"Casinos work to create addiction"

State cashing in on problem gambling fund

"The problem gambling fund is insignificant compared to the social cost." ― Glenn Thompson, Wichita

WICHITA — Anti-gambling crusader Glenn Thompson’s jaw muscles tense when thoughts turn to bruising political fights leading to the state’s entrance into the casino business.

“Casinos work to create addiction,” he said. “We think they’re bad for families. It’s not a fear. It’s facts.”

He has paddled 20 years against the current, along with colleagues in Stand Up for Kansas, through passage of the pivotal 2007 law setting the stage for gambling at four new casinos and a handful of existing racetracks.

Casino openings this month in Sumner County and by February in Wyandotte County — they will produce $29 million in state revenue in just six months and deliver upwards of 2,000 jobs — place before potential customers six times the gaming opportunities available at the existing state casino in Dodge City.

But expansion is being met by reduction in state spending for care of problem gamblers.

There is no dispute problem gambling is on the verge of spiking, but no one has a handle on how high. State law anticipated a surge. Marketing programs at casinos emphasize the threat. Embezzlement cases and suicides among addicts will serve as counterweight to economic development fueled by casinos.

“The problem gambling fund is insignificant compared to the social cost,” Thompson said.


BUDGET CUTS

By law, 2 percent of gambling revenue in Kansas must go to a special fund for treatment of problem gamers and people with equally debilitating addictions. Of $3 million expected to be generated this fiscal year from casinos and the Kansas Lottery for the Problem Gambling and Addictions Grant Fund, only one-fourth will be devoted to reversing appetites for gambling.

The Kansas Legislature diverted $900,000 to fill a budget hole, while more than $1.3 million finances Medicaid. The amount for gambling addiction will drop below approved spending when only Dodge City's Boot Hill Casino and Resort was open.

Lawmakers approved $717,000 for gambling addiction this fiscal year, including salaries of three gambling specialists. The total represents a retreat from $740,000 invested in that work one year ago. Only 6 percent of the fund's overall receipts, or $200,000, is budgeted for direct counseling of gambling addicts. If history is a guide, the majority of that cash won't reach struggling Kansans either.

Local agencies are frustrated by the grip the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services maintains on resources for gambling addiction. SRS — not the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission or the Kansas Lottery — controls funding.

While Boot Hill Casino forwarded $1.5 million to the fund in two years, the region has received modest grants that don't equate to needs.

“Community members are really concerned with that fund,” said Deborah Snapp, executive director of Catholic Social Service in Dodge City and chairwoman of the Southwest Kansas Problem Gambling Task Force. “We really feel like that was a promise made to Ford County.”

The 1,300-slot Kansas Star Casino is operating 20 miles from Wichita, but Mark Blakeslee, of the Wichita Area Problem Gaming Task Force, said the group was waiting on new SRS grant funding.

“We have nothing firm,” he said.


DESPAIR’S DARKNESS

Anticipating the scope of problem gambling in Kansas is a crap shoot.

Carol Spiker, responsible gaming coordinator with the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission, said two-thirds of 55 Kansans placing themselves on the voluntary exclusion list by November came from the southwest region of the state. That reflects operation of the casino in Dodge City.

Sixteen percent of people prohibiting themselves from claiming casino winnings were from northeast Kansas, where gamblers have access to tribal casinos in Mayetta, Horton, White Cloud and Powhattan, as well as four full gaming casinos clustered in Kansas City, Mo.

Spiker said four of five people banning themselves from state-run casinos in Kansas were 35 to 64 years of age. Among those individuals, 51 percent sought the lifetime ban, and the remainder a two-year quarantine.

“We’re starting to see more outside the Boot Hill program area,” Spiker said.

National statistics suggest 3 percent of Kansans will have a problem with gambling. A 2005 study by the University of Buffalo indicated the prospect of being a gambling addict doubled among people living within 10 miles of a casino.

Topekan Kathy Bassett’s experience illustrates the depths of addiction. In a one-year span, her son went to prison, her mother declared bankruptcy and her brother committed suicide. The common thread was gambling.

“Benefits touted by the gaming industry are nothing but a clever use of smoke and mirrors and are far outweighed by the financial and social consequences,” Bassett said.

Her son, Jason, received a four-year prison sentence for embezzling at a Harrah's casino in Nevada. Bassett’s mother, a nurse, elevated social gaming to addiction before bankruptcy. After a bad run at Golden Eagle Casino in Horton, Bassett's brother, David Benintendi, grabbed a shotgun and drove to the cemetery where his father was buried.

His suicide note read, “If you knew the panic, despair and shame I wake up with every day, you would not want me to live.”


SRS MANAGEMENT

At SRS, questions simmer about qualifications of the agency's top addiction administrators. The department’s problem gambling services coordinator has never counseled a problem gamer, doesn’t have a working knowledge of casino games and spent the majority of his professional career writing auto loans.

Coordinator Paul Hahn, a therapist in Lawrence for two years before being hired at SRS, said his exposure to gambling in Kansas was limited to lunch at Dodge City's casino. He primarily counseled pornography and alcohol addicts.

“He's the new guy," said Keith Kocher, the Kansas Lottery's director of gaming facilities. “He may not know a lot.”

Hahn said that despite several months on the job, he wasn’t certain SRS had resources to address growing addiction.

“It’s a managerial decision on some level,” Hahn said. “It’s about mechanisms that take place above my pay grade.”

George Williams, Hahn’s boss at SRS, devoted the past 10 years to work at the National Center on Fathering in Johnson County.

He said SRS must focus resources on an education campaign and devise strategy to increase referrals to treatment counselors. He said a mere $8,000 was spent by SRS on one-on-one gambling treatment in the fiscal year ending June 30.

“It’s important, especially at the front end of this, to be heavily involved in the awareness of problem gambling,” said Williams, SRS director of addiction and prevention services.


IT’S PERSONAL

Gov. Sam Brownback, a Topeka Republican, said he could find no reason to avoid investment in proactive and reactive programs on the downside of gambling.

“It needs to be dealt with,” he said. “I've personally known people that have had difficulties dealing with gaming. They need some services and resources surrounding them.”

Snapp, of the southwest Kansas task force, recommended SRS reform policy on state-sponsored treatment. She said aid is limited to people who call a confidential hotline and, more significantly, receive a primary diagnosis of gambling addiction.

It is unreasonable for SRS to eliminate from the support network people with substance abuse problems exacerbated by gambling, she said.

Mark Kahrs, a Wichita attorney who led a $1 million campaign in 2007 against casino and racetrack gaming in Sedgwick County, said the potential for emergence of racetrack gambling there required the state to commit to funding meaningful education and counseling services to Kansans.

“They will wear Depends so they can sit on that stool for hours at end,” he aid. “That shows how addicting it is.”


KRGC DISTRESS

Brochures and advertising from casinos in Dodge City, Mulvane and Kansas City, Kan., doggedly remind patrons of avenues for getting help.

The state has an ethical obligation to effectively do its part to help problem gamblers emerging from the new “state-owned” casinos, said William Falstad, who chairs the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission. He urged the Legislature to grant KRGC a role handling treatment funding along with SRS.

“We have no control over that money,” Falstad said. “We turn it over to them. We want to make sure they are serving problem gamblers.”

KRGC member Glenn Braun, a Hays lawyer, said the 2007 expanded gambling bill wisely earmarked 2 percent of revenue for treatment.

He said decisions by the legislators and SRS to trim funding are irresponsible. Absence of vocal dissent among addiction counselors is puzzling, he said.

“I found it surprising with two new casinos coming online they're actually going to allocate less resources," Braun said.