Gambling

THE HUMAN TOLL OF GAMBLING: Destroyed Dreams and Lost Lives

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Paul Griffin Jones, II, Ph.D.
Contributing Columnist
January 28, 2002

During the early years of gambling in Mississippi, William Perkins, the editor of The Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board encountered and interviewed a compulsive gambler. He tells the tragic story of one he calls, “Gaylon”

When he met her, she indicated that wished she had never accepted the invitation to dinner at a casino buffet. She believes if she had not she would never have lost her family, humiliated herself in prostitution, or lived in fear of using her real name.

"I thought I could handle it, but it's the strongest drug I've ever done," Gaylon told Perkins as she sat trembling in her counselor's office. When asked what could compel her — a lifelong Mississippi Gulf Coast resident, devout Southern Baptist, stay-at-home-mother of five children — to give up everything for a hooker's life on the street, Gaylon replied, "Satan can appear to be an angel of light, and that's what those casino lights are for me."

She was tempted again and again to partake of the elaborate, inexpensive buffet which is a centerpiece of any casino. But, in order to get to the buffet, she eventually began turning to the video poker machines on her way in and out of the building.

In just a few months, she had stolen $30,000 from her children, driven her recovering husband back into alcoholism, and was drifting toward personal and spiritual destruction.

She had lost 30 pounds because she gambled three to four days at a time without stopping to eat or sleep. She was convinced that her next bet would be the big winner that would allow her to repay all her losses.

"I talked to the machines; I worshipped the machines; I have even seen people wet their pants because they would not leave a machine," Gaylon said.

Gambling has literally taken away every precious thing from Gaylon's life, and she had become enslaved by gambling. As her money continued to vanish into the machines, she became increasingly desperate for money to feed into the machines.

It was at this time that she was approached by a casino floor employee who gave her a room number at the casino hotel. He was, in effect, the casino pimp who split with her the proceeds of her prostitution. As her gambling addiction deepened, she became more compromised with every act of prostitution. Male or female, single or married, no matter the perversion, she turned every "trick" that came her way. "The casino pimps loved me because they knew I'd do anything for money. I'd go to the room thinking, 'Let's get this over with so I can get back to my machine,'" she said.

Gaylon pondered placing her teenaged daughter in prostitution to gain more gambling money. She even contemplated robbing a bank as much for closure as for the money.

"I had access to a gun. I didn't care if I got away with it or if I hurt somebody and went to prison. I just wanted it to end," she would later say.

Finally, her two-decade marriage crumbled and her children rejected her. She could not get extensions on her credit and no business or bank would cash her worthless checks.

She was abandoned, forlorn, and homeless. She was literally starving and she knew she had hit bottom. That is when she began thinking about suicide.

"I had lost all self-respect. Suicide is something you think about when you want it over," she said. She was echoing the sentiments of many gambling addicts. She wanted to break out of her downward spiral but she was too deep in the morass of her own making.

In the midst of her crisis, an acquaintance suggested to Gaylon that she talk to a religious counselor who specialized in counseling persons with gambling related problems. The counselor helped Gaylon find a place to live and convinced her that she could turn her life around.

She confessed her lifestyle to her pastor. A godly woman in her church began to pray her. "She's been my spiritual mother. Her picture is in the dictionary under 'Christian.' She walks the walk. Even when I rejected her, she never gave up on me."

"She gives me hope. As long as she is on my side, I know God won't give up on me either," Gaylon said.

Gaylon is trying to hang on to her life, her self-respect, and her very being. But the temptation to return to the gambling tables, the slot machines, and even the moral compromise is almost overwhelming. "Just sitting here with money, I get nervous. Everything makes me think of it; with gambling, you really are possessed," she said.

Gaylon has a deep disappointment when she considers her fellow Southern Baptists who frequent the casinos. “I kept thinking to myself, if I were really saved, I wouldn't be doing this. Then I would see church people in there at 3:30 a.m. in the morning when they thought no one would see them.”

"I thought a lot about their hypocrisy, and mine" she said. Gaylon is an excellent example of the destruction, the denial, the denigration, and the doom that come to a society that creates a climate for gambling; and, the climate for gambling in America has never been better.

State governments see taxes levied on gambling revenues as being a "voluntary" source of funding for their programs, policies, and peculiarities. The propaganda machines of the cartels roll out story after story about the winners and about the positive impact gambling has on society; and, they will always emphasize the big E's: the economy, education, the environment and the elderly. The gambling cartels in America use these areas to persuade state and local governments to approve gambling and to keep promoting gambling.

