'Pioneer' in problem-gambling field retiring

'Pioneer' in problem-gambling field retiring
By Brian Hallenbeck
Publication: The Day

Steinberg says there's more work to be done in advocacy and research

Marvin Steinberg wants it understood that he's not opposed to legalized gambling.

Neither, he says, is the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling, the private, nonprofit organization he helped found more than 30 years ago.

No, says Steinberg, "We're neutral."

Steinberg, 75, who's retiring this month as the Clinton-based council's executive director, finds it necessary to drive home the point because in his role as an advocate for services and programs that reduce the impact of problem gambling he's often been critical of pro-gambling interests, be they legislators, government officials or gaming-industry mavens.

For someone in his position, an anti-gambling tag might be something of an occupational hazard. If so, it's rarely deterred Steinberg, whose early work in the field of problem gambling has been described as ground-breaking.

"He was a pioneer, an innovator," said Lori Rugle, director of Problem Gambling Services for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. "He was one of the first to work alongside people in the industry rather than as an adversary."

Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, the state's Indian-owned casinos, could hardly have been imagined when Steinberg co-founded the council in 1980. The state's gaming landscape was then limited to the lottery, off-track betting, greyhound racing and jai alai. Programs for dealing with problem gambling were virtually nonexistent.

In 1980, Steinberg said, it all came together.

That year, for the first time, the American Psychiatric Association recognized "pathological gambling" as a mental disorder in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-III, the bible of mental-health professionals. Steinberg and others started the Connecticut council, the first state chapter of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

Steinberg, a licensed psychologist with a private practice — he once thought sex therapy would be his specialty — put some of his own money into the venture, securing a mailbox and hosting an early gambling "Helpline" from a phone in the basement of his home.

The council's first funding came from the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, which donated a night's proceeds from the bingo hall it operated before launching Foxwoods Resort Casino. When the casino opened in 1992, Steinberg forged relationships with its first chief executive officer, Al Luciani, and then Luciani's successor, G. Michael "Mickey" Brown, both of whom approved funding for the council.

When Mohegan Sun debuted four years later, Steinberg began a friendship with Bill Velardo, the late casino executive who became another early supporter of the council. Steinberg introduced Velardo to the National Council on Problem Gambling, which Velardo served for a time as treasurer.

The council's $285,000 in funding last year came from the casinos and the Department of Health and Addiction Services, which contributes 5 percent of its Chronic Gamblers Treatment and Rehabilitation Fund. Last year, that amounted to $95,000.

"It should be a lot more," Steinberg said. "When you consider the lottery spends $10 million promoting lottery games, the funding from the state is very small."

Pioneers self-exclusion

Rugle, the state Problem Gambling Services director, said much of what is known today about problem gambling can be traced to research and studies in which Steinberg has participated.

"People don't appreciate the ground-breaking work Marvin has done," she said. "He was one of the first to work on a self-exclusion program, one of the first to advocate for responsible gambling, one of the first to reach out to the stock broker community and one of the first to look at sexual addictions among gamblers."

Steinberg, a Guilford resident, helped develop the first self-exclusion program in the country - in which gamblers who recognize they are at risk of gambling excessively have themselves banned from a gambling facility - at Foxwoods in the 1990s. Such programs are now commonplace at casinos around the world.

His academic credentials - Steinberg has master's and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of Texas - and commitment to research have brought him national recognition, including the national council's Robert L. Custer Lifetime Achievement Award, which he received last year. After he retires, Steinberg will continue to work with the council as a part-time senior adviser.

"He's a very intelligent man," said Mary Drexler, the Connecticut council's assistant director, who will succeed Steinberg as executive director Feb. 1. "He's benefitted from having a private practice, and he's been able to take his clinical knowledge and put it to great use."

Steinberg has often taken state officials to task for failing to adequately fund problem-gambling services and programs. He also has been critical of how infrequently the state has studied legalized gambling's impact.

"It's a problem that one of the first things they think about when they need to raise revenues is gambling," Steinberg said, "and that the amount they set aside for the problem gambling that comes with it is small. (Gov. Dannel P.) Malloy's talking about online gambling and the lottery being more aggressive, but I never hear anything about more funding for problem gambling."

While legislation once called for Connecticut to study legalized gambling's impact every five years, the last two studies were a decade apart. Steinberg has faulted them for largely documenting the same thing - the prevalence of problem gambling - rather than honing in on the problems they identify.

"We don't need to know the prevalence every five years, because we have a good idea what it is," he said. "Better to know who the problem gamblers are, their age, their gender, their ethnicity - and how many are new problem gamblers that we've created since the last study. That requires a different type of study, an incidence study, which costs a lot more."

Steinberg said a study of legalized gambling's social costs is long overdue, too.

"It's a straight line from legalized gambling to problem gambling," he said, adding that the current wave of gaming expansion in state after state will, in his view, inevitably lead to saturation, casino bankruptcies and closings.

"It will create jobs, it will provide wholesome entertainment for a majority of the people, but there will be social costs," he said. "There's never been a social-costs study."