As Seniors Gamble for Fun, Some Find Only Trouble
Part 1
Buffalo News/New America Media , News
Feature,
Melinda Miller ,
Posted:
Apr 05, 2014
BUFFALO, N.Y.--After skipping doctor’s appointments for months,
Gina’s father was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in January. That’s when she
realized he had other problems, too.
While helping arrange her dad’s
medical care, Gina obtained power of attorney to manage his finances during his
hospitalization and recovery.
Parkinson’s Drug Feeds
Gambling Addiction
The study of
Parkinson’s disease, and how the brain sends signals for movement and mood, also
is shedding light on the physiology of gambling.
When patients being
treated for Parkinson’s developed gambling addictions, it didn’t take long to
find the link.
“There are many groups of dopamine receptors in the
brain,” explains Jian Feng, a neurologist and professor in the University at
Buffalo’s School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences: “One type controls
locomotion, one controls the normal cognitive state - when that is not working
right, you might see schizophrenia - and the third group affects reward
behavior.”
Parkinson’s results from the death of dopamine neurons in
areas associated with locomotion. The illness is commonly diagnosed when people
are in their 60s, Feng said, although its onset could be earlier.
Drugs
called dopamine agonists, such as pramipexole (brand name Mirapex) and
ropinirole (Requip), help restore connections in those receptors, calming the
tremors associated with the illness and giving the patient more movement
control.
But they affect the entire brain, not only the locomotion
areas, which is why, Feng said, they can have unwanted side effects on
personality.”
Feng said that when a person experiences an unexpected
reward, like a $50 slot machine win, dopamine triggers a pleasure response. The
brain wants to repeat that experience, so it signals the impulse to keep
gambling. The very randomness of the reward is what heightens the pleasure, and
medication that enhances a patient’s reception to dopamine heightens that
pleasure even more - it can make him crave it.
“It’s addictive
behavior,” Feng said. “The other aspect is gambling itself. It is basically an
addictive thing.”
Mayo Clinic researchers in 2011 estimated that more
than 20 percent of patients on Parkinson’s medications also experienced problems
with impulse control - including a sudden, compulsive urge to gamble. (Other
problems could be hypersexual behavior, binge shopping or overeating.)
Indications are that the higher the dose of medicine, the greater the chance a
patient will experience the side effects.
--Melinda
Miller
Gina’s full name is not being used to
protect her father’s privacy.
“So, I’m going through his papers and his
bank accounts,” Gina said, “and I see he has $18 in the bank, and ATM
withdrawals showing he was going to the casino every three or four
days.”
Risked Income—and HomeIn one week in January, her
83-year-old father gambled away his entire monthly income from Social Security
and a small pension.
And that still wasn’t the worst of it. It looks
like he will lose his home.
“He hadn’t paid his mortgage payments for 16
months, and his house had gone into foreclosure,” Gina said.
Gina
doesn’t know when her father started casino gambling. She gets no answers from
him, she said.
“He just fluffs it off.”
Problem gambling, while
affecting a small percentage of total gamblers, is growing among people age 60
and older, a key customer base of the burgeoning casino gambling industry in
Western New York. With bus trips from senior centers and casinos opening not
just here, but across the country, gambling is easier than ever for retirees to
pick up and, for a vulnerable minority, a hard habit to quit.
Seniors may
not be more likely than other age groups to have a gambling problem. A 2012
study in Ontario indicated seniors are somewhat less likely to get addicted than
younger gamblers. But they are not immune, and as more casinos create more
gamblers, they also create more problem gamblers of all ages.
“Not
everyone develops a problem, but for those who do, it can be quite devastating,”
said David M. Ledgerwood, a researcher at Wayne State University and a clinical
psychologist who has seen firsthand the harm of gambling gone wrong with several
casinos in the Detroit-Windsor, Ont., area.
“And a big factor I’ve found is
bereavement. An older gambler who has lost a loved one might play for hours so
they don’t have to think a lot. It’s soothing, in a way.”
‘The New
Senior Centers’Some people refer to casinos as “the new senior
centers,” and a visit to the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino might show
why.
