced the first 
     national statistical picture of the canyon between sums 
     gambled and money spent on the prevention and treatment of 
     problem gambling.
       Nobody in state or tribal government or the gaming industry 
     wants to say or do anything that might derail the full steam 
     ahead gambling locomotive and the billions of dollars it 
     generates from casinos, racinos, video poker terminals, 
     lotteries and other sanctioned games of chance.
       That's an understandable, though myopic, attitude when you 
     consider the primary benefactors are the states that 
     authorize, promote and regulate gambling; and the gaming 
     companies that manage the Indian and commercial casinos. In 
     their universe, frequent gamblers are not only prized, they 
     are essential to success.
       ``It is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank,'' 
     remarked State Sen. Susan Tucker, D-Andover in the first part 
     of our series. Only the blood is dollars, Tucker points out, 
     ``and for the states to get their few hundred million their 
     constituents have to lose a few billion.''
       A lot of those losses come from problem gamblers, many of 
     whom are already poor and desperately in need of professional 
     help to overcome their addiction. Yet their plight goes 
     unlamented under the logic that gambling is a voluntary act.
       Who should care? The federal and state governments. They 
     hold responsibility for the general welfare, and compulsive 
     gambling is a national public health issue--for the same 
     reason drinking, smoking, and drug abuse are treated as 
     public health matters. It is destructive, anti-social 
     behavior. The difference is the latter receive billions for 
     research, prevention and treatment and problem gambling gets 
     a pittance.
       In fact, Dr. Howard Shaffer of Andover, director of Harvard 
     University's Addiction Center, identified pathological 
     gambling as a public health problem 4 years ago in a national 
     study, and still nothing has been done to expand federal 
     programs to deal with it. He compares it to government 
     inaction during the early stages of the AIDS crisis.
       Ignoring the people who impulsively gamble beyond their 
     means--causing serious financial, criminal, family and 
     psychiatric problems--is a counterproductive approach that 
     social experts predict will cost more over time than the 
     money the states reap from gambling.
       To grasp the wide disparity between taxes and treatment you 
     need to reflect on the numbers.
       States now receive $21 billion in taxes from the $136 
     billion spent annually on legal gambling in the United 
     States. In turn, they spend only $36 million on programs to 
     assist problem gamblers. That's less than one-fifth of 1 
     percent of the profit.
       Yes, gambling taxes help finance schools, teachers, fire 
     engines, roads, parks and other core public services. And the 
     infusion of revenue has allowed many states to avoid raising 
     income, sales and property taxes. Even lower them, in some 
     instances.
       There are, however, related consequences. Evidence in our 
     series showed problem gamblers commit forgery, credit card 
     fraud and embezzlement at a higher rate than the general 
     population. They also exceed the norm on bankruptcy, 
     homelessness, divorce, substance and spousal abuse, and 
     suicide.
       No government or private agency has done a current analysis 
     of the actual social cost of legal gambling. But the now-
     defunct National Gambling Impact Study Commission pegged the 
     annual toll at $5 billion 7 years ago. It estimated the cost 
     to society of each addict at $13,200 per year.
       ``There are undeniably many millions of problem and 
     pathological gamblers causing severe harm to themselves, 
     their families and many others,'' concluded the commission 
     after a two-year study. Greater public understanding of this, 
     it added, ``is crucial to the health and stability of these 
     families, their communities and many businesses.''
       The outlook is even darker today. More states have come to 
     rely on gambling revenue to balance their budgets. Those 
     without slot machines at race tracks, including 
     Massachusetts, are talking seriously about adding them. And 
     states without commercial or Indian casinos are seen as 
     fertile possibilities for both.
       Congress and state legislatures need to slow down the 
     locomotive, and require that the casinos and the states 
     appropriate serious dollars to research, prevention and 
     treatment of problem gambling. They should also review how 
     they're spending current public health dollars on compulsive 
     behaviors, and appropriate some of that money to addictive 
     gambling. It is growing faster than other social 
     dysfunctions.
       There's another thing federal lawmakers can do to do help. 
     The Americans With Disabilities Act should be amended to add 
     compulsive gambling to the list of mental disorders covered 
     by the law. Because it is excluded, addictive gamblers can be 
     denied insurance payments for medical expenses and short-
     changed on other benefits available to alcohol and drug 
     abusers.
       Gambling taxes and money spent to deter compulsive wagering 
     are going in opposite directions on the economic chart. There 
     is little chance the two curves will ever cross, given the 
     acceptance of gambling as an all-American pastime. But the 
     CNHI News Service ``Hooked on Gambling'' series made a 
     powerful case for narrowing the gap, and bringing the 
     multiplying victims side of this split social screen into 
     sharper focus.
       By so doing, it served the purpose of public service 
     journalism--something we need more of in this era of flash 
     news reports that often lack context and meaning.
                                  ____
                                  

