Louisiana’s problem gamblers find help to stop

Scott Dyer

Monday, Oct. 30, 2000 | 9:46 a.m.

BATON ROUGE, La. - One Baton Rougean dialed the state's problem gambling hot line earlier this year with a different sort of problem. When a gambling counselor picked up the phone, the caller asked: "Does four of a kind beat a straight flush?"

The counselor tried to explain that the help line, at 877-770-STOP, is intended to help people whose lives are being wrecked by gambling. The caller replied, "I told you that I do have a gambling problem. I just got thrown off a boat for arguing with a dealer over whether four of a kind beats a straight flush."

At that point, the conversation took a chilling turn.

"Never mind," the caller said. "I will just go get my .38 out of the trunk and take care of that dealer."

That's just one story told by Colleen Leonard, who became director of the hot line when the Louisiana Association on Problem Gambling took over its operation in January.

These days, Leonard uses that story to illustrate to staffers the importance of alerting police immediately when threats are uttered during a call. There are other examples. Like the woman who gambled away all her family's money and was calling for help while her husband beat her.

"We could hear the husband yelling at her in the background because she had spent all their money on gambling. She was crying. She was screaming, and you could hear the phone drop," Leonard said.

In that case, counselors notified the local sheriff's office, which managed to whisk the woman away to a shelter. Another call came from a female gambler in Marksville who was on the brink of suicide after losing all her money.

"She said she had attempted suicide a few years ago and had a gun in her hand and was trying to do it again," Leonard said.

Since Leonard and the Shreveport-based Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling took over the hot line in January, calls have risen dramatically.

According to state Department of Health and Hospital records, Leonard's operation fielded 759 calls from problem gamblers during the first six months this year. That's a 41 percent increase over the 538 handled during the last six months of 1999 by the previous hot line contractor, New Orleans-based Volunteer and Information Agency.

Some DHH officials had criticized the Volunteer and Information Agency because it was not dedicated exclusively to gambling. It fielded other types of crisis calls as well.

By contrast, the new gambling help line is run by counselors who are trained specifically to help problem gamblers. Leonard said the increase in calls might have been more dramatic if not for transition problems.

For instance, Leonard said, it took the Louisiana Lottery nearly six months to start publishing the new hot line phone number on its lottery tickets.

"They (the lottery) had some old stock (with the old number) that they wanted to use up in order to save some money," Leonard said. When the lottery finally began printing the valid phone number on tickets in July, the number of calls from problem gamblers surged to 162 in July, up from 138 the previous month.

Reece Middleton, executive director of the Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling, said that it also took time to post the new number in the nearly 3,000 bars, restaurants and other establishments across Louisiana that offer video poker.

Middleton said the state is paying $225,000 a year to his organization to operate the gambler's hot line, but the project will likely cost about $260,000.

"We have to supplement (with charitable contributions) to make ends meet," Middleton said.

Leonard said the hot line also receives various other calls ranging from inquiries about recent winning lottery numbers to people trying to make reservations at a casino.

Leonard said one man called her on his cell phone from his car in the parking lot of a casino. "He said he had left his glasses inside the casino and it was pouring down rain and the casino's phone number was busy. He wanted to know if we would call the casino for him and get somebody to bring his glasses out to his car," Leonard said.

Leonard said her staff documents the number of hot line calls in which a caller hangs up or claims to have dialed a wrong number. Leonard said some compulsive gamblers undergoing treatment have confessed to either hanging up or claiming to have dialed a wrong number because they didn't have enough courage to discuss their problems at that point.

"It's kind of hard to get 1-877-770-7867 mixed up with the phone number to the local Taco Bell," Leonard said.