Professionals stunned at failure of Nevada problem-gambling bill

David Strow

Wednesday, June 6, 2001 | 11:10 a.m.

Nevada professionals devoted to fighting problem gambling are stunned and disappointed following the Legislature's failure to approve a bill that would have provided public funds for their efforts for the first time.

The bill, backed by state Sen. Mark James, would have supplied $250,000 in state money to support problem gambling initiatives. Nevada is one of the few gambling states in the nation not to provide any public funds to such efforts.

"I think it was the first time the words 'problem gambling' were ever uttered in Carson City," said Bo Bernhard, director of operations for Problem Gambling Consultants, a non-profit Las Vegas treatment center for problem gamblers.

Endorsed by the casino industry's Nevada Resort Association, the bill seemed destined for passage when it moved out of Judiciary in March. But it wasn't meant to be.

After languishing for more than two months, the bill was finally approved and released from the Senate Finance Committee late Monday night, its $250,000 appropriation cut to $75,000. But the bill, caught in a flood of last-minute bills, never made it to a vote of the Senate, and quietly died when the Legislature adjourned after midnight.

Money was the official reason. The state faced a $121.5 million deficit over the next two years, Finance Committee Chairman and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio said, and so no bill asking for more money than was available under Gov. Kenny Guinn's budget would be approved. Indeed, James' problem gambling bill only moved forward after $2 million in excess funds were identified in the waning hours of the legislature.

But not everyone buys the line that the deficit was to blame.

Sensing difficulties in convincing the committee to provide financing, James suggested providing funds by charging all gaming licensees a $100 annual fee. A committee member expressed concerns this was unfair to small licensees, but James apparently defused that concern when he responded that $100 a year to any licensee was almost inconsequential.

Yet the bill didn't move. Twice in May, the Finance Committee addressed the bill, but took no action, despite the lack of any opposition.

"You should direct that question (as to why the bill was stuck in Finance) to Sen. Raggio, because the bill was unanimously passed out of the Judiciary Committee, and was last heard of in his finance committee," James said. "There is no financial impact of the bill. It's a fully funded bill."

And that bill's fate has left some questioning Nevada's commitment to addressing problem gambling.

"The rest of the country would say, 'My God, what's going on here?"' said Bill Thompson, professor of public administration at UNLV. "This is just part of our record of not giving a damn about a serious issue."

"The state of Nevada makes more money off legal gambling than any other state, and has not provided resources to address this problem," said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling in Washington, D.C. "It's frustrating, extraordinarily frustrating, that they apparently do not recognize their obligation, their responsibility to the health of their citizens."

As gambling spread across the country over the last 25 years, a commitment to combating problem gambling spread along with it.

As states legalized casino-style gaming, they usually mandated that a portion of those monies would go toward treating those addicted to this new product. New Jersey, for example, devotes the revenues it derives from fines against licensees to problem gambling, and funds several problem gambling treatment centers.

Many states with lotteries and racetracks also took aggressive steps to try to treat problem gamblers -- in some cases, giving more than even states with legalized casinos. Texas provides $4 million per year to such services, Minnesota $2.6 million, Massachusetts $500,000 and Georgia $250,000.

But gambling was legalized in Nevada long before problem gambling was considered a legitimate, treatable disorder. So while the state's largest casinos brought in more than $9 billion in gaming revenues last year -- and paid the state 6.25 percent of this in taxes -- state law has no provisions to direct any of it to problem gambling efforts. Those problem gambling efforts that do exist are funded with private dollars.

The Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, for example, recorded $417,000 in revenues last year -- but about 56 percent of that came from providing services, such as the council's problem gambling training programs. Twenty-three percent of revenues were corporate donations. The majority of the council's funds come from the gaming industry, said the council's executive director, Carol O'Hare.

Meanwhile, Problem Gambling Consultants -- the only non-profit center of its kind in Nevada, according to its founders -- received $142,000 in corporate donations in its first fiscal year, which ended Feb. 1. It has received $66,000 in additional donations since then, Bernhard said. Its largest backers are Station Casinos Inc. and International Game Technology, and all of the donations received so far have come from gaming companies.

But it isn't nearly enough, Bernhard said. The center has treated about 140 patients in its first year and a half of operations, but Bernhard said the center almost always has a waiting list of 20 to 30 people.

"In Nevada, the (gaming) industry predates the notion of problem gambling," Hunter said. "In other jurisdictions, they knew about it going in. That still doesn't excuse why we should be playing catch-up ball here. I think the state has an obligation to help provide that safety net. Frankly, $250,000 is a really insignificant amount, relative to the need."

Money wasn't the only provision of the problem gambling bill. The legislation would have added a representative of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling to the state's Gaming Policy Board as a non-voting member, would have allowed judges to sentence gambling addicts to alternative sentences if they sought treatment and would have required the state's public schools to have courses dealing with problem gambling education.

"Education and prevention don't keep people from gambling, but it lets (professionals) recognize it and treat it more quickly," Hunter said. "I'd like to have people in here because they're late on their payments, not because they're in legal jams or suicidal."

In those states leading problem gambling initiatives, such as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Oregon, there's evidence that problem gambling is leveling off, Whyte said.

"Certainly in the five states with the largest programs, their prevalence rates did not go up," Whyte said.

Many Nevada problem gambling officials refuse to blame James for the failure of the bill. They praised him for stepping out to address an issue no one expected to emerge in this year's legislature, and expressed hope future efforts would be more successful.

"I certainly am appreciative of Sen. James' efforts on behalf of this issue," O'Hare said. "It didn't result in the allocation of funds, but I think the spirit and intent of it is alive and well, and we'll continue to work with those people who are supportive of those purposes."

But a lack of understanding could have also played a role, O'Hare said.

"It's the first time it's come up in the Legislature, and there could be a learning curve for legislators to understand this issue," O'Hare said. "We've got two years to do a lot of work, and hopefully the work we do will lead to a better result."

There was no public opposition to the effort, James spoke before the finance committee several times in favor of it, and NRA lobbyist Harvey Whittemore expressed the organization's support for problem gambling efforts.

Still, in a agenda crowded with tax issues, reapportionment and Internet gambling, more needed to be done to ensure the problem gambling bill's passage, Thompson believes.

"There was no opposition, but there has to be someone propelling this to the top of the agenda," Thompson said. "(James) became a lightning rod on taxes, and he might have dropped this. If he starts putting his energy into something else, no one is carrying it. If the governor would have given it a thumbs-up, it would have flown through.

"It needs someone that will devote attention to it. I think Mark would have been the guy, but I think he got lost in the tax fight."

Whyte believes the way to ensure success is to have the NRA propose the legislation in the next session of the legislature, then aggressively lobby for it.

"(The NRA's position) can't just be, 'Here's a bill, I guess we support it,"' Whyte said. "This particular bill wasn't a group effort by all the stakeholders."

Meanwhile Thompson believes gaming needs to act on its own to step up funding for combatting problem gambling, before the legislature reconvenes in 2003.

"I think the industry should step up and propose a $10 million plan, without legislation," Thompson said. "They need to it with a real sum of money. Then the industry looks good, and they go a step beyond the token efforts they're doing right now."

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