Ohio: The Cost of Government Sponsored Addiction

 

Gambling-addiction calls shoot up

47% more last month to state’s helpline

By Alan Johnson

The Columbus DispatchThursday November 15, 2012

 

The longer casinos operate in Ohio, the greater the cry for help going up from problem gamblers.

Calls to the state’s problem-gambling helpline, 1-800-589-9966, shot up nearly 47 percent last month from September. Since the beginning of the year, 3,207 people have called seeking help for gambling-addiction issues.

Laura Clemens, head of government affairs and gambling addiction issues for the Ohio Casino Control Commission, said at the panel’s meeting yesterday that the calls most often come from people suffering serious personal, family and financial problems because of gambling.

“One woman said for the first time in her 30-year marriage, she lied to her husband because of her gambling problem,” Clemens said. “She said she had to stop.” Another man told her he had just lost his entire month’s paycheck in a casino; he wanted help.

Women slightly outnumber men overall among those seeking help; that shifted for the first time in October when 217 men and 191 women called the hot line.

At the same time, some Ohioans are calling casinos directly asking them to ban a family member from gambling. That doesn’t work, officials said. Instead, a “voluntary exclusion” process is available, but the request must be made by the individual, not a family member.

So far, 146 people, including 15 from Franklin County, have asked that they be banned from entering a casino for periods ranging from one year to a lifetime. Men outnumber women in the exclusion group, and the predominant ages are 41 to 60.

Casinos are now open in Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo, with a $400 million Cincinnati casino set to open in the spring.

The state expects to glean more than $11 million from taxes and fees paid by casinos and their employees in the current fiscal year. A portion of that goes for the gambling hot line, addiction prevention and eventually treatment.

Orman Hall, director of the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, told Casino Control Commission members that treatment providers are assessing the gambling addiction situation now, recognizing it will become a larger problem later.

He said the biggest need for treating addicted gamblers does not come immediately after casinos open, but builds gradually over the first three years of operation.

A state study released this year estimated there are about 250,000 Ohioans who already have a gambling addiction. That is about 2.8 percent of Ohio adults, roughly the national average. The study was done to provide a baseline for the future.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/11/15/gambling-addiction-calls-shoot-up.html