                   [From the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, 
                             May 21, 2006]

          Legal Gambling Begets Millions of Neglected Addicts

                           (By Denise Jewell)

       Twenty-year-old Bryant Northern had the world at his 
     fingertips as a walk-on guard who won a coveted scholarship 
     at basketball powerhouse University of Louisville. He dreamed 
     of deadeye jump shots, March Madness, even a pro career.

[[Page E1062]]

       But the 6-foot-tall Northern also had a hidden problem: an 
     addiction to gambling. Caesars Indiana, the riverboat casino 
     across the Ohio from Louisville, had been his secret hangout 
     since high school--and also his scourge. A run of lousy luck 
     found him short of money and in trouble with the police.
       Now 23, Northern was sentenced March 6 to five years 
     probation for trying to cash stolen checks in Kentucky to pay 
     for his gambling habit. He still faces burglary charges in 
     Indiana, and a possible jail term.
       Northern's plight is not uncommon today in a nation where 
     legal gambling has spread like wildfire--from three states 25 
     years ago to every state in the union, save Utah and Hawaii.
       The promise of easy, new gambling money to build schools, 
     pay teachers, pave roads and finance other public services 
     has triggered an explosion of casinos, racinos (race tracks 
     with slot machines) and lottery games. Gambling has become 
     one of the biggest, and most politically powerful, special 
     interests in the country.
       It is no secret that America is hooked on gambling, with 
     its payoff of more than $20.5 billion a year to state 
     governments. What's been overlooked is the unintended human 
     cost: the large and growing class of people addicted to 
     gambling and whose lives often end up in ruin.
       They are called pathological bettors, and critics of 
     gambling say they get little attention because government and 
     the gambling industry depend on habitual players to drive 
     revenue.
       ``I don't think it is conspiratorial in nature,'' said 
     state Sen. Susan C. Tucker, D-Andover, who opposes the plan 
     for racinos in Massachusetts. ``It's more that most 
     government leaders understand the truth and simply close 
     their eyes and look away. As for the gambling industry, it is 
     in its self-interest to keep up the gambling.''
       An in-depth study by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. News 
     Service into the cost, causes and consequences of problem 
     gambling and what's being done about it determined that:
       Legal gambling in the United States is a $135.9 billion-
     per-year business, based on revenue figures provided by the 
     states that allow it. That's close to triple the combined 
     revenues of $50 billion annually from box office movies, 
     recorded music, spectator sports, and live entertainment. And 
     it does not include popular online betting, which is still in 
     legal limbo.
       About 70 percent of gambling profits come from 30 percent 
     of the people who gamble, according to research by professor 
     Earl Grinols, an economist at Baylor University. Frequency, 
     Grinols found, is a crucial characteristic of profit.
       Poor people are disproportionately addicted to gambling, a 
     study by the National Institute of Mental Health concluded. 
     They are pulled by the lure to get rich quick but they are 
     also the people who can least afford to lose money.
       Gambling addiction has swelled the homeless rolls in 
     America. One in five street people says he or she ended up 
     homeless because of money problems tied to compulsive 
     gambling, homeless-shelter officials say.
       The federal government, which spends liberally on public-
     health studies and treatment programs for alcohol and drug 
     addiction, has a passive approach toward problem gambling. 
     Federal officials say it is the responsibility of the states 
     even though addicts move freely between states and add to the 
     cost of federal health-care programs.
       Compulsive gambling is not one of the several mental 
     diseases defined in the Americans With Disabilities Act and 
     thus treatment for addiction does not qualify for health-
     insurance coverage. Alcoholism and drug abuse are covered.
       Social costs of problem gambling across the nation are 
     estimated at a minimum of $5 billion per year, according to a 
     federal study commission. The annual cost to society of each 
     pathological gambler is pegged at $13,200.
       A pittance, or $35.5 million per year, of the gambling 
     revenue is spent by government and the industry to educate 
     people about the trapdoors of gambling and treat addicted 
     gamblers. Residential rehabilitation centers for gambling 
     addicts are rare.
       No government study has documented the precise prevalence 
     of the addiction problem in the United States. Academic 
     studies project the figure at anywhere from 2 percent to 5 
     percent of adults exposed to gambling, and even higher for 
     adolescents and teenagers.
       By almost any measure, however, the numbers are in the 
     millions and have been multiplying with the furious spread of 
     legalized gambling from state to state since the 1980s.
       Dr. Howard Shaffer of Andover, the director of Harvard 
     Medical School's Division on Addictions, said three primary 
     forces stimulated the growth of gambling: desire by the 
     states to identify new sources of revenue; development of new 
     entertainment and leisure destinations; and new technologies 
     and forms of gambling such as electronic slot machines, video 
     poker and multistate lotteries with large jackpots.
       The most recent study of the psycho-economics of gambling 
     showed that between 1975 and 1999, adult gambling increased 
     from 67 percent to 85 percent, according to Shaffer. Higher 
