Ohio counselors, casinos compete for attention of younger gamblers
As the casino industry tries to reel in younger gamblers, a state agency wants Ohio's counselors to keep college-age players from getting hooked.
There is cause for concern based on the latest list of gamblers whose problems are so worrisome they have banned themselves from the state's new casinos. According to the Ohio Casino Control Commission, the number of players under 30 in the "voluntary exclusion" program is growing and now represents a fourth of the 365 names.
The state Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, which is also a point agency on problem gambling, hopes to blunt problems by improving prevention and treatment at universities and colleges. A small conference that Ohio State University hosted last month put counselors on alert, though some said they had yet to detect widespread addiction at their institutions.
"We feel we are on the cusp of something," said Marcie Seidel, executive director of the Drug-Free Action Alliance, a nonprofit group that cosponsored the conference with OSU. "We don't want that to become a blatant problem in Ohio. We want to get out in front of that."
The casino industry, state lotteries and even charitable gaming are concerned about the graying of their core customers. They openly covet new blood, better known as the "emerging market."
When the American Gaming Association, a lobbying group, released an annual report on the health of the casino industry earlier this month, outgoing President and Chief Executive Officer Frank Fahrenkopf Jr. celebrated a finding that players 21 to 35 years old accounted for 40 percent of casino traffic.
"The state of the industry is good, and prospects for the future are solid," Fahrenkopf proclaimed during a conference call with reporters.
Fahrenkopf cited the Horseshoe Cleveland as an example of a new-breed casino with an urban setting that appeals to a younger demographic.
Unlike traditional, insular casinos, the Horseshoe is supplemented on the outside by bars, entertainment and upscale restaurants, venues that the association's research indicates younger customers like to couple with casinos visits. The move to integrate with surroundings extends to Las Vegas, where MGM intends to build a $100 million park and promenade and Caesars Entertainment, operator of the Horseshoe line, is developing a $550 million outdoor shopping and dining district.
John Acres, founder and chief executive of Acres 4.0 urges the industry to go further and deliver games via wireless technology. The small company supplies portable pads that are used to play games at three casinos in California and one in Oklahoma.
Acres said younger gamblers prefer moving around and socializing to sitting isolated in front of slot machine. To make real inroads with the group, he said in an interview, operators should lobby regulators to let players place wagers with smartphones and compete directly against their friends on interactive games in the casino.
"If a casino is just going to be what it was 30 years ago, except for different colors in slot machines, we don't have much of a future," he said.
Far less is known about college students' gambling than other risky behavior like drinking and drug use, but research shows they are two or three times more likely than other adults to develop severe problems, said Matthew Martens, an associate professor in the Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology at the University of Missouri. Overall, the rate of pathological gambling is small, experts say.
Martens spoke last month at the conference in Columbus, telling of an intervention process he is testing with money from the National Council for Responsible Gaming, an industry-funded group.
Borrowing from a model used in alcohol treatment, researchers identified more than 300 University of Missouri students at risk of problem gambling and showed them how much their wagering worked out to per year or even per hour. The test, which began two years ago, will soon wrap up, and Martens will evaluate the feedback's effectiveness.
In Northeast Ohio, spokesmen for Cleveland State and Case Western Reserve universities said the institutions have not adopted any special programs for fighting gambling problems.
Ohio State has started watching for gambling addiction at its Student Wellness Center. The university also developing a gambling-addiction message and will begin including information on the subject as part of orientation for first-year students.
The university has not noticed a surge in gambling problems since the Scioto Downs harness track in Columbus added slot machines last June and the Hollywood Casino Columbus opened in October, said Bryan Ashton, a "financial wellness" coordinator. But he acknowledged that compulsive gaming is not as easy to recognize as alcoholism or sexual violence.
"That's part of the challenge," he said. "With gambling, you don't really have those outward signs."
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/ohio_casinos_both_focus_attent.html
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment