Problem gamblers get angry and agitated when they can’t gamble.
Money mysteriously disappears. Problem gamblers disappear too — for long periods. Their tolerance level for gambling goes up. They crave more and more time at the slots, the high-end video games, the poker room.
Sounds something like alcoholism or drug addiction, doesn’t it?
Experts in the field will tell you, compulsive gambling is a disease, just like alcohol or drug dependency.
So what happens when a gleaming new casino with more than 100,000 square feet of gaming space, 2,157 slot machines and 150 table games, opens in a community?
Resorts World Catskills will be open seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the Town of Thompson starting Feb. 8.
“These are dangerous times for at-risk people,” said James Maney, executive director of the New York Council on Problem Gambling.
There’s usually a spike in problem gambling when a new casino opens, Maney added.
Maney and other experts on compulsive gambling said people with a gambling problem will seek out gambling opportunities, whether they’re near a casino or not, but Maney said a new casino creates “availability and opportunity.”
Take it from a local member of Gamblers Anonymous, which offers a 12-step program to steer compulsive gamblers away from gambling.
“There’s more of a risk with a casino. The shows, the dinners and all the stuff they give you. It makes you feel like a big shot,” the Gamblers Anonymous member said. “It all feeds into the ego of a compulsive gambler.”
A hidden addiction
The National Council on Problem Gambling defines compulsive gambling as an increasing preoccupation with gambling, a need to bet more money more frequently, “chasing” losses, and loss of control manifested by continuation of the gambling behavior in spite of mounting, serious, negative consequences.
In extreme cases, the council said, problem gambling can result in financial ruin, legal problems, loss of career and family, or even suicide.
The council says between 4 million and 6 million people in the United States are considered problem gamblers, and 2 million are pathological gamblers. In comparison, the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health says about 15.1 million adults 18 and older have what the National Institutes of Health calls alcohol use disorder.
For decades, casino advocates in Sullivan County pushed for gambling as a way to revive the Catskills as an entertainment destination. During those same decades, opponents warned about the dangers of problem gambling.
Source: European Gaming News…
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