     numbers were recorded in almost every demographic group, 
     including women.
       ``It's everywhere, and it's only going to get worse,'' said 
     Jim Chesser, a 55-year-old former Kentucky bus driver who 
     said he's overcome his addiction and now helps others recover 
     through Gamblers Anonymous. ``That's because of the 
     politicians. All they see is generating dollars from gambling 
     dollars. They don't care who it hurts.''
       Casino companies, lottery commissions and public officials 
     say they do care, and point to warnings and hot lines on the 
     back of lottery tickets, TV ads that urge ``responsible 
     gaming,'' and Web pages that feature addiction tests and 
     educational information to help gamblers detect problems and 
     deal with them.
       ``We've done what the experts have told us to do, what 
     seems to work for alcohol and tobacco and other addictive 
     issues,'' said Judy Patterson, executive director of the 
     American Gaming Association, the industry's lobbying arm. 
     ``But we haven't had any certainty that what we do as an 
     industry has really met any kind of scientific test as to 
     whether it works or not.''
       Advocates for problem gamblers contend even well-
     intentioned efforts to prevent and treat addiction suffer 
     from lack of money and the will of state governments to do 
     anything about it. They also criticize the cozy relationship 
     between politicians and the gambling industry, and the 
     millions appropriated for advertising state-sanctioned 
     gambling.
       ``State government is the promoter, the regulator and the 
     beneficiary all in one,'' said Tucker, the Andover lawmaker. 
     ``It's like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.''
       Congressman Frank Wolf, R-Va., also a foe of gambling, said 
     that ``20 years ago, no politician at any level wanted to be 
     seen with the gambling-industry people. Now, we go out and 
     hold fundraisers with them.'' Or, in some instances, accept 
     largess from them, as witnessed by the admissions of Jack 
     Abramoff, the disgraced gambling lobbyist.
       Still, Tucker said, the problem of gambling addiction goes 
     largely unnoticed and untreated.
       Statistics bear her out. While 48 states have some form of 
     legalized gambling, only 26 of them appropriate money for 
     treatment, the CNHI News Service survey showed. And those 
     that do commit funds spend only a tiny fraction of the 
     revenue they get from gamblers on programs to help them. Yet 
     most states spend millions on slick advertising and promotion 
     campaigns to entice people to gamble.
       A national gambling study financed by Congress in the late 
     1990s estimated that states spend about one-tenth of 1 
     percent of their gambling revenues on treatment and education 
     programs for addicts.
       Tucker said this is ``both inadequate and wrongheaded'' 
     because the people who can't afford treatment are the same 
     people contributing heavily to gambling revenues. That's why, 
     she said, paying for government with gambling dollars is bad 
     economics and bad public policy.
       ``For the states to get their few hundred million, their 
     constituents have to lose a few billion,'' Tucker said. ``It 
     comes right from their pockets. This isn't magic money that 
     falls from the sky.''
       Casinos and racinos are the fastest-growing segment of the 
     gambling industry. And small wonder. They boast row after row 
     of slot machines, which Tucker calls the ``crack cocaine'' of 
     gambling. There are more than 700,000 slot machines in the 
     United States, state regulators report.
       State lotteries offer their own opiate. It is called 
     scratch tickets, and Massachusetts, with a variety of such 
     games, is the national leader. It generates $4.5 billion a 
     year in lottery sales, with 70 percent of the total from 
     scratch tickets. Another 15 percent comes from keno, the 
     fast-play numbers game. Only 15 percent comes from delayed 
     reward games such as Megabucks.
       But state lotteries, which got their modern-day start in 
     New Hampshire in 1963 and now raise money in 40 states, were 
     only a Trojan horse for casinos. Today there are 445 
     commercial casinos in 11 states, and 405 Indian casinos in 28 
     states on land owned by America Indian tribes.
       Massachusetts and New Hampshire are still casino-free 
     states. But the Mashpee Wampanoags on Cape Cod have won 
     preliminary federal approval as a recognized Indian tribe and 
     could eventually force Massachusetts to negotiate a compact 
     for casino gambling on a site acquired by the tribe.
       In anticipation of that development, City Councilor George 
     Rotondo of Revere has urged that city to pave the way with 
     zoning regulations that allow construction of a casino resort 
     complex, possibly at Suffolk Downs or Wonderland race track. 
     He contends it would create hundreds of local jobs and boost 
     Revere's economy.
       So far, Rotondo's proposal has fallen on deaf ears. But 
     casinos have helped revive some economically depressed 
     communities around the country, providing jobs and 
     contributing to local property taxes.
       How did legal gambling as an economic engine get its 
     impetus in America? Congressional approval of the Indian 
     Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988 set off the gold rush. The law 
     was born of the U.S. Supreme Court decision forcing 
     California to negotiate with American Indian tribes to 
     establish casinos on tribal lands.
       As Indian casinos proliferated, a handful of states joined 
     Nevada and New Jersey in allowing commercial casinos. The 
     payoff came from high license fees and contracts that 
     included a handsome bite of the revenue pie. That caused 
     other states too timid for full-fledged casinos to expand 
     their lottery

