Blog

A BRAIN ADDICTION ! AND Parkinson's Drugs and Restless Leg Syndrome Drugs Triggering Gambling Addiction.

A BRAIN ADDICTION  !  AND Parkinson’s Drugs and Restless Leg Syndrome Drugs Triggering Gambling Addiction. 
BY ARNIE WEXLER CCGC
Parkinson’s Drugs and Restless Leg Syndrome Drugs Triggering Gambling Addiction.

Some years back i got a call from a man seeking help for gambling addiction.
He said i am on a pill for Parkinson disease and became a compulsive gambler.
I thought what bull this is. Then i started to get lots of calls ,e mail,and have seen in person people with the same story.
Right now i am working to help a man with a gambling addiction who never gambled before taking the pill for his Parkinson problem and in the last 2 years has lost over $200,000.
Patients with Parkinson’s disease are about five times more likely to become problem or pathological gamblers than others, concludes a new Canadian study that offers some of the most dramatic evidence to date of the unusual link.
In a paper just published in the Journal of Gambling Studies, they urge that all Parkinson’s patients now be screened for possible gambling problems, and monitored through the course of their treatment.
Scientists theorize that the problem is caused by drugs that counter the shortage of dopamine in Parkinson’s patients’ brains, the main cause of their symptoms. As well as managing movement and balance, the chemical influences the pleasure and reward centres of the brain, perhaps encouraging such compulsive behaviour as gambling.
A popular medication used to control tremors associated with Parkinson’s Disease and Restless Leg Syndrome has caused people to get addicted to gambling addiction.
Dopamine agonist works by mimicking the effects of this neurotransmitter. Parkinson’s Disease occurs because of a lack of dopamine in certain areas of the brain. Dopamine helps people control their movements and increases feelings of happiness and satisfaction.
Dopamine agonists are powerful drugs, and can drastically alter brain chemistry. For example, dopamine is known to produce a “rush” in the brain of people who are anticipating a reward or excitement. Many experts believe that such a biochemical reaction is behind the reports of compulsive behavior linked to these drugs.
THIS MIGHT BE GOOD FOR RESEARCHERS TO LOOK AT TO GET SOME UNDERSTADING OF THE GAMBLING ADDICTION.
ARNIE WEXLER CCGC
WWW.ASWEXLER.CO
ASWEXLER@AOL.COM
HELPLINE FOR GAMBERS    888 LAST BET
HOME 561 2490922 CELL 954 501 5270
Arnie Wexler
Arnie & Sheila Wexler Associates
Lake Worth, FL
BRAIN ADDICTION— COMPULSIVE GAMBLING ?Gambling affects brain, research finds

What is Compulsive Gambling?

