Groups get ‘positive’ about problem gambling

Monday, March 8, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.

It's only one billboard for a city of more than 1 million people.

But to Carol O'Hare, executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, it's also a significant moral victory.

The billboard, which recently went up near I-15 at Charleston Boulevard, resembles the problem gambling brochures the council has distributed to casinos statewide for years.

"We're very proud to have that up there," O'Hare said. "What it symbolizes is that it's OK to talk about problem gambling in this state. And it's a positive message."

The billboard, a first for the Nevada Council, is among a series of efforts kicking off today to coincide with National Problem Gambling Awareness Week, an outreach campaign sponsored by the National Council on Problem Gambling and the Association of Problem Gambling Service Administrators.

The Nevada Council, part of a nationwide nonprofit network of education and training groups affiliated with the National Council on Problem Gambling, is expanding its regular programs to coincide with the event.

They will include a first-ever (for Las Vegas) public forum Friday on problem gambling co-sponsored by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Department of Counseling as well as a series of public service announcements on radio and television stations. In addition to the billboard, the Nevada Council's 24-hour helpline will be prominently displayed on nearly two dozen ads at bus shelters across town.

The most important aspect of National Problem Gambling Week is getting information into the hands of health care professionals such as doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists, O'Hare said.

National Problem Gambling Week was crafted a year ago and modeled after other awareness efforts centered on health care issues such as depression screening, she said.

"This is about a diagnosable medical disorder and getting people to think about problem gambling as a health issue," she said.

Starting today, more than 1,200 medical professionals across Nevada will have received problem gambling screening information to use with patients. More than 200 hospitals, clinics and other health care centers will receive flyers and brochures to distribute to patients.

In that respect, National Problem Gambling Awareness Week differs significantly from Responsible Gaming Education Week, a national event sponsored by the casino industry.

The American Gaming Association event, held every August, is aimed at raising awareness of gambling addiction among casino employees and customers.

"We want to see momentum in this country to to treat this issue as a public health issue," O'Hare said. "The industry has done a good job of making people in the industry aware of it. We felt (reaching health care providers) was the piece that was missing."

A year ago, the Nevada Council launched a program with the United Way of Southern Nevada to disseminate information to nonprofit programs that receive funding through the United Way. The information introduces social service workers to the basics of understanding problem gambling and helps them screen for gambling addiction, O'Hare said.

The program has worked well and has led the Nevada Council to begin a similar partnership with the United Way of Northern Nevada, she said.

"If people are having these kinds of problems in their lives and need help, (social service agencies) may be seeing the evidence of an underlying gambling problem."

About 47 organizations in 25 states launched programs for National Problem Gambling Awareness Week last year, said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

"That wasn't bad for the first year. We're hoping to beat that this year," he said.

The National Council is distributing free information and public service announcements that organizations can air for a fee.

A greater cultural awareness of gambling -- led by televised poker championships and other TV programming -- is leading to increased public interest in gambling problems, said Whyte, who has recently appeared on CNN and NBC's Today Show to talk about compulsive gambling.

The effectiveness of awareness programs is still relatively unknown, O'Hare said.

"If we can get (health care providers) to do one more thing -- if that's asking one more question, providing (patients) with one more piece of information, getting individuals to understand they can get help -- that's a good thing."

Education and awareness programs do trigger people to seek help, said Robert Hunter, co-founder of the Problem Gambling Center. The center is a nonprofit treatment center in Las Vegas that, like the Nevada Council, is supported primarily by donations from casinos.

That creates a greater need for treatment centers, which are lacking and underfunded in Nevada, said Hunter, who has criticized the state for withholding money for problem gambling treatment services.

"The better the education gets the bigger the backlog gets at the clinic," he said. "At some point we have to come to the realization that we need (more) treatment (options). I've got 30 people on a waiting list and we have to scrape by month to month. It's more palatable to spend money on billboards than a room where there's blood on the floor."

Public funding for treatment is a major piece of the puzzle that hasn't been solved, said O'Hare, who has lobbied on that issue for the past several years.

"Our legislators might notice a billboard. They might go to their family practice physician who has a poster in the lobby. We will keep pushing the information," she said.

"When people are ready to get help and call the help line, we have to make sure there are health care providers out there to make sure people get the help they need."