[[Page E1063]]

     games, add video poker parlors and install slot machines at 
     racetracks.
       It didn't take long for gambling to move up the nation's 
     business leader board.
       Casinos thrive on customer knowledge. They maintain a 
     database of gamblers through credit-card systems like 
     ``Wampum cards'' at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. Players 
     earn points for money gambled on slot machines and other 
     games. They can also earn free meals, show tickets, iPods and 
     high-definition televisions. The idea is to keep gamblers 
     happy and active.
       But Joe Barrett, a vice president at Caesars Indiana, said 
     casinos also monitor their database to ensure that patrons 
     don't get carried away.
       ``We look at gaming as a form of recreation and a place for 
     people to have fun,'' said Barrett. ``We understand the 
     responsible gaming part of it, and we take it very seriously, 
     and we always have.''
       Yet Caesars Indiana was recently fined $38,500 by the 
     Indiana Gaming Commission for sending marketing materials to 
     nine addicts who had asked to be banned from gambling. The 
     casino was fined $80,000 last year for similar violations. 
     And other casinos in other states have also been fined for 
     targeting gamblers who have admitted the problem and want to 
     quit.
       ``There will be, I'm sure, in any system, those occasional 
     slip-ups, because it's humans putting the information in,'' 
     said Judy Hess, a Caesars Indiana spokeswoman. ``But we try 
     very, very, very hard to have it just absolutely 100 percent 
     correct. There's no upside to marketing to people who 
     shouldn't be gaming.''
       That's not the way Wolf, Tucker and other critics of 
     gambling see it. They claim the industry thrives on seducing 
     gamblers of all means to return again and again.
       Tucker said gambling companies are masterful at using 
     public relations to show concern for compulsive gambling 
     while masking its devastating social impact.
       She said it is also a clever way to avoid the type of grief 
     the tobacco industry faced from public-health regulators in 
     the 1980s and 1990s. They accused cigarette companies of not 
     caring about the medical implications of smoking, triggering 
     endless lawsuits by individuals and the states.
       ``The gambling industry has shrewdly learned from the 
     experiences of the tobacco industry,'' Tucker said. ``It was 
     the public-health community that drove the anti-smoking 
     movement. The gambling interests want to head off a similar 
     experience.''
       What's more, Tucker added, they are succeeding.
       ``Their PR is brilliant,'' said Tucker. ``That was clear 
     when they got people to talk about gaming instead of 
     gambling. They have changed the nomenclature.''
                                  ____


                   [From the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, 
                             May 28, 2006]

               Gambling Commission Dealt Dead Man's Hand

                           (By Denise Jewell)