BY ARNIE WEXLER CCGC
Compulsive gambling is a progressive disease, much like an addiction to alcohol or drugs. In many cases, the gambling addiction is hidden until the gambler becomes unable to function without gambling, and he or she begins to exclude all other activities from their lives. Inability to stop gambling often results in financial devastation, broken homes, employment problems, criminal acts and suicide attempts.
The gambler is eventually able to remove themselves from reality to the point of being totally obsessed with gambling. Eventually, they will do anything to get the money with which to stay in “action”. They will spend all their time and energy developing schemes in order to get the money to continue gambling. Lying becomes a way of life for the gambler.
They will try to convince others and themselves that their lies are actually truths and they will believe there own lies.
After they hit a real bottom they will have to do something if they want to try to recover. Most gamblers at that point will want to stop but can’t (they wont be able to).
Most even at that point will keep gambling some will end up in jail some will attempt suicide some will die from their addiction as they will not take care of their health or the stress will kill them.
And a small group of addicted gamblers will seek and find real help but the real trick is to get in to real recovery. Not just abstinence. By the time the gambler comes for help they have broken brains (Meaning their brains don’t work like they used to when they were not in there addiction).
To get real recovery the gambler needs to work on them self’s one day at a time and get someone to do there thinking for them who has been in recovery some time and has there brains are working right (a sponsor) After some time in recovery there brains will start to work again. They will become productive on there job and become a good father and husband. Recover is a process and does not happen with out a lot of work on your self . and making a moral and financial inventory. But people can recover and do.—————
Nine gambling myths
From Arnie and Sheila Wexler, who present workshops and seminars on compulsive
gambling addiction and run a national hotline for problem gamblers: 888-LAST BET:
1. The big win is just around the corner with the next bet I make.
2. I can get even again, then I will stop gambling.
3. I am not like drug addicts or alcoholics.
4. I can stop anytime I want. I just don’t want to stop.
5. I am too young to be a gambling addict.
6. If I had more money I know I could win.
7. I am smarter than the rest of the gamblers.
8. The losses are not my fault right now because I’m having bad luck.
9. I know I can beat this game.
THIS IS FROM A LADIE WHO NOW IS IN RECOVERY
I have to tell you , in 2005, it was one night I had a very strong impulse. I didn?t know what was going on with me, I knew nothing about impulses. All I knew at that time it was ? I don?t want to gamble anymore. It is killing me. So that night I had chain myself to calorifere (Heater) with little handcuffs I have spited out the window little keys and for the whole night I was sweating (perspired), crying and I was by myself. I was in pain. I think it was the worst night in my life. As I see it now, I had one impulse after another that night. I couldn?t go to the bathroom so you can imagine what?In the morning I called on mobile my neighbour ? she went down (as I live on the second floor) and she found the keys and released me.———–
============
MY FRIEND WHO WENT BACK TO GAMBLING AFTER YEARS IN RECOVERY
I lost all of my savings, 3 houses I owned, and my Cadillac. In spite of this,I’m a little surprised that you continue to try to get me to stop, because I really feel that if all of the above hasn’t helped me to reach any bottom at all, that I never will.
Each time I start a little winning streak, I believe that this is the beginning of a continuing future of a successful gambling life Now I truly believe that I can make that happen.
==================
LONDON
Compulsive gambler is ‘cured’ by brain surgery
A compulsive gambler who lost thousands on fruit machines has undergone radical brain surgery to cure his addiction.
Raymond Mandale, 58, took the drastic decision after losing more than £10,000 at his local bingo hall in a single year.
During a six-hour operation which cost £30,000 surgeons fitted a “neuro stimulator” to Mr Mandale’s brain.
The battery-operated device is then used to send electrical pulses to “reset” the area that stimulates the desire to gamble.
The surgery, which was paid for by the NHS, is now Mr Mandale’s last hope of beating his addiction.
Normally used to treat patients with Parkinson’s Disease, new research has shown it can also benefit those with addictive personalities.
Mr Mandale, of Workington, Cumbria, claims it was side effects from drugs he was given to treat the effects of Parkinson’s that caused him to start gambling in the first place.
=======================================
Brain scans show that excessive gambling and drug addiction activate the same parts of the brain.
Gambling addiction may have something in common with certain brain impairments.
Both conditions can hinder decision-making and the ability to determine the consequences of actions, according to Franco Manes, MD, and colleagues. They say it’s possible that gambling addiction is associated with impairments in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, affecting the ability of gamblers to consider future consequences before taking action.
Newser) – After four years of work involving 80 experts, the American Society of Addiction Medicine is redefining addiction—to alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, and more—as a brain disorder, updating its former classification as a behavioral problem, reports Live Science. Addiction is also now considered a primary and chronic disorder, meaning it is not the result of stress, abuse, or other causes, and it needs to be treated over a patient’s lifetime, just as one would deal with a chronic disease like diabetes.
ASAM officials were swayed in part due to advancements in neuroscience over the last 20 years, which have shed light on the fact that the brain circuitry that regulates impulse control and judgment is altered in addicts’ brains. “We have to stop moralizing, blaming, controlling or smirking at the person with the disease of addiction,” said an addiction researcher. “The disease is about brains, not drugs.”
=========================
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun CANANDA
