Casinos give problem gamblers toll-free hotline

Trevor Hayes

Wednesday, Dec. 29, 1999 | 10:33 a.m.

Mitzi Schlichter says every little bit helps in the battle against compulsive gambling.

She should know.

Her dream marriage to NFL quarterback Art Schlichter became a nightmare when he began forging checks and stealing from family and friends to feed a voracious gambling habit that landed him in prison and wrecked their marriage.

The help she refers to are small signs found in many casinos suggesting "If you have a gambling problem, we encourage you to get help. Call 1-800-522-4700."

Ironically many of the signs are found next to ATMs or credit card machines where gamblers can also find help in the form of more cash to continue gambling.

Critics initially panned the problem gambling help signs, saying they were a cosmetic fix that surfaced just days before the Congressionally-appointed National Gambling Impact Study Commission met in Las Vegas in November 1998.

But Schlichter, now a spokeswoman for Trimeridian, an Indianapolis-based gambling treatment facility, is willing to give the casino industry some credit.

"I definitely say the efforts (of the gambling industry) have raised awareness," she said in a recent Associated Press interview. "There is always more that we can do and we need to be creative in finding ways to deal with it. I feel like everyone at every level needs to do more."

The calls to the 800 number are fielded by the National Council on Problem Gambling, an agency funded in part by the casino industry.

The Nevada Gaming Commission passed a regulation prior to last November's commission visit requiring any business hosting gambling to make information, including telephone numbers and brochures, available to help problem gamblers.

Carol O'Hare, executive director of the NCPG, says casinos are the best place to attack the compulsive gambling problem.

"The problem gambler is probably not going to be home watching the movie of the week, they are going to be in a gaming environment," said O'Hare.

Callers to the 800 number are asked questions such as marital status, age, gender and occupation, then given numbers for Gambler's Anonymous meetings or treatment centers.

O'Hare says the NCPG hot line now receives between 130 and 150 calls a month as opposed to previous years when 40 calls constituted a busy month. In August, the most recent month for which statistics were available, 57 percent of the hot line's callers cited a casino as the place where they found the number.

Walking out of the Golden Nugget hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas, Chester Waite of Spring Hill, Fla. claims he's visited Las Vegas 66 times and never seen one of the signs.

Then there are others such as Kay Gray of Sulphur Springs, Texas - standing next to an ATM in the Golden Nugget, - who said, "Yeah, I've noticed them. You see them everywhere."

The regulation has worked exactly as planned, said Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman Brian Sandoval.

"Nationally, our regulation has been a model for use in other states," Sandoval said.

"At least we know information is now available to more people and there is an increasing awareness of this disease" as a result of the Gaming Commission regulation, said Alan Feldman, Mirage Resorts, Inc. vice president of public affairs.

The gambling industry is the only entity supplying support for studies and treatment of compulsive gambling, Feldman said.

"Governments are doing very little about (problem gambling) even though they are receiving billions and billions of dollars" from gambling taxes, said Feldman. "It would be nice to see state governments involved in putting together research."

Feldman claims people are losing their homes and causing harm to their families while the experts drag their feet.

"There has not been until the last four or five years full consensus among the scientific and treatment communities about what problem gambling is," said Feldman. "Let's stop running around in circles about what we're going to call it, and start dealing with it."

The industry needs to take even more of these proactive measures to avoid the fate of the tobacco companies, according to Arnie Wexler, who heads a company dealing with problem gambling.

"Some programs in this country on responsible gambling are written in-house and are nothing more than the fox watching the hen house," said Wexler.

Feldman claims the flaw in comparing the two industries is that more than 98 percent of tobacco users become addicted, while gambling has only a 2 percent addiction rate.

Most compulsive gambling experts agree that the biggest obstacles are removing the stigma associated with problem gambling and teaching people that it is a disease rather than a character deficiency.

"If Pete Rose were a drug addict or an alcoholic he would be in the Hall of Fame," said Wexler.

Wexler says accountants or bankers can keep their jobs if they go to drug rehabilitation but would be fired if their employers learned of a gambling problem.

Schlichter agreed, saying her ex-husband would not be in prison and might still be playing football if he had a drug addiction instead of a gambling problem.

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