Nevada slashes funding for Gambling Addiction

Gambling Addiction increases with proximity and promotion.

In the case of Nevada, the state ranks lowest in all of the quality of life reasons one would choose to move to a state. The state has high poverty, high crime, high suicides, high gambling addiction, high dropout rates, low college education rates. As mostly a one Industry state - Gambling, drastic declines in revenue are forcing drastic cuts and funding for Gambling Addiction treatment is on the chopping block --


According to a 2002 report commissioned by the Legislature ­­— still considered the most reliable — 5.1 percent of Nevada adults met the definition of “pathological” or “problem” gamblers. Taken together, that’s 100,000 Nevadans.



Coolican: Severing lifeline for gambling addicts would be a shame
By J. Patrick Coolican

It’s too bad Gov. Brian Sandoval wasn’t with me Tuesday when I sat in on a group session at the Las Vegas Problem Gambling Center. These sessions are at turns heartbreaking and inspiring. “We need a Kleenex brigade,” says Robert Hunter, clinical director, as eyes around the room fill with tears.

At times there’s a tragic air of self-loathing. Many have lost families and friends and face legal and financial obstacles because of their gambling. But they also support one another, and several report significant successes: “I can’t tell you how much this has changed me, my outlook, my hope,” one says.

“There’s so much life after gambling,” says a man who quit seven months ago after 30 years of compulsive gambling.

Sandoval should know about life after gambling. After a career as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, he’s been attorney general, a federal judge, and now first-term Republican governor.

He’s decided that now would be a good time to slash spending on problem gambling programs. Of the taxes gaming companies pay, $2 per slot machine is earmarked to pay for the programs. That amounted to a paltry $1.5 million in fiscal year 2009, split among six treatment centers and other programs; Sandoval has proposed halving the earmark.

In fairness to Sandoval, he’s merely following the Legislature’s lead: During the special session of 2010, it swept $850,000 from the fund to buy pallets of chewing gum to stick in the holes in our fiscal roof. By halving the earmark, however, Sandoval is essentially making the Legislature’s raid permanent. We have no other choice, he has said.

Hmm, choices. Hey, did you see that the price of gold hit $1,377 per ounce this week?

Anyway, consider this: In a bad year, our community’s highest paid gaming executives make five or 10 times the $727,000 Sandoval has proposed we spend next year on problem gambling programs. (About half of the Problem Gambling Center’s budget comes from private donors, including the gaming industry.)

Oregon spends $6 million per year on problem gambling. Iowa spends 2 1/2 times per capita what we do. Iowa.

What’s particularly absurd about this state of affairs is that spending money on these treatment programs likely saves us money in the long run.

Here’s how: There are big social costs to gambling addiction. Addicts miss work and school, they’re bad parents, and in the worst-case scenario, they steal to support their addiction or to pay off debts.

The Problem Gambling Center is remarkably effective, according to data compiled by UNLV sociologist Bo Bernhard and the testimonials of other experts and recovering addicts.

A bit more than half of respondents to a survey Bernhard conducted hadn’t gambled since they completed treatment, which is a solid success rate in the addiction field. Even among those who were back at the machines, nearly all reported gambling less.

Jeff Marotta, an expert in problem gambling who ran Oregon’s program for nine years, says the Las Vegas Problem Gambling Center is nationally renowned for its effectiveness, and, it’s a good thing: “Problem gambling affects communities and the entire state economically and socially. (Treatment) is money well-spent.”

The stories are what break my heart, though. Mostly, it’s the crushing isolation so visible in the patients’ faces. But among one another, they seem to have found real human connection and a sense that their pain can be eased by love and hope rather than the narcotic numbing of a machine.

Thanks to the groundbreaking work of Hunter’s mentor, Dr. Robert Custer, we now know that for a small percentage of the population, gambling will become addictive. Hook up a gambling addict to a brain scan, and you can see how his brain is different when he’s playing, flooded with the pleasure-regulating chemical dopamine.

Still, addicts have to take responsibility for their actions. But how do we tell people to take responsibility for their lives by getting help when we can’t get it to them? Or can’t get the message out?

The Problem Gambling Center provided its intensive therapy to 228 clients in 2010.

According to a 2002 report commissioned by the Legislature ­­— still considered the most reliable — 5.1 percent of Nevada adults met the definition of “pathological” or “problem” gamblers. Taken together, that’s 100,000 Nevadans.

As Bernhard says, “One of the great problems is that very few people are being captured in the safety net.”

So let’s take a knife to the safety net and see how that works.