Published: Friday, February 29, 2008
The thrill of risk and the intermittent rewards experienced by gamblers appear to “hijack” the brain’s natural reward systems, according to University of B.C. researcher Catharine Winstanley.
“Gambling has a tendency to become very addictive in the same way that crack cocaine does,” said Winstanley.
Gambling can affect the areas of the brain associated with planning and forming strategies.
“In people that develop problems with gambling it seems that parts of that area don’t work as well as they used to,” she said. In adults, such experiences can change the way neurons in the brain fire and in drug addicts, research has found that those changes can be permanent.
=======================
PARKINSONS AND GAMBLING
From The Times
February 20, 2009
Gambling blows your mind
The inherently unpredictable nature of gambling makes it hard for our brains to recover from the dopamine high it generates
Jonah Lehrer
I am a sucker for financial bubbles. The first stock I bought was Cisco Systems, in early 2000. It was the height of the dot-com bubble and Cisco was about to become the most valuable company in the world. Naturally my investment crashed too.
I’d like to say that I learnt from my dot-com disaster, but I didn’t. In late 2006 I began investing in blue-chip financial stocks, such as Citibank and Bank of America. At the time these companies were reporting record profits as they expanded into the sub-prime mortgage business. We all know how that turned out.
If there’s any consolation from my losses it’s that I wasn’t the only one. The current economic crisis is a by-product of collective failure, an example of terrible decision-making on a huge scale. Banks gave out loans to people who shouldn’t have taken them, consumers got used to spending money they didn’t have, regulators failed to regulate, and investors, appeased by ephemeral profits, failed to ask hard questions.
In retrospect we can see the profound foolishness of this behaviour. Yet it’s worth remembering that this is not the first time that the markets have gone haywire. The history of finance is largely a history of financial bubbles, from the tulip mania of 17th-century Holland to the South Sea Bubble of 18th-century England. Do we never learn? And, if not, why not?
The answer to these questions returns us to the human brain, in particular a single neurotransmitter in the brain – dopamine – that seems to play a crucial role in shaping the behaviour of investors. While dopamine is an essential ingredient of cognition – it helps us to process and predict rewards, from a bite of chocolate cake to stock market profits – this neurotransmitter system can also be led astray, with often devastating consequences.
Ann Klinestiver was a high school English teacher in a small town in West Virginia when she was found to have Parkinson’s disease. She was only 52, but the symptoms were unmistakable. “I lost control of my body,” she says. “I’d look at my arm and I’d tell it what to do but it just wouldn’t listen.”
Parkinson’s is caused by the death of dopamine neurons in a part of the brain that controls bodily movements. Klinestiver’s neurologist put her on a dopamine agonist, a class of drug that imitates the activity of dopamine in the brain. “At first, the drug was like a miracle,” she says. “All my movement problems just disappeared.” Over time, however, higher doses of the drug were required to quieten her tremors.
That’s when she discovered slot machines. It was an unlikely discovery. “I’d never been interested in gambling,” Klinestiver says. But after she started taking the medication she found the machines at her local dog-racing track completely irresistible. She would start gambling as soon as the track opened, at 7 in the morning, and would keep playing the machines until 3.30 the next morning, when the security guards kicked her out. “Then I would go back home and gamble on the internet until I could get back to the real machines,” she says. “I was able to keep that up for two or three days at a time.”
After a year of addictive gambling she had lost more than $250,000 (£176,000). She had exhausted her retirement savings and emptied her pension. “I knew I was destroying my life but I just couldn’t stop,” she says. In 2006, Klinestiver was finally taken off her dopamine agonist. Her movement problems came back but the gambling compulsion disappeared. And she isn’t the only one. Medical studies suggest that as many as 13 per cent of patients taking dopamine agonists develop severe gambling compulsions. People with no history of gambling suddenly become addicts. While most of these people will obsess over slot machines, others will become hooked on internet poker or blackjack. They will squander everything they have on bets that are stacked against them.
At first glance, slot-machine addiction seems to have nothing to do with financial bubbles. I was buying Citibank stock, not sinking quarters into a one-armed bandit. And yet, Klinestiver’s tragedy also reveals a serious flaw in the dopamine system. It’s a flaw that is constantly being exploited, from the casino floor to the stock market, and it’s ultimately rooted in the way that our brain cells make sense of the world.
Wolfram Schultz, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, has exposed how the dopamine system works at a molecular level. His experiments follow a simple protocol: he plays a loud tone, waits for a second or two and then squirts a few drops of apple juice into the mouth of a monkey. While the experiment is unfolding, Schultz monitors the electrical activity inside individual cells. At first the dopamine neurons fire only when the juice is delivered; the cells are responding to the actual reward. However, once the animal learns that the tone precedes the arrival of juice, the same neurons begin firing at the sound of the tone
instead of the reward. Schultz calls these cells “prediction neurons” since they are more concerned with predicting rewards than receiving them. Once this pattern is memorised, the monkey’s dopamine neurons become exquisitely sensitive to variations on it. If the cellular predictions are correct, and the reward arrives right on time, then the primates experience a brief surge of dopamine, the pleasure of being right