The environment of gambling provides a climate for creating problem gamblers. These situations that create problem gamblers are becoming increasingly prevalent in an America looking for an easy way out of despair, boredom and poverty.

High schools are scheduling mock casino nights. Charities have moved from simple bingo to Las Vegas/Atlantic City Nights. There are reports of grandparents giving lottery tickets for birthday and Christmas presents. National toy chains sell toys that resemble slot machines, casino card games, and roulette wheels.

In three short years, between 1990-93, the number of American households visiting casinos doubled to a total of 92 million. By the year 2000, more than 40 percent of all American families had participated in some from of gambling because 95 percent of Americans will live within three to four hours of a casino.

Rarely is the whole story on gambling told. The propaganda generated by the gambling cartels paints a positive, sweet-smell-of-success portrait. But, there is another side of the story. It is the contemporary tale of two cities.

Every Americans needs to study the statistics of the cities of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. These two American cities have become virtually synonymous with gambling. When we understand the gambling experience in these cities, we begin to understand much about the destructive impact of gambling on a community. Las Vegas and Atlantic City are case studies in how to make gambling cartels rich while others go wanting. No urban experiences can tell us more about dice and vice.

Founded in 1905, Las Vegas was an oasis in the Mojave Desert where gambling was legalized in 1931. Las Vegas as a gambling mecca begun as the dream of mobster "Bugsy" Siegel at the end of the Second World War when he constructed the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. From its inception, casino gambling in Las Vegas was associated with organized crime, false promises, and broken lives.

Las Vegas has become a city of neon. There are over fifteen thousand miles of lighted neon tubing in downtown Las Vegas along the boulevard known as the Strip. The lights are so many and so bright that they can be seen by astronauts from space and yet they blind the traveler on the ground to the real Las Vegas.

While not legal in Dark County and Las Vegas, prostitution is legal in parts of Nevada and can be found nearby. Along the Strip, pimps pass out literature to visitors advertising exotic entertainers for private ”shows” in a person’s motel room. It would seem that anything can be acquired in Las Vegas 24 hours a day — for a price.

Nevada has the highest incarceration rates in the nation, and Las Vegas claims one of the nation's highest crime rates. Forty percent of the felons jailed in Nevada are from out of state.

Personal economics take a hit in Las Vegas too. One in every 66 households files for bankruptcy in Nevada which is the highest rate in the nation.

Nevada also has the highest per capita consumption of alcohol in the nation. Much of the alcohol is given away as a “comp” in casinos. In 1994, the FBI released a report indicating that criminals in Las Vegas committed five times as many violent crimes as police were able to solve. This is the worst ratio of any large city in the United States.

Las Vegas is pulling in big dollars. The gambling industry in Las Vegas makes about $171 in profit every second. But the glitzy glamour becomes an economic elixir which in turn becomes a poison for those who imbibe. Eight times every day in Las Vegas there is a meeting of a Gamblers Anonymous group. Gambling thrives on destroyed lives, and the destruction always begins in the pocketbook.

The other city, Atlantic City, approved gambling in 1976 as a unique tool of urban development. The first casino began operating two years later. During that first year, gambling revenues reached $134 million. Resorts International opened Memorial Day 1978, with $81 million in "take." In nine months, Resorts International paid for its entire $707 million capital investment. The purveyors of gambling have reaped enormous profits while the city and most gamblers have suffered financial loss.

In 1993, Atlantic City gambling revenue topped $304 billion. Atlantic City now attracts more than 38 million visitors a year. Nearly 46 percent of the Atlantic City's casino gambling revenues are from slot machines which are the kind accessible to low rollers betting a nickel or quarter at a time.

However, a more detailed look at Atlantic City reveals:

• Illegal sports betting increased after casinos opened.

• Since casinos were introduced almost 100 of 250 restaurants closed. Gamblers eat in casinos and do not care to patronize neighborhood businesses.

• From 1973 to 1976, Atlantic City averaged 4700 major crimes per year. By 1990, the annual number of major crimes exceeded 14,400. Two-thirds of those crimes occurred in the casinos.

• In the first four years of casinos, pickpocket arrests went from 15 to 1,247. During the same period, purse snatchings increased 48 percent, shoplifting 342 percent, larceny from parked cars 347 percent, and larceny from buildings 430 percent. From 1972 to 1984, crimes in all categories increased dramatically: violent crimes 59 percent, crimes against property 76 percent, rape 54
percent, aggravated assault 76 percent, and robbery 49 percent.

