Columnist Jeff German: More help needed for problem gamblers

Friday, May 2, 2003 | 5:33 a.m.

WHEN VALONNE Harmon was sentenced last week for embezzling money from the Nevada Board of Dental Examiners to fuel a gambling habit, her case barely attracted media coverage.

Some might say Harmon, the board's former executive director, got off easy. She was placed on five years probation for stealing $760,000 (all but $90,000 of which was covered by insurance), ordered to serve 50 hours of community service and pay the $90,000 in restitution.

But in reality there wasn't much more the judge could have done to punish Harmon than what Harmon already had done to herself. Her life was ruined by her addiction to video poker. She lost her home, her car, her credit cards, her life savings and, in the end, her dignity.

Today Harmon lives with her daughter in a small town in Alabama and holds down a low-paying job as a clerk in an accounting firm. But according to her lawyer, Karen Winckler, she is determined to turn her life around.

We don't know whether Harmon could have fixed her life if she had sought help before her gambling habit got out of control. But we do know that Harmon, like thousands of other compulsive gamblers in this state, would have had a hard time getting help.

If you look in the Yellow Pages, you'll find dozens of treatment facilities for drug and alcohol addictions. But go to the page for gambling addiction, and you'll find only one, the Problem Gambling Center, a nonprofit clinic run by psychologist Robert Hunter.

Hunter, who sees several hundred patients a year, said Las Vegas easily could use a half-dozen more clinics like his.

People, it turns out, just aren't getting an opportunity to help themselves.

"We need to treat this the same way we treat drug and alcohol addictions," said Carole O'Hare, the executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, a nonprofit organization devoted to heightening awareness about gambling addictions.

O'Hare said there are maybe a dozen counselors in the state certified to help compulsive gamblers, but because many insurance companies still don't recognize the problem as a legitimate health concern and the state provides no subsidies for counseling, many people can't afford to seek help.

Any discussion about why there's so little treatment available, or why it's so hard to get affordable treatment, must start with the casino industry, which created this problem.

The industry, which last fiscal year took in $9.3 billion in revenues, isn't exactly bending over backwards to help problem gamblers.

Sure, it donates money to research. And it posts hotline numbers in casinos and spends a few bucks to train employees how to spot problem gamblers -- things it has to do by state law.

Its contributions to treatment, however, are negligible. The industry funds one-third of O'Hare's $430,000 annual budget and 90 percent of Hunter's $170,000 budget. That's it.

The state, meanwhile, does absolutely nothing for those addicted to gambling. Though it receives hundreds of millions of dollars a year in taxes from the casino industry, it has never set aside any of that money for treatment.

Senate Bill 349, which would set up a $250,000 fund for treatment, would change that. The measure currently is stalled in the Senate Finance Committee while state lawmakers are struggling to find as much as $1.1 billion to balance the state budget.

But this bill is important because it would create the mechanism in the state to dole out money for treatment and sponsor more clinics. Once the fund is set up, private money can be funneled through it, which means the casino industry and other businesses which should be contributing more to the problem no longer will have any excuses not to support more treatment.

And people like Valonne Harmon might have a chance to get the help they need before they ruin their lives.