Tuesday, April 5, 2005 | 9:14 a.m.
CHICAGO -- Jerry Prosapio got hooked on gambling the first time he visited a casino.
An addict for 10 years, he had excessive loans and advances on 17 credit cards, lost two businesses to bankruptcy and put stress on his marriage and family. Prosapio thought of dying while flying home on his last trip to a casino.
"I thought it would be best if the pilot would just crash the plane," he said.
Prosapio has been gambling-free for the last 21 years with the aid of programs such as Gamblers Anonymous and has formed a group called Gambling Exposed, based in the southwest Chicago suburb of Crestwood, to fight gambling and efforts to expand it. He recently urged lawmakers to help addicts recover their lives by eliminating casinos.
"Enough is enough is enough," Prosapio said.
When riverboat casinos opened in some Illinois communities in the 1990s, officials said they prepared for increased crime and other problems that never materialized.
But as lawmakers now debate proposals that could allow even more casinos in the state, gambling opponents worry that easier access to gambling will result in trouble.
Christopher Anderson, former executive director of the Illinois Council on Problem and Compulsive Gambling who was recently asked by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to work with the Gaming Board, said officials who don't see the crime and problems connected to gambling aren't looking in the right places.
"The crimes committed by compulsive gamblers do not show up under gambling crime statistics. What they're looking for is an increase in organized crime, violence in and around the casinos," said Anderson, who gambled for 2.5 years in the securities market.
"The crime of the compulsive gambler is one of stealing money from their employers and taking it to the casinos," he said. "It's under the heading of forgery, fraud, theft, embezzlement."
In 1995, Anderson conducted a study of 184 admitted compulsive gamblers in Illinois that found the average per gambler in money borrowed or stolen and possessions sold for gambling was $361,041.
"You can't smell dice on anybody's breath. There are no card marks on anybody's arms. Gamblers keep their addictions hidden until they're the equivalent, in most cases, of a Skid Row wino," he said. "As long as there's money to place that next bet, the gambler believes that there is still a way to solve the problem created by the very activity that caused the problem, which is gambling."
Baylor University professor Earl Grinols, a noted gambling expert, calculates the cost to society of each problem gambler at more than $10,000.
In Illinois last year, the nine riverboat casinos recorded 15.3 million visits and kept $1.71 billion before taxes.
Some gambling opponents are encouraged that new members of the Illinois Gaming Board have expressed concern about gambling's social costs.
"I'm going to work to try to bring an ethical, holistic perspective to gaming in Illinois," said the Rev. Eugene Winkler, a retired Methodist minister recently appointed to the five-member regulatory board. "I don't like it, but it's here to stay. And it needs to be closely regulated by this board and the board needs to be concerned with some issues such as gambling addiction and ethical matters."
The state offers a voluntary self-exclusion program for problem gamblers that lets them ask to be barred from Illinois casinos.
Once gamblers sign up, they can be ejected from casinos or arrested for trespassing, and their winnings can be confiscated and given to organizations that help problem gamblers, said acting program director Gene O'Shea.
The program has enrolled 2,275 people. But Anderson said it does nothing to hold casinos responsible for addiction.
"That's simply one tool. That is not a cure-all or a fix-all," he said.
Studies show that the closer people live to a casino, the more likely they are to have gambling problems. John Welte, an addictions researcher at the University of Buffalo, conducted a survey that found people who live within 10 miles of a casino had twice the rate of problem gambling.
Some casinos appeal to residents who don't want to drive by offering transportation, free lunches and money to gamble, often targeting retirees.
"If it's easier for you to find a gambling venue, it's more likely for you to get in trouble," Welte said.
The statistics worry Cyndi Moriarity, president of the Illinois Council on Problem Gambling, who said the number of gambling addicts in Illinois has increased since casinos were authorized. She also treats a growing number of women who are addicted.
"It's, to me, the new, 'Calgon, take me away.' It's a place to escape and a place where they can just be left alone. Guys aren't going to hit on them. It's kind of like walking into a vacuum," she said.
If lawmakers authorize gambling expansion, Moriarity said more people will be exposed to casinos. But she said an expansion package might include sorely needed funding for treatment and prevention programs.
"It's a mixed blessing in some ways," she said.
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