• Yet since casinos arrived, the population in Atlantic City dropped more than 25 percent.

• The city has ten times the number of homeless people on the streets compared to other similar sized cities.

When governments become dependent on gambling tax revenues, the compelling interest of those governments is no longer to protect the welfare of its citizens. The more dependent governments become on the taxes gathered through gambling revenues, the more aggressive and arrogant the gambling cartels become in pushing their agenda. They believe the immediate money will continue to blind the citizens — and especially the legislators — to the long-term costs and effects of gambling.

What is the agenda? Simply this — get as many casinos and other forms of gambling as close as possible to as many people as possible to get as much money as possible. It is all about the money. Greed drives gambling.

The arrogance and the open agendas of gambling forces are staggering. They are depending upon the ignorance and apathy of the citizens and upon the greed and callousness of legislators to fulfill their plans and to fill their pockets.

Yet, government is supposed to care for the people like Gaylon — not to create them. But, the more gambling that is available, the more problem gamblers that are created

The more available gambling becomes, the more compulsive gambling grows unchecked. The more gambling becomes available, the more addicted, hooked, gamblers are created if we can just get past the technicalities of the professionals.

Compulsive gambling is classified by the American Psychiatric Association in its Diagnostic Service Manual, Fourth Addition, (DSM-IV) as an impulse control disorder. Configuring psychiatric schemata and vocabulary is an inherently politically charged process, and the language associated with gambling can be confusing. Conceptual difficulties and labeling problems have caused considerable difficulty for scientists, public policy makers, and patients.

Each diagnostic category including pathological gambling is, by DSM-IV definition, a mental disorder. Currently, DSM-IV classifies pathological gambling as an impulse control disorder. In addition, the American Psychiatric Association uses the concept of disorder to ground their practice guidelines for a range of other addictive behaviors. "Disorder" is a clinical term that is employed and applied with utility by clinicians (e.g., the American Psychiatric
Association).

In addition to the need for overarching constructs (e.g. disorder) during the conduct of a meta-analysis to permit the integration of disparate data, use of the concept of disorder is already common in a variety of health care fields. For example, physicians often identify heart valve, clotting, high blood pressure and other cardiac problems as cardio-vascular disorders.

According to the DSM-IV, the American Psychiatric Association does not formally apply "problem," "addiction," or "compulsive" to gambling as diagnostic terms. It is important to remember that psychiatric nomenclature is dynamic, i.e., always subject to change. Categories such as hysteria and dementia praecox have fallen by the wayside, while newer paradigms such as post-traumatic stress disorder and body dysmorphic disorder have gained acceptance.

As new epidemiologic research emerges, it is entirely possible that the psychiatric semantics of gambling will change yet again to accommodate the notion of a spectrum illness. It is also possible that pathological gambling as a primary disorder may soon be distinguished from pathological gambling as a disorder secondary to depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, or mania.
In addition, sub-clinical forms of gambling disorders may soon garner more clinical and public policy attention.

Research suggests that many of the same people who have so-called addictive personalities — prone to become addicted to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs — are at greater risk than the general population to become problem gamblers. That was certainly the case in Gaylon's life. She was a chain smoker and was treated previously for addiction to cocaine and crystal methamphetamine. Her ex-husband was an alcoholic.

Television commentator and former presidential aide Bill Movers produced a PBS series on addiction called "Close to Home." In an interview on CNBC (March 1998), he suggested that 88,000,000 people are affected by addiction. One of every three persons in America is touched in some way by addiction — alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling. Those affected include not only the addict but the family, friends, and co-workers. Movers described addiction as a "desperate, wretched condition — always looking for that next high. The brain is literally high-jacked by the addiction."

Problem gamblers are gambling's problem, and Gaylon can readily relate to Movers' observations on addiction. Addiction is the problem that the cartels cannot ignore.

Even the gambling industry acknowledges the problem of addiction. On the cover of one issue of International Gaming & Wagering Business, the lead story was entitled "Gaming's Ball and Chain." The focus of the sub-title acknowledged that problem gambling, more than any other issue, restricts the growth of casino, lottery and pari-mutuel gambling.

The cover story of the July 1996 issue of International Gaming & Wagering Business was titled "There's a Problem in the House.” The article pointed out that the employees of the casinos are more likely to be problem gamblers than most casino corporations realize. The article stated that as many as 55,000 casino employees have a gambling problem. Based on the 1995 casino employee figure of the 367,000, it can be concluded that 15% of the casino work force has a problem with gambling.