Games of chance prey on this neural system. Think, for instance, about how a slot machine works. You put in a coin and pull the lever. Eventually, the machine settles on its verdict. Since slot machines are programmed to return only about 90 per cent of wagered money, the chances are you lost money. Now think about the slot machine from the perspective of your dopamine neurons. The purpose of these cells is to predict future events. While you are playing the slots, inserting quarter after quarter, your neurons are struggling to decipher the patterns inside the machine.
But here’s the catch: while dopamine neurons get excited by predictable rewards – they increase their firing when the juice arrives after the loud tone – they get even more excited by surprising ones. The purpose of this dopamine surge is to make the brain pay attention to new, and potentially important, stimuli.
Most of the time the brain will eventually get over its confused delight. We will figure out which events predict the reward, and our dopamine neurons will stop releasing so much neurotransmitter. The danger of slot machines, however, is that they are inherently unpredictable. Because they use random number generators, there are no patterns to uncover.
At this point, our dopamine neurons should simply surrender: the slot machine is a waste of mental energy. But this isn’t what happens. Instead of getting bored by the haphazard payouts, our dopamine neurons become obsessed. When we pull the lever and get a reward, we experience a rush of pleasure precisely because the reward is so unexpected – the clanging coins are like a surprising squirt of juice. The end result is that we are transfixed by the slot machine, riveted by the fickle nature of its payouts.
For patients with Parkinson’s who are on dopamine agonists, the surprising rewards of the casino trigger a huge release of chemical bliss. Their surviving dopamine neurons are so full of dopamine that the neurotransmitter spills over and pools in the empty spaces between cells. Such patients are so blinded by the pleasures of winning that they slowly lose everything. That’s what happened to Klinestiver.
The lesson of slot machines is that our brain is not good at dealing with randomness, which leads us to search for patterns where there is only accidental chance. Look, for instance, at the the stock market. Economists refer to the stock market as a “random walk” since the past movement of any particular stock cannot be used to predict its future movement. In this sense, Wall Street is like a slot machine.
The danger of the financial markets, however, is that their erratic fluctuations often look predictable, at least in the short term. Our dopamine neurons are determined to solve the flux – but most of the time there is nothing to solve. Read Montague, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine who studies the dopamine pathway, recently demonstrated how an urestrained dopamine system can lead, over time, to dangerous stock-market bubbles. The experiment went like this: subjects were given $100 and some basic information about the “current” state of the stock market. Then they chose how much of their money to invest. After making up their minds the players nervously watched as their stock investments either rose or fell in value. The game continued for 20 rounds, and the subjects got to keep their earnings. One interesting twist was that, instead of using random simulations of the stock market, Montague relied on distillations of data from famous historical markets, such as the Dow of 1929, Nikkei of 1986 and the Nasdaq of 1998. This let the scientists monitor the neural responses of investors during real-life bubbles and crashes.
How did the brain deal with the fluctuations of Wall Street? The scientists immediately discovered a strong neural signal, emanating from dopamine-rich areas of the brain, that seemed to be driving many of the investment decisions. Take, for example, this situation. A player has decided to wager 10 per cent of his total portfolio in the market, which is a rather small bet. Then, he watches as the market rises dramatically in value. Here’s where the experiment gets interesting: because our dopamine neurons are obsessed with predicting rewards they start making predictions about what will happen next. Since the market has just gone up, these cells assume that it will continue to go up, which led the investors to perpetually increase their investments. The end result was an escalating feedback loop of dopamine as the brain made reward predictions – the market will continue to rise – and then watched as those predictions came true.
Montague argues that these dopamine neurons are also a main cause of financial bubbles. When the market keeps going up, people are naturally led to make larger investments in the boom. (This is precisely what happened to me when I bought shares in Cisco and Citibank.) Their greedy brains are convinced that they have solved the stock market, and they forget about the possibility of a loss. But then, just when investors are most convinced that the bubble isn’t a bubble, the bubble bursts. At this point investors race to dump any assets that are declining in value as their neurons realise they have made some expensive prediction errors. That’s when you get a financial panic.
The lesson, and it’s a lesson that I’ve learnt the hard way, is that it’s silly to try to beat the market with our brains. Dopamine neurons weren’t designed to deal with the oscillations of Wall Street. When we spend lots of money on investment management fees, or sink our savings into some hot hedge fund, or buy shares in companies because everybody else is buying them, we are slavishly following our primitive reward circuits, just like a gambler losing a fortune in a casino. That’s why a randomly selected stock portfolio will, over the long run, beat the expensive experts with their fancy computer models. Or why the vast majority of mutual funds in any given year will underperform the S&P 500.
Because the market is a random walk with an upward slope, investors who do nothing to their stock portfolio – they don’t buy or sell a single stock – outperform the average “active” investor by nearly 10 per cent. Wall Street has always searched for the secret algorithm of financial success, but the secret is that there is no secret. The world is more random than we can imagine. That’s what our brain is unable to understand.
Jonah Lehrer is a science writer and the author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist. His new book, The Decisive Moment: How the Brain Makes Up Its Mind, is published by Canongate.
——————————————
Arnie Wexler ccgc
HELP LINE 888 LAST BET
561 249 0922 CELL 954 5015270
ASWEXLER@AOL.COM
WWW.ASWEXLER.COM

