Social workers, city leaders fear more suicides among chronic gamblers

Jim Suhr

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2000 | 4:46 a.m.

DETROIT - Susan Madigan says Detroit's new casinos have doubled calls to her program for chronic gamblers. The social worker and some city leaders worry that a suicide at the casino could lead to "copycats."

"When a gambler's at risk for depression, these thoughts are in their minds anyway. Anything that will trigger those thoughts puts a gambler at risk," said Ms. Madigan, director and founder of the Michigan Center for Problem Gambling in Brighton.

"It makes the fantasy (of suicide) more palpable. They say, 'Yeah, I can do that."'

Detroit City Councilman Ken Cockrel Jr. believes people who lose their life savings in casinos "is just a fact of life." He doesn't see Wednesday's suicide as "casting a pall over the casino industry."

"There's going to be more of them, no doubt," he said. "But the casinos are here, and I don't see this putting the brakes on them by any stretch."

An off-duty, suburban police officer killed himself at the MotorCity Casino on Wednesday. On Thursday, a Detroit Fire Department battalion chief threatened suicide while gambling at the MGM Grand Detroit Casino.

Police said the fire official told a dealer he was going to follow the dead man's lead.

Since MGM Grand Detroit opened last summer, Ms. Madigan's center has fielded more than 200 calls for gamblers reaching out for help - about twice the demand. About half of the clients, she said, are from Washtenaw and Oakland counties.

"The more casinos you add, the more phone calls you get," she says.

Regionally, other social service agencies have reported increases in the number of people reaching out for help as casinos, lotteries and other recreational gambling spreads through Michigan.

Five years ago, the Detroit area had about six Gamblers Anonymous groups; as of last month, there were about 20, Warren Biller, the Michigan Council on Problem Gambling's director, told the Detroit Free Press.

In 1995, Michigan had no certified gambling counselors; these days, there are more than 200 statewide, Biller said.

Biller could not be reached Thursday.

Nationally, a University of Connecticut School of Medicine study last year found the percentage of pathological gamblers doubled between 1974 and 1996, to 1.4 percent of the population.

Wednesday's suicide at MotorCity is believed to be the first in a U.S. casino.

Sue Cox, the Texas Council on Problem Gambling's chairwoman, says her agency's task is to intervene "before a person hits bottom and feels compelled to do what this man did."

"Any time there is a loss of a life, it just really takes your breath away," she said. "I have chill bumps right now talking about this.

"Lives can be saved if we know how to prevent this."