It would seem logical that problem gamblers among employees would be higher — both because you have an environment where people are exposed to it and since it's an impulsive disorder which raises the likelihood that people are going to get caught up in it.

Jim is a prime example. He was a 36-year-old craps dealer on the Las Vegas Strip. For him environment was definitely a factor. His initiation to gambling came when he was twelve years old, pitching quarters before school in New Jersey. He began working in casinos in Atlantic City and began to suspect that he had a problem with gambling. He moved to Las Vegas because restrictions against casino employee gambling were less stringent than in New Jersey. Jim estimates that his gambling addiction cost him about $100,000; but, he considers himself "one of the lucky ones."

He considers himself "lucky" because a friend introduced him to Gamblers Anonymous. He feels he was lucky because he was not married and had no children to hurt. However, the desire is still there and he does not think the desire will ever go away. He does not try to fool himself thinking that he can go back to the casino floor and just play $30 or $40 every week. Once he got into GA and heard the stories from people who lost millions of dollars and their families, he realized that he could never go to the casinos again.

The gambling advocates want the public to believe that the attitude of the caratels has changed. The gambling industry has created the Center for Problem Gambling located in Kansas City, Missouri. The Center is to be funded by the American Gaming Association with money to be distributed by a body of some of the leading experts in the gambling, medical, psychiatric and counseling fields.

They claim that their intention is to finance research by universities, hospitals and physicians to come up with the reasons for and precautions to take for problem gambling and to determine the best treatments for it. At the same time, some charge that casinos are merely motivated by concerns over poor public image or threatened legislation.

The funding provided for dealing with addicted and problem gamblers calls into question the commitment of government and of the gambling interests to address the issue seriously. In Mississippi, for instance, less than half-a-million dollars is targeted to the issue. Supposedly, casinos, state government, and industry vendors will contribute the funds to address the addiction of gambling.

However, the half-a-million looks paltry when it is remembered that gambling casinos took in nearly $2 billion in revenues in 1997 in Mississippi. Gambling's contribution to help correct the problem their "industry" has created would appear to be .000075 percent of their gross revenue. Does that look like a serious commitment, a concern for problem gamblers, or just concern for a poor public image?

Jim, the recovering gambling addict, would contend that casinos are just trying to make themselves look good. He draws the parallel to the beer companies who develop a public relations campaign “Don't drink and drive” but who then put their logo underneath to advertise who is sponsoring the reminder.

Critics such as Jim are correct. Gambling and government never brag about addiction or degradation. They live in a state of denial. They never tell the stories of people like Gaylon. Gambling makes profits at a high personal expense.

But what about Gaylon? While pro-gambling forces in 1997 celebrated the fifth anniversary of legalized gambling in Mississippi with glittering receptions and glowing reports of financial windfalls for all involved, Gaylon was in trouble again.

"I haven't seen Gaylon in a couple of months. I don't know where she is; I'm afraid she has 'slipped.'" These words from her counselor underlined his fear that Gaylon had returned to her previous life of addiction and degradation.

The counselor had arranged for Gaylon to live away from the casinos in a structured recovery environment and insisted that she maintain a regular counseling schedule. But, "She began to cancel out on her counseling appointments. She went from that to just being a no-show. Then she left the structured environment where she was doing well, and I haven't heard from her since," the counselor said.

"I don't know where she is or what shape she's in, but you can be sure she's suffering — physically, emotionally, and spiritually. At this time last year, she was near suicide," the counselor said.

Gaylon fought hard, but lost the struggle to turn her life around. Such behavior is not unusual for a person who has fallen back into addiction.

While the hollow pronouncements of gambling promoters continue to tout rising benefits from legalized gambling, Gaylon's poignant, world-weary words from the previous year still haunt:

"I would invite anyone to come with me and stand outside a casino at 3 a.m. They will see men and women fighting. They will see wives crying. They will see how wholesome it really is."

Some form of gambling can be found in 47 of the 50 states and in the District of Columbia. (Tennessee has approved pari-mutuel gambling, but currently has no active form of gambling though lottery supporters have a referendum on the November ballot.) As gambling increases, so will the number of problem gamblers. The more accessible gambling is, the more addicts society will have.

Knowing that gambling is an addictive behavior — and that some aspects of gambling such as slot machines and video poker are extremely addictive — should we not hold the industry liable for the damage done by their product? Why not hold them to the same level of responsibility that we would any other industry in our communities? Are we willing to allow a few to profit at the extremely high public and private costs which come with gambling? The costs are too great. Just ask Gaylon—if you can find her.