RI: Cheap on Gambling Addiction Treatment

Fighting the addiction to gambling
$75,000 dedicated to treat RI's gamblers

Bill Tomison
with reporting by Walt Buteau
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - The pull to spend your money on gambling is more high tech than ever. The technology of slot machines, card table games and more is designed to stimulate certain areas of your brain. But in Rhode Island, less than a quarter of one percent of gambling revenue is spent to treat addictive gamblers.

In most casinos or slot parlors, it's a cacophony of sound from morning till night. Sitting in front of a slot machine, it's ringing electronic bells, dinging musically as the virtual tumblers on the screen fall into place. The flashing lights -- and maybe, just maybe, coins dropping into the bin -- may actually be changing the chemistry of your brain.

Yes, casinos and the like are money makers. And they'll also encourage you to get help if you feel the gambling is controlling you.

"There's a lot of stimulation. You can play this -- once every three to five seconds, at least," said Bob Breen of the Rhode Island Hospital's Gambling Treatment Program.

It became a $100 a day hobby for Scituate resident Sandy Hall. She's a recovering gambling addict.

"I went through in excess of $40,000. Probably close to sixty," Hall said this week. [This highlights the need for monthly statements.]

"I turned from this moral, ethical person -- into a lying, cheating, decitful [sic] manipulative person that I didn't even recognize."

Rhode Island's gambling venues will rake in hundreds of millions of dollars this year -- but the state dedicates only $75,000 for the program at Rhode Island Hospital to treat addictive gamblers in Rhode Island. And of course, that's only if they come forward, and that only happens if they or someone they know recognizes they have a problem.

"Some of the receptors in your brain -- misfire," said Hall. It's a lot like a drug, she said. "It is as addictive as cocaine and heroin."

"You need to either use more of your drug -- or you need to spin the wheels on your slot machine to keep it going," added Breen.

Hall found a way to stop, but even after two years without gambling, she doesn't dare even flip a coin anymore.

"If I let this disease open up one small door, it will consume me again, and I cannot risk that because my life was horrible," said Hall.

A recent study shows while only two percent of the population gets addicted to gambling -- those addicted gamblers contribute about half the revenue to casinos. [There is no indication for the source of this study, but other studies have indicated higher rates of Gambling Addiction.]