       A federal commission's study of legal gambling in the late 
     1990s produced several significant recommendations, but they 
     ended up like poker's dead man's hand.
       Dead man's hand is a term to describe the cards Wild Bill 
     Hickock held--a pair of black aces and eights--when he was 
     shot dead in a saloon in South Dakota in 1876.
       The commission spent two years and $5 million investigating 
     the social and economic implications of lotteries, casinos 
     and other gaming activities only to have its suggestion for a 
     temporary freeze on further expansion of gambling shot down.
       President Clinton urged creation of the National Gambling 
     Impact Study Commission, and Congress passed a law 
     establishing the body. The mix of nine members included the 
     chairman and chief executive officer of MGM Grand Inc. and 
     the founder of Focus on Family.
       The law required the commission to study the effects of 
     problem gambling on individuals, families, businesses and 
     social institutions, and to assess the state and local 
     economic value of gambling facilities such as casinos, race 
     tracks and video poker parlors.
       In addition to a moratorium, the commission came up with 
     dozens of other recommendations, including curtailing the 
     growth of new lottery games, reducing lottery advertising and 
     limiting lottery outlets in low-income neighborhoods.
       The group's final report, released in June 1999, expressed 
     concern that the rush to raise government revenue through 
     gambling was creating a generation of young people who give 
     little thought to gambling's down side.
       ``The commission recommends that all legal gambling should 
     be restricted to those who are at least 21 years of age and 
     that those who are under 21 should not be allowed to loiter 
     in areas where gambling activity occurs,'' the report said.
       Commissioners traveled throughout the country and held 
     hearings that detailed dozens of hardship stories.
       In Illinois, for instance, they heard about a Joliet couple 
     who committed suicide after the wife accumulated $200,000 in 
     casino debt. In other places, they listened to testimony 
     about embezzlement and other white collar crime to finance 
     gambling habits.
       But they also found some economically depressed locations 
     were revived by the construction dollars and jobs associated 
     with casinos, and that public services like roads and schools 
     were improved from fees and taxes on gambling revenues.
       ``In Tunica, Miss., the advent of legalized gambling 
     provided jobs for an area of extreme poverty,'' the 
     commission found. ``Many citizens of Tunica have undoubtedly 
     benefited by the increase in the wage base and increased 
     ability of its citizens to purchase homes and other 
     amenities.''
       In addition to hearings, the commission's staff of 
     researchers telephoned 2,417 adults and 534 adolescents 
     across America and interviewed 530 people in gaming 
     facilities.
       The National Opinion Research Center at the University of 
     Chicago, hired by the commission to conduct the survey, 
     estimated that 15 percent of total gambling revenue in the 
     United States stems from problem or pathological gamblers.
       More research on pathological gambling was recommended, but 
     the commission also made it clear the states need to do more 
     to help people addicted to games of chance.
       ``A major responsibility for addressing the problem of 
     pathological gambling must be borne by the states that 
     sponsor gambling,'' the commission concluded.
       Furthermore, it said, ``industry funds earmarked for 
     treatment for pathological gambling are miniscule compared to 
     that industry's total revenue.''
                                  ____


                   [From the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, 
                             June 4, 2006]

            Few Treatment Dollars for Gamblers Who Need Help

                           (By Denise Jewell)