A BRAIN ADDICTION ! AND Parkinson’s Drugs and Restless Leg Syndrome Drugs Triggering Gambling Addiction.

A BRAIN ADDICTION  !  AND Parkinson’s Drugs and Restless Leg Syndrome Drugs Triggering Gambling Addiction. 
BY ARNIE WEXLER CCGC
Parkinson’s Drugs and Restless Leg Syndrome Drugs Triggering Gambling Addiction.

Some years back i got a call from a man seeking help for gambling addiction.

He said i am on a pill for Parkinson disease and became a compulsive gambler.

I thought what bull this is. Then i started to get lots of calls ,e mail,and have seen in person people with the same story.

Right now i am working to help a man with a gambling addiction who never gambled before taking the pill for his Parkinson problem and in the last 2 years has lost over $200,000.

Patients with Parkinson’s disease are about five times more likely to become problem or pathological gamblers than others, concludes a new Canadian study that offers some of the most dramatic evidence to date of the unusual link.

In a paper just published in the Journal of Gambling Studies, they urge that all Parkinson’s patients now be screened for possible gambling problems, and monitored through the course of their treatment.

Scientists theorize that the problem is caused by drugs that counter the shortage of dopamine in Parkinson’s patients’ brains, the main cause of their symptoms. As well as managing movement and balance, the chemical influences the pleasure and reward centres of the brain, perhaps encouraging such compulsive behaviour as gambling.

A popular medication used to control tremors associated with Parkinson’s Disease and Restless Leg Syndrome has caused people to get addicted to gambling addiction.

Dopamine agonist works by mimicking the effects of this neurotransmitter. Parkinson’s Disease occurs because of a lack of dopamine in certain areas of the brain. Dopamine helps people control their movements and increases feelings of happiness and satisfaction.

Dopamine agonists are powerful drugs, and can drastically alter brain chemistry. For example, dopamine is known to produce a “rush” in the brain of people who are anticipating a reward or excitement. Many experts believe that such a biochemical reaction is behind the reports of compulsive behavior linked to these drugs.

THIS MIGHT BE GOOD FOR RESEARCHERS TO LOOK AT TO GET SOME UNDERSTADING OF THE GAMBLING ADDICTION.

ARNIE WEXLER CCGC

WWW.ASWEXLER.CO

ASWEXLER@AOL.COM

HELPLINE FOR GAMBERS    888 LAST BET

HOME 561 2490922 CELL 954 501 5270

Arnie Wexler
Arnie & Sheila Wexler Associates
Lake Worth, FL
BRAIN ADDICTION— COMPULSIVE GAMBLING ?Gambling affects brain, research finds

What is Compulsive Gambling?

BY ARNIE WEXLER CCGC
Compulsive gambling is a progressive disease, much like an addiction to alcohol or drugs. In many cases, the gambling addiction is hidden until the gambler becomes unable to function without gambling, and he or she begins to exclude all other activities from their lives. Inability to stop gambling often results in financial devastation, broken homes, employment problems, criminal acts and suicide attempts.
The gambler is eventually able to remove themselves from reality to the point of being totally obsessed with gambling. Eventually, they will do anything to get the money with which to stay in “action”. They will spend all their time and energy developing schemes in order to get the money to continue gambling. Lying becomes a way of life for the gambler.
They will try to convince others and themselves that their lies are actually truths and they will believe there own lies.
After they hit a real bottom they will have to do something if they want to try to recover. Most gamblers at that point will want to stop but can’t (they wont be able to).
Most even at that point will keep gambling some will end up in jail some will attempt suicide some will die from their addiction as they will not take care of their health or the stress will kill them.
And a small group of addicted gamblers will seek and find real help but the real trick is to get in to real recovery. Not just abstinence. By the time the gambler comes for help they have broken brains (Meaning their brains don’t work like they used to when they were not in there addiction).
To get real recovery the gambler needs to work on them self’s one day at a time and get someone to do there thinking for them who has been in recovery some time and has there brains are working right (a sponsor) After some time in recovery there brains will start to work again. They will become productive on there job and become a good father and husband. Recover is a process and does not happen with out a lot of work on your self . and making a moral and financial inventory. But people can recover and do.—————
Nine gambling myths
From Arnie and Sheila Wexler, who present workshops and seminars on compulsive
gambling addiction and run a national hotline for problem gamblers: 888-LAST BET:
1. The big win is just around the corner with the next bet I make.
2. I can get even again, then I will stop gambling.
3. I am not like drug addicts or alcoholics.
4. I can stop anytime I want. I just don’t want to stop.
5. I am too young to be a gambling addict.
6. If I had more money I know I could win.
7. I am smarter than the rest of the gamblers.
8. The losses are not my fault right now because I’m having bad luck.
9. I know I can beat this game.

