Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2003 | 11:47 a.m.
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- His name is Willie Thomason. He is 74 and silver-haired, a restaurateur in Louisville and at one time a pretty fair car salesman, to hear him tell it.
"I made big money," he said last week.
Thomason was also a few other things -- an alcoholic, a compulsive gambler and, eventually, an embezzler. "I lied, I cheated, I stole, I conned, and I was good at it," he said.
For 42 years, Thomason said, he played the horses and bet on sports events. But at the end he was losing big money -- tens of thousands of dollars.
In an attempt to cover his debts to bookies, he embezzled from a Louisville car dealership where he was general manager. Thomason said he rationalized his stealing, telling himself he was only borrowing. He said it's a trait of gambling addicts.
Now Thomason is a counselor for Gamblers Anonymous and he offers himself up as a human face on the debate over whether Kentucky should legalize additional forms of gambling.
Not that he opposes the idea. "I'm not against or for," Thomason said. He said he wants only to ensure that any money from expanded gambling, should it become legal, includes a cut for treatment of addicted gamblers.
"It's a hidden disease," Thomason said in testimony Friday to one of the General Assembly's interim joint Licensing and Occupations Committee.
"If you're an alcoholic and you're drunk, you can't hide that," he said. Not so with gambling addicts, he said. "Nobody even knew what was going on with Willie Thomason till he got into trouble and got in jail."
In a way, two sides of the gambling debate were met in Willie Thomason last week. He lent fuel to proponents as well as to opponents.
Would a compulsive gambler, he was asked, be more likely to bet -- and bet greater sums of money -- at a racetrack that had electronic slot machines in addition to horses?
Yes, Thomason said. "A compulsive gambler cannot stop. There's no way."
What if the General Assembly keeps the status quo? "Nothing would change. You're still going to have them," Thomason said.
Could the state have done anything -- even closing racetracks -- to stop his own gambling?
No, Thomason said. "I would have gambled ... if there was anything to gamble on. Pitching nickels. Dice. The state couldn't have done nothing ... I always found a place to gamble."
Today, Thomason is in the restaurant business. He owns Willie's Italian Food, a recently opened eatery in a shopping center in Louisville.
He carries a beeper, keeping himself always on call for other gambling addicts who, at the end of their luck, telephone Gamblers Anonymous.
"Ninety-nine percent that calls me are facing prison or facing jail," Thomason said. Many are -- or have been -- professional people, Thomason said. "You don't have to be destitute or illiterate to be in our program."
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