It was a recent Wednesday afternoon, but the casino was so full you
might have thought it was a busy Saturday night.
The gambling tables were
buzzing and the rows of slot machines were chiming as the credits rang off.
Almost all of the folks at the slots and half those at the tables would qualify
for AARP membership.
When asked, many seniors say they would like to win
but don’t count on it. One after another, they say they go to the casinos for
“something to do” and a chance to have a little luck.
But they also make
grim jokes about what the casinos take.
At the Seneca Niagara Casino and
Hotel, the morning gamblers – almost all seniors – pile into the lunchtime
buffet and say they plan to “eat up” their losses. A gray-haired woman whose
jacket bears the casino’s logo laughs when asked if it was free.
“Ha!
Free! I’d say I only paid about the price of a car for it over the past two
years,” she said.
In 2008, Wayne State researchers found the prevalence
of problem gambling in 10.4 percent of people older than 60 in the
Detroit-Windsor area, where they have easy access to four casinos. The study
concluded that gambling could become a serious health problem for seniors,
particularly those who are alone and have incomes below $20,000.“With
the recently retired, or those in their late 70s, there are a few things that
stand out as risks,” Ledgerwood said. “One, exposure to gambling, which happens
as more casinos open; two, they may or may not have things to fill the free time
of retirement; three, if there is a decline in health, going to a casino and
gambling is easier than other activities.”
What’s more, medications may
also increase the propensity for gambling. Some medications for Parkinson’s
disease – mostly prescribed to seniors – can trigger obsessive behavior,
including gambling addiction, in 10 percent or more of those who take
it.
No Refunds AllowedLosses can be hard to comprehend for
consumers accustomed to legal protections when they overspend. Laws give people
a “cooling off” period to back out of contracts, and stores let shoppers with
buyer’s remorse return their purchases.
There is no procedure allowing a
gambler to get a refund from a slot machine.
“They don’t realize that you
can spend a lot more money than you think you’re spending, very easily,” said
Renee C. Wert, a Buffalo therapist who treats addiction problems of all kinds.
Most clients she sees thought they were just having a little fun before
their gambling habit went south, she said.
But when they do overspend,
regret kicks in, and the hole keeps getting deeper the more they dig.
“A
lot of people think, ‘If I just keep going, I can win the money back,’ ” Wert
said. “And they might win it back and then walk away thinking, ‘OK, that’s how
to do it!’
“But the next time, and the time after that, it doesn’t
work.”
Admitting to gambling away money you couldn’t afford to lose is
never easy, and for seniors it can be especially hard. The players can feel like
losers personally as well as financially.
“It can be difficult to ask for
help. They’re pretty embarrassed about it,” Wert said. “For all their lives,
they’ve been responsible and handling their money, and all of a sudden they find
themselves in debt because of gambling. It can really sneak up on
them.”
Only Did Scratchers BeforeThat’s what happened with
Gina’s father.
“He was a mechanic his whole life,” Gina said. “He worked
until he was, like, 70. He didn’t gamble. Just scratch-off tickets. I would see
those sometimes.”
Her parents divorced when she was a child, and Gina
didn’t see her father often, but she tried to stay in touch. Recently, he was
making that harder, not answering his phone, not wanting her to visit.
When she forced the issue around the holidays, she found out why. His
life revolved around gambling. His house was unkempt, he had no food, and he had
a pile of overdue bills.
“He never told me anything about this,” Gina
said. “Anytime I called, he said everything was fine.”
That first
doctor’s visit in January was only the beginning, Gina said. Her father was
ignoring other health problems, too. She found overdue bills for medical co-pays
and presumes her father was avoiding doctors because he didn’t want to pay the
$45.
“He would rather spend it at the casino,” she said.
This
is Part 1 of a series. Melinda Miller wrote this article for the Buffalo
News
with support from a MetLife Foundation Journalists in Aging Fellowship,
a program of New America Media and the Gerontological Society of
America.
http://newamericamedia.org/2014/04/as-more-seniors-gamble-for-fun-some-finding-only-trouble.php
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