THIS IS FROM A LADIE WHO NOW IS IN RECOVERY
I have to tell you , in 2005, it was one night I had a very strong impulse. I didn?t know what was going on with me, I knew nothing about impulses. All I knew at that time it was ? I don?t want to gamble anymore. It is killing me. So that night I had chain myself to calorifere (Heater) with little handcuffs I have spited out the window little keys and for the whole night I was sweating (perspired), crying and I was by myself. I was in pain. I think it was the worst night in my life. As I see it now, I had one impulse after another that night. I couldn?t go to the bathroom so you can imagine what?In the morning I called on mobile my neighbour ? she went down (as I live on the second floor) and she found the keys and released me.———–
============
MY FRIEND WHO WENT BACK TO GAMBLING AFTER YEARS IN RECOVERY
I lost all of my savings, 3 houses I owned, and my Cadillac. In spite of this,I’m a little surprised that you continue to try to get me to stop, because I really feel that if all of the above hasn’t helped me to reach any bottom at all, that I never will.
Each time I start a little winning streak, I believe that this is the beginning of a continuing future of a successful gambling life Now I truly believe that I can make that happen.
==================
LONDON
Compulsive gambler is ‘cured’ by brain surgery
A compulsive gambler who lost thousands on fruit machines has undergone radical brain surgery to cure his addiction.
Raymond Mandale, 58, took the drastic decision after losing more than £10,000 at his local bingo hall in a single year.
During a six-hour operation which cost £30,000 surgeons fitted a “neuro stimulator” to Mr Mandale’s brain.
The battery-operated device is then used to send electrical pulses to “reset” the area that stimulates the desire to gamble.
The surgery, which was paid for by the NHS, is now Mr Mandale’s last hope of beating his addiction.
Normally used to treat patients with Parkinson’s Disease, new research has shown it can also benefit those with addictive personalities.
Mr Mandale, of Workington, Cumbria, claims it was side effects from drugs he was given to treat the effects of Parkinson’s that caused him to start gambling in the first place.
=======================================
Brain scans show that excessive gambling and drug addiction activate the same parts of the brain.
Gambling addiction may have something in common with certain brain impairments.
Both conditions can hinder decision-making and the ability to determine the consequences of actions, according to Franco Manes, MD, and colleagues. They say it’s possible that gambling addiction is associated with impairments in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, affecting the ability of gamblers to consider future consequences before taking action.
Newser) – After four years of work involving 80 experts, the American Society of Addiction Medicine is redefining addiction—to alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, and more—as a brain disorder, updating its former classification as a behavioral problem, reports Live Science. Addiction is also now considered a primary and chronic disorder, meaning it is not the result of stress, abuse, or other causes, and it needs to be treated over a patient’s lifetime, just as one would deal with a chronic disease like diabetes.
ASAM officials were swayed in part due to advancements in neuroscience over the last 20 years, which have shed light on the fact that the brain circuitry that regulates impulse control and judgment is altered in addicts’ brains. “We have to stop moralizing, blaming, controlling or smirking at the person with the disease of addiction,” said an addiction researcher. “The disease is about brains, not drugs.”
=========================
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun CANANDA
Published: Friday, February 29, 2008
The thrill of risk and the intermittent rewards experienced by gamblers appear to “hijack” the brain’s natural reward systems, according to University of B.C. researcher Catharine Winstanley.
“Gambling has a tendency to become very addictive in the same way that crack cocaine does,” said Winstanley.
Gambling can affect the areas of the brain associated with planning and forming strategies.
“In people that develop problems with gambling it seems that parts of that area don’t work as well as they used to,” she said. In adults, such experiences can change the way neurons in the brain fire and in drug addicts, research has found that those changes can be permanent.
=======================
PARKINSONS AND GAMBLING
From The Times
February 20, 2009
Gambling blows your mind
The inherently unpredictable nature of gambling makes it hard for our brains to recover from the dopamine high it generates
Jonah Lehrer
I am a sucker for financial bubbles. The first stock I bought was Cisco Systems, in early 2000. It was the height of the dot-com bubble and Cisco was about to become the most valuable company in the world. Naturally my investment crashed too.
I’d like to say that I learnt from my dot-com disaster, but I didn’t. In late 2006 I began investing in blue-chip financial stocks, such as Citibank and Bank of America. At the time these companies were reporting record profits as they expanded into the sub-prime mortgage business. We all know how that turned out.
If there’s any consolation from my losses it’s that I wasn’t the only one. The current economic crisis is a by-product of collective failure, an example of terrible decision-making on a huge scale. Banks gave out loans to people who shouldn’t have taken them, consumers got used to spending money they didn’t have, regulators failed to regulate, and investors, appeased by ephemeral profits, failed to ask hard questions.
