Illinois struggling to help problem gamblers

Nicole Ziegler Dizon

Tuesday, May 1, 2001 | 10:46 a.m.

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. -- A $60 winning streak during a family trip to Las Vegas started Bob Olsen's lifelong battle with gambling.

The streak didn't last long, but that didn't stop Olsen's betting. Soon he had gambled away all the money he and his wife had brought on the trip out West with their 3-year-old twins.

Olsen got help and hasn't gambled for 25 years. But he sees temptation all around in the nine riverboat casinos that stretch from Chicago's suburbs to southern Illinois.

The Illinois Gaming Board held a daylong hearing last May to consider ways the state could help compulsive gamblers like Olsen. Now board members are set to draft a rule that would let problem gamblers bar themselves from the floating casinos.

Olsen calls the plan a good first step, but wonders why Illinois -- which has reaped billions of dollars from casino gambling -- isn't devoting more money to the problem.

"Me being a casino gambler, I used to have to get on a plane," Olsen said. "Now we've opened up the expressways for anyone within a half hour to gamble in Illinois."

Illinois has lagged behind its neighbors with riverboat casinos in devoting state funds to compulsive gambling. Last year Gov. George Ryan ordered the Department of Human Services to find $1 million to address the problem after lawmakers failed to include the money in the state budget.

This year the Department of Human Services has asked for $2 million to expand a campaign that includes public service announcements, signs on riverboats and training for counselors. The riverboats themselves fund a compulsive gambling hot line -- the state does not.

The Gaming Board is expected to vote this month on the proposed self-exclusion rule, which would let compulsive gamblers put themselves on a list of those banned from Illinois casinos. But board Chairman Gregory Jones concedes the plan is far from a solution to compulsive gambling.

"That is not necessarily a very big step, but it's a step I believe we can take as the Gaming Board," Jones said. "The next step that we really can't do is funding for treatment."

The self-exclusion plan is patterned after a Missouri program that lets problem gamblers ban themselves from that state's casinos for life. A draft of the Illinois rule would let those on the list apply for readmission in five years with a doctor's approval.

In Missouri, gamblers who violate the ban are arrested for trespassing. Illinois would simply make the person leave and forfeit any chips, tokens or credits accumulated.

Susan Gouinlock, executive director for Illinois Casino Gaming Association, said the eight boats she represents all have their own self-exclusion policies. Some bans are irrevocable, while others allow gamblers to reapply for admission after a year or more.

Gouinlock said her group supports a policy making it easy for problem gamblers to ban themselves from every boat by filling out one set of forms.

Cyndi Moriarity, a board member of the Illinois Council on Problem and Compulsive Gambling, favors the proposed rule but stressed that a ban alone is unlikely to stop compulsive gamblers unless they also get counseling and enter a 12-step program.

A 1997 Harvard University study found that between 1.1 percent and 1.6 percent of adults in the United States and Canada met the criteria for pathological gamblers. The problem affects about 176,000 Illinoisans, according to estimates from the Department of Human Services.

Olsen and another recovering compulsive gambler, Wayne Burdick, say they've seen the number of Gamblers Anonymous meetings in the Chicago area grow from about 10 in 1992 -- before riverboat casinos came to the area -- to 54 today.

The two work for gambling outreach groups and tell their stories at high schools, nursing homes and wherever else people will listen. Earlier this month they came to a hotel just steps from the Casino Queen in East St. Louis, traveling together to avoid temptation, to talk to members of the Gaming Board who were meeting there.

"The disease, it's never cured. It's always there, waiting to surface," Olsen said.