       Kathy Bassett, 49, a registered nurse from Topeka, Kan., 
     didn't blink when Harrah's opened a casino 15 miles from her 
     front door. She had zero interest in gambling. Nor did she 
     worry about its social consequences.
       That was before 2003, a nightmarish year that Bassett said 
     opened her eyes wide to the problems associated with 
     addictive gambling. In sequential order:
       Her son, a casino pit boss, was arrested and sent to prison 
     for stealing to support his gambling habit.
       Her mother, retired and in her 70s, filed for bankruptcy 
     after losing her life savings to the slot machines.
       Her 37-year-old brother, David, in despair and shame over 
     his inability to quit gambling, put a shotgun barrel to his 
     mouth, pulled the trigger and ended his life.
       This trilogy of shocks scared Bassett into researching the 
     impact of compulsive gambling on ordinary families such as 
     hers. She soon discovered plenty of others undergoing similar 
     grief. Now, she's an anti-gambling crusader determined to 
     expand and improve prevention and treatment programs.
       ``I just got so angry,'' Bassett said. ``This in an 
     industry worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars 
     and . . . it means nothing to them'' when people's lives are 
     shattered.
       Bassett said her research showed that help for problem 
     gamblers in the United States is sporadic, inconsistent and 
     badly underfunded. Especially when compared with tobacco, 
     alcohol and drugs--addictions that states spend $2.5 billion 
     a year to treat, according to the National Center on 
     Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
       The evidence supports Bassett's analysis, a nationwide 
     review of the issue by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. News 
     Service showed.
       Not one federal dollar has been spent directly for 
     treatment or prevention of problem gambling even though a 
     Harvard University addiction expert, Professor Howard Shaffer 
     of Andover, framed it as a national public health issue for 
     the first time in a 2002 study.
       ``Excessive gambling, drinking, drugging are different 
     expressions of a common underlying disorder,'' said Shaffer 
     of his study. ``But pathological gambling is being viewed (by 
     the government) like some rare disease--much like AIDS was in 
     its early stages. It doesn't get the attention it should as a 
     public health issue.''
       Few federal dollars have been allocated for medical and 
     other research that might help detect the problem before it 
     gets out of hand, or provide guideposts for prevention. 
     Congress did pay for a $5 million, two-year study of the 
     social and economic implications of gambling in the late 
     1990s, but little came of the short-lived effort.
       American Indian tribes that own 405 casinos on sovereign 
     tribal lands and the 48 states with some form of legal 
     gambling are similarly stingy with spending on programs that 
     could diminish the volume of high rollers.
       Twenty-two states offer no programs at all, CNHI News 
     Service found. And the 26 states that provide treatment don't 
     put a lot of money into it, operate in isolation from others 
     despite the wideranging mobility of problem gamblers and 
     appear to accept the claim that sufficient community programs 
     exist to help the truly addicted.
       Across the country, the CNHI New Service survey found, 
     state governments spend only $35.5 million per year on 
     helping problem gamblers even though the states rake in $20.9 
     billion in gambling taxes annually.
       The gambling industry does no better. It spends a small 
     fraction of its billions in profits on research, prevention 
     and treatment. And no where close to the many millions it 
     shovels out to influence lawmakers through lobbying, and 
     gamblers through TV, Internet, direct mail and billboard 
     advertising.
       The industry has established the National Center on 
     Responsible Gaming, a small nonprofit in Washington, D.C., 
     that says it is ``committed to funding research that some

[[Page E1064]]

