Guest Speaker On Gambling Awareness Says It's A Growing Addiction

Guest Speaker On Gambling Awareness Says It's A Growing Addiction

By: WIBW (Kion Hudson)

Updated: Thu 5:56 PM, Mar 20, 2014

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW)-- Gambling Awareness Week in the Sunflower State kicked off with a guest speaker's perspective on what he calls a growing addiction.

Judge Mark Farrell, a Senior Justice from Amherst, New York, spoke to representatives from the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services.

Judge Farrell founded the nation's first and only gambling treatment court, which looks at therapeutic intervention for problem and pathological gamblers who are faced with criminal action.

"It's an extreme degree of carnage resulting in bankruptcy, divorces, theft, criminal activity, suicide and it's on the national scene. It's on the local scene and yes as we pay attention to drug addicts and alcoholics we need to pay attention to those struggling with the addiction of gambling," Judge Mark Farrell, Amherst, NY.

Farrell says gambling addiction is a real medical problem.

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