State’s sluggishness on problem gambling may prove costly

Our say: State’s sluggishness on problem gambling may prove costly
Posted: Sunday, October 21, 2012

The state doesn’t mandate that restaurants, grocery stores and candy shops directly contribute to the fight against obesity. It doesn’t shunt tax revenue from bars directly into treatment of alcoholism. But gambling is different.

With the advent of casinos, Maryland has made gambling part of the landscape — licensing, regulating and controlling the new industry and doing all it can to promote the Old Line State as a place where it’s fun to throw away your money.

So the state has an absolute moral obligation to offer treatment for problem gambling.
The politicians who gave us this bonanza solemnly promised to set aside a trickle of the revenue to treat gambling addiction. But, as the cynics predicted, they weren’t in a blinding hurry to implement those promises.

As we reported last week, not a dollar was set aside specifically for the treatment of problem gamblers in Maryland from the late 1980s to 2011. In April of this year, after a three-year grant worth $5 million came in from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, requests for proposals finally went out to set up the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center of Excellence for Problem Gambling.

The first casino opened in this state in September 2010.

Lawmakers required that casinos pay $425 annually per slot machine into the state Problem Gambling Fund. But then they transferred more than $1 million out of that fund to bolster education spending. A 2010 study by a national association of problem gambling service administrators found that Maryland was coming in dead last by spending 1 cent per capita on the problem (it’s $1.36 per capita in Iowa).

The new director of the state problem gambling center, knowing that table games were under discussion, went to the State House to lobby for the gambling fund to get $1,000 per table — it’s $3,000 per table in Pennsylvania. The best she could do was a clause allowing, not mandating, a charge capped at $500 per table.

Now, the state is talking about expanding gambling before it has built an adequate problem-gambling infrastructure. This means trouble. A state-commissioned study from 2011 found a relatively high rate of gambling problems in Maryland even before slots had been introduced. Living within 10 miles of a casino is estimated by researchers to increase the chances of becoming a problem gambler by 90 percent. And the state’s expansion plans call for putting a casino within 45 minutes of every Marylander.

Gambling addiction runs up millions of dollars in costs due to bankruptcy, crime, suicide and assorted other personal tragedies and social maladies. Putting a minuscule bit of casino revenue into treatment programs is a sound investment — and the slowness of state officials to make that investment does them no credit.

The state must step up this effort. If we’re going to be a gambling mecca, we must offer adequate treatment for Marylanders whose weakness for gambling can easily ruin their lives.

http://www.capitalgazette.com/opinion/our_say/our-say-state-s-sluggishness-on-problem-gambling-may-prove/article_38575b38-a5da-57b6-8924-ee305061145c.html