     day will identify the risk factors for gambling disorders and 
     determine methods for not only treating the disorder but 
     preventing it, much like physicians can identify patients at 
     risk from cardiovascular disease long before a heart 
     attack.''
       But the center operates on a shoestring compared with the 
     huge outlays spent by government, private agencies, 
     foundations and others on heart disease research. Its 
     proudest achievement: a $2.4 million startup grant and $1.1 
     million annual appropriation to Harvard's Medical School to 
     fund the Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and 
     Related Disorders.
       Integrity in Science Project, a group that monitors 
     scientific research for conflicts of interest, has indicated 
     concern over Harvard accepting research money from an 
     industry that benefits from the very problem under study. The 
     unstated worry is research skewed to reflect a desired 
     outcome--specifically, that addiction has been overstated by 
     critics of legal gambling.
       Christine Reilly, executive director of the Harvard 
     institute, rejects any notion the gambling industry could 
     manipulate the research. She said it funds the institute but 
     has no say in how the research is conducted or the results--
     which, she added, are subject to rigorous peer review by 
     scientific journals.
       Two unaffiliated nonprofits are making independent efforts 
     to help problem and compulsive gamblers, although both suffer 
     from lack of resources. They are Gamblers Anonymous, which 
     has more than 1,400 chapters in the United States, and the 
     National Council on Problem Gambling, which has 34 state 
     affiliates.
       Gamblers Anonymous is modeled after the 12-step program of 
     Alcoholics Anonymous. A state-by-state directory of local 
     meetings is posted on its Web site (gamblersanonymous.org/
     mtgdirTOP.html). Financial support comes from private 
     contributions.
       The Council on Problem Gambling is an advocacy group that 
     increases public awareness and encourages treatment programs 
     for troubled gamblers and their families. Funds for the 
     group's $500,000-a-year budget come from private and 
     foundation contributions and at least two casino 
     companies. It operates a national hotline (1-800-522-4700) 
     for problem gamblers, and more than 200,000 problem 
     gamblers call it over the course of a year.
       Keith S. Whyte is the council's executive director and once 
     worked for the American Gaming Association, the industry's 
     lobbying arm. He said the council is neutral on the debate 
     over legalized gambling, focusing its efforts on helping 
     addicts overcome their problem.
       Whyte said the federal government has been unhelpful in the 
     effort to get mental health care for problem gamblers. For 
     example, he said, the Americans With Disabilities Act doesn't 
     classify compulsive gambling as a mental disorder and thus 
     insurance companies can refuse to pay for treatment programs.
       ``Addictive gambling is a rare and stigmatized sort of 
     behavioral health disorder because there's no physical or 
     outward signs,'' Whyte said. ``It has slipped through the 
     legislative cracks.''
       Congress, he added, could easily fix the issue by expanding 
     the definition of the disabilities law to include compulsive 
     gambling as a public health problem, along with alcohol and 
     drug abuse.
       Medical researchers say compulsive gambling is not as 
     visible as alcoholism and drug overdosing, but it can be 
     equally devastating to social behavior. They also say some of 
     the brain receptors in gambling addicts appear to be 
     different.
       Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies have found abnormal 
     signs of attention deficit disorder in pathological gamblers. 
     Neurobiology research has indicated their brain chemistry is 
     not the same as that in problem alcohol and drug users. This 
     has led to experiments with the drugs Nalmefene and Revia to 
     try to curb gambling cravings.
       ``If you look at the MRI of a gambler, his brain looks 
     different,'' said Whyte, who tracks the research. ``But it is 
     very hard to get that across to the admitting nurse that's 
     going to say, `Why don't you just stop gambling? Why don't 
     you go home? You shouldn't have been gambling in the first 
     place.' ''
       But self-discipline is not a characteristic of compulsive 
     gamblers. Few of them put their names on ``exclusion lists'' 
     required to be kept by casinos for problem gamblers who want 
     to quit on their own. Gamblers who sign up are banned from 
     receiving credit or gambling. Casinos can also add problem 
     gamblers to the list and arrest violators for trespass.
       There are other ways the industry says it tries to 
     discourage gambling by people who shouldn't do it or can't 
     afford it. They include posted warnings in casinos, race 
     tracks and video poker parlors about overdoing it, cautionary 
     wording on the back of lottery tickets, public service 
     announcements about the consequences of addictive gambling 
     and Web sites that test for symptoms of compulsive behavior.
       Ken Davie, a vice president at Foxwoods Casino in 
     Connecticut, said the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation 
     donates $200,000 a year to that state's council on problem 
     gambling and also distributes warning pamphlets. But he said 
     it is hard to detect problem gamblers in a state that 
     features 7,000 slot machines at Foxwoods and another 6,000 at 
     nearby Mohegan Sun Casino.
       ``You have 13,000 opportunities to be hidden,'' Davie said. 
     ``Some of these machines are sitting in the comer. You can be 
     hidden away. You could come in and feed $100 bills all day 
     and we wouldn't know you're gambling away your life 
     fortune.''
       The American Psychiatric Association describes impulse 
     playing of slots and other instant response games as 
     ``persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior'' 
     personified by symptoms such as obsession with risk, lack of 
     self-control and lying.
       ``Pathological gambling is a condition where the person's 
     out of control,'' said Jon Welte, a researcher at the 
     University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions. 
     ``They can't stop gambling and they can't moderate the amount 
     they do. Gambling has kind of taken over their life.''
       Welte said researchers are struggling to understand why 
     some people develop problems gambling while others can do it 
     recreationally for years without becoming addicted.
       ``We're 20 or 30 years behind the research that's been done 
     on alcohol and drugs,'' he said. ``There's been a lot of 
     (gambling) research done about prevalence. We need more 
     research that gets closer at examining the causes.''
       A local judge in the western New York town of Amherst isn't 
     into medical research, but he presides over the nation's 
     first and only ``gambling court'' to treat the addiction 
     problem when it is related to crime. Sentences can include 
     psychiatric evaluation and counseling.
       Judge Mark G. Farrell created the court five years ago 
     after several unlikely defendants in a string of theft and 
     embezzlement cases admitted they were addicted to gambling at 
     casinos a half-hour away in Canada. Since then, two American 
     Indian casinos have opened nearby in the United States.
       Farrell said the public perception that reckless gambling 
     is a ``character flaw'' rather than a disease or addiction 
     has contributed to the slow development of programs to treat 
     problem gamblers.
       ``They are more likely to admit they're a heroin addict 
     than they would be to admit they're a compulsive gambler,'' 
     he said. ``And yet they've gone through their own money, 
     their family's money, their kids'' money. There could be a 
     divorce action going on. They've had DWls. A whole range of 
     things.''
       Some states earmark gambling revenue for treatment 
     services, but even they have not kept pace with the rapid 
     expansion of gambling within their borders and nearby states.
       Nevada, where gambling has been legal since 1931, did not 
     set aside money for treatment until last year. New Hampshire, 
     birthplace of the modern lottery, still spends nothing. And 
     Massachusetts spends only $655,000 of its $742 million annual 
     gambling take on prevention and treatment.
       Furthermore, there are only two residential treatment 
     centers specifically for problem gamblers, places where 
     addicts can go for several days or weeks to overcome their 
     compulsion. One is in Baltimore and the other in Louisiana.
       Tim Christensen, treatment administrator for the Arizona 
     Office of Problem Gambling, said the gambling industry and 
     the states that rely on it will be forced to change as public 
     awareness grows.
       ``Look at the tobacco issues that our country has gone 
     through,'' said Christensen. ``You went from a vast majority 
     of people that smoked to a vast minority. That happened over 
     time and with tons of resources put into it.''
       For advocates like Bassett, the nurse from Topeka who lost 
     her brother to suicide, the time of enlightenment can't come 
     soon enough. Prevention, she said, is also more complex than 
     hotlines, self-exclusion lists, warning pamphlets.
       She said her brother, a social worker who once manned a 
     crisis hotline, had sought help from a private counselor and 
     had even banned himself from the casino near his home. But 
     the day before he died, she said, he drove right past it to 
     another and proceeded to spend most of the day losing money 
     he was holding for his mother.
       ``There are no clocks. There are no windows,'' said 
     Bassett. ``It's an unreal existence in there. It's not like 
     playing with real money. It gives you the delusion of not 
     really losing.''
                                  ____


                   [From the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, 
                             June 4, 2006]

             Probing the Mind To Unlock Gambling Addiction

                           (By Denise Jewell)

       Piecing together the information doctors know about the 
     biology of pathological gambling is like solving a difficult 
     jigsaw puzzle for researchers like Dr. Jon Grant. ``This is 
     not simply an issue with people with poor or weak moral 
     character as some myths portray it,'' Grant said. ``This is 
     an addiction. It is complex.''
       Grant is a medical doctor and a psychiatrist at the 
     University of Minnesota who specializes in studying 
     compulsive gambling. For eight years, he has been searching 
     for a medical solution to curb cravings associated with 
     problem gambling. He and his research team have done brain 
     scans and other tests that indicate chemicals and receptors 
     react differently when compulsive gamblers are calm and when 
     they're revved up to bet.
       The most recent results of that work--published in 
     February's edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry--
     advances evidence

[[Page E1065]]

     that pathological gamblers are physically different from 
     other types of gamblers. Compulsive gamblers who took the 
     experimental drug Nalmefene, for instance, were less 
     impulsive than those given a placebo. ``For the last 10 
     years, there have been rumblings that it's a biological 
     problem,'' Grant said. ``This gives a lot more support to 
     that theory.''
       While researchers have only recently started to record 
     results for drugs that help overcome the urge to gamble, 
     doctors have been working on the neurobiology aspects of 
     gambling for more than two decades. The late Dr. Robert L. 
     Custer, a pioneer in compulsive gambling research, convinced 
     the American Psychiatric Association in 1980 to classify the 
     impulses of addicts as a disease much like Tourette's 
     syndrome and pyromania. Custer categorized gamblers as 
     professional, antisocial, casual, serious, escape and 
     compulsive. Professional gamblers, he said, were not 
     compulsive even though they took risks and gambled 
     frequently. He said they used gambling as a job, showing 
     clear-headed money skills, reasoned strategies and the 
     ability to walk away without losing their bankroll. Custer 
     characterized antisocial gamblers as withdrawn but not 
     compulsive, casual gamblers as infrequent players, serious 
     gamblers as those who use counting or tracking techniques to 
     beat the odds at card tables, and escape gamblers as those 
     who occasionally get away from reality through gambling.
       Grant said gambling addiction could become a ``huge social 
     problem'' as legal gambling grows in popularity through such 
     things as televised poker tournaments and the greater 
     availability of instant impulse games like slot machines. 
     ``We're seeing different demographics--people from all walks 
     of life--involved,'' he said. ``It suggests that this is 
     going to be a bigger and bigger problem as time goes on.'' At 
     the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions, 
     John Welte has been working to quantify the scope of the 
     problem through research that involved interviewing 2,631 
     people. He said the survey showed that compulsive gambling 
     and the related social costs can be traced in concentric 
     circles around a gambling facility. The closer in you get, 
     the more severe the issue, he said. And, he added, people 
     living in poorer neighborhoods reported higher rates of 
     problem gambling.

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