In retrospect we can see the profound foolishness of this behaviour. Yet it’s worth remembering that this is not the first time that the markets have gone haywire. The history of finance is largely a history of financial bubbles, from the tulip mania of 17th-century Holland to the South Sea Bubble of 18th-century England. Do we never learn? And, if not, why not?
The answer to these questions returns us to the human brain, in particular a single neurotransmitter in the brain – dopamine – that seems to play a crucial role in shaping the behaviour of investors. While dopamine is an essential ingredient of cognition – it helps us to process and predict rewards, from a bite of chocolate cake to stock market profits – this neurotransmitter system can also be led astray, with often devastating consequences.
Ann Klinestiver was a high school English teacher in a small town in West Virginia when she was found to have Parkinson’s disease. She was only 52, but the symptoms were unmistakable. “I lost control of my body,” she says. “I’d look at my arm and I’d tell it what to do but it just wouldn’t listen.”
Parkinson’s is caused by the death of dopamine neurons in a part of the brain that controls bodily movements. Klinestiver’s neurologist put her on a dopamine agonist, a class of drug that imitates the activity of dopamine in the brain. “At first, the drug was like a miracle,” she says. “All my movement problems just disappeared.” Over time, however, higher doses of the drug were required to quieten her tremors.
That’s when she discovered slot machines. It was an unlikely discovery. “I’d never been interested in gambling,” Klinestiver says. But after she started taking the medication she found the machines at her local dog-racing track completely irresistible. She would start gambling as soon as the track opened, at 7 in the morning, and would keep playing the machines until 3.30 the next morning, when the security guards kicked her out. “Then I would go back home and gamble on the internet until I could get back to the real machines,” she says. “I was able to keep that up for two or three days at a time.”
After a year of addictive gambling she had lost more than $250,000 (£176,000). She had exhausted her retirement savings and emptied her pension. “I knew I was destroying my life but I just couldn’t stop,” she says. In 2006, Klinestiver was finally taken off her dopamine agonist. Her movement problems came back but the gambling compulsion disappeared. And she isn’t the only one. Medical studies suggest that as many as 13 per cent of patients taking dopamine agonists develop severe gambling compulsions. People with no history of gambling suddenly become addicts. While most of these people will obsess over slot machines, others will become hooked on internet poker or blackjack. They will squander everything they have on bets that are stacked against them.
At first glance, slot-machine addiction seems to have nothing to do with financial bubbles. I was buying Citibank stock, not sinking quarters into a one-armed bandit. And yet, Klinestiver’s tragedy also reveals a serious flaw in the dopamine system. It’s a flaw that is constantly being exploited, from the casino floor to the stock market, and it’s ultimately rooted in the way that our brain cells make sense of the world.
Wolfram Schultz, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, has exposed how the dopamine system works at a molecular level. His experiments follow a simple protocol: he plays a loud tone, waits for a second or two and then squirts a few drops of apple juice into the mouth of a monkey. While the experiment is unfolding, Schultz monitors the electrical activity inside individual cells. At first the dopamine neurons fire only when the juice is delivered; the cells are responding to the actual reward. However, once the animal learns that the tone precedes the arrival of juice, the same neurons begin firing at the sound of the tone
instead of the reward. Schultz calls these cells “prediction neurons” since they are more concerned with predicting rewards than receiving them. Once this pattern is memorised, the monkey’s dopamine neurons become exquisitely sensitive to variations on it. If the cellular predictions are correct, and the reward arrives right on time, then the primates experience a brief surge of dopamine, the pleasure of being right
Games of chance prey on this neural system. Think, for instance, about how a slot machine works. You put in a coin and pull the lever. Eventually, the machine settles on its verdict. Since slot machines are programmed to return only about 90 per cent of wagered money, the chances are you lost money. Now think about the slot machine from the perspective of your dopamine neurons. The purpose of these cells is to predict future events. While you are playing the slots, inserting quarter after quarter, your neurons are struggling to decipher the patterns inside the machine.
But here’s the catch: while dopamine neurons get excited by predictable rewards – they increase their firing when the juice arrives after the loud tone – they get even more excited by surprising ones. The purpose of this dopamine surge is to make the brain pay attention to new, and potentially important, stimuli.
Most of the time the brain will eventually get over its confused delight. We will figure out which events predict the reward, and our dopamine neurons will stop releasing so much neurotransmitter. The danger of slot machines, however, is that they are inherently unpredictable. Because they use random number generators, there are no patterns to uncover.
At this point, our dopamine neurons should simply surrender: the slot machine is a waste of mental energy. But this isn’t what happens. Instead of getting bored by the haphazard payouts, our dopamine neurons become obsessed. When we pull the lever and get a reward, we experience a rush of pleasure precisely because the reward is so unexpected – the clanging coins are like a surprising squirt of juice. The end result is that we are transfixed by the slot machine, riveted by the fickle nature of its payouts.
For patients with Parkinson’s who are on dopamine agonists, the surprising rewards of the casino trigger a huge release of chemical bliss. Their surviving dopamine neurons are so full of dopamine that the neurotransmitter spills over and pools in the empty spaces between cells. Such patients are so blinded by the pleasures of winning that they slowly lose everything. That’s what happened to Klinestiver.
The lesson of slot machines is that our brain is not good at dealing with randomness, which leads us to search for patterns where there is only accidental chance. Look, for instance, at the the stock market. Economists refer to the stock market as a “random walk” since the past movement of any particular stock cannot be used to predict its future movement. In this sense, Wall Street is like a slot machine.
The danger of the financial markets, however, is that their erratic fluctuations often look predictable, at least in the short term. Our dopamine neurons are determined to solve the flux – but most of the time there is nothing to solve. Read Montague, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine who studies the dopamine pathway, recently demonstrated how an urestrained dopamine system can lead, over time, to dangerous stock-market bubbles. The experiment went like this: subjects were given $100 and some basic information about the “current” state of the stock market. Then they chose how much of their money to invest. After making up their minds the players nervously watched as their stock investments either rose or fell in value. The game continued for 20 rounds, and the subjects got to keep their earnings. One interesting twist was that, instead of using random simulations of the stock market, Montague relied on distillations of data from famous historical markets, such as the Dow of 1929, Nikkei of 1986 and the Nasdaq of 1998. This let the scientists monitor the neural responses of investors during real-life bubbles and crashes.
How did the brain deal with the fluctuations of Wall Street? The scientists immediately discovered a strong neural signal, emanating from dopamine-rich areas of the brain, that seemed to be driving many of the investment decisions. Take, for example, this situation. A player has decided to wager 10 per cent of his total portfolio in the market, which is a rather small bet. Then, he watches as the market rises dramatically in value. Here’s where the experiment gets interesting: because our dopamine neurons are obsessed with predicting rewards they start making predictions about what will happen next. Since the market has just gone up, these cells assume that it will continue to go up, which led the investors to perpetually increase their investments. The end result was an escalating feedback loop of dopamine as the brain made reward predictions – the market will continue to rise – and then watched as those predictions came true.
Montague argues that these dopamine neurons are also a main cause of financial bubbles. When the market keeps going up, people are naturally led to make larger investments in the boom. (This is precisely what happened to me when I bought shares in Cisco and Citibank.) Their greedy brains are convinced that they have solved the stock market, and they forget about the possibility of a loss. But then, just when investors are most convinced that the bubble isn’t a bubble, the bubble bursts. At this point investors race to dump any assets that are declining in value as their neurons realise they have made some expensive prediction errors. That’s when you get a financial panic.
The lesson, and it’s a lesson that I’ve learnt the hard way, is that it’s silly to try to beat the market with our brains. Dopamine neurons weren’t designed to deal with the oscillations of Wall Street. When we spend lots of money on investment management fees, or sink our savings into some hot hedge fund, or buy shares in companies because everybody else is buying them, we are slavishly following our primitive reward circuits, just like a gambler losing a fortune in a casino. That’s why a randomly selected stock portfolio will, over the long run, beat the expensive experts with their fancy computer models. Or why the vast majority of mutual funds in any given year will underperform the S&P 500.
Because the market is a random walk with an upward slope, investors who do nothing to their stock portfolio – they don’t buy or sell a single stock – outperform the average “active” investor by nearly 10 per cent. Wall Street has always searched for the secret algorithm of financial success, but the secret is that there is no secret. The world is more random than we can imagine. That’s what our brain is unable to understand.
Jonah Lehrer is a science writer and the author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist. His new book, The Decisive Moment: How the Brain Makes Up Its Mind, is published by Canongate.
——————————————
Arnie Wexler ccgc
HELP LINE 888 LAST BET
561 249 0922 CELL 954 5015270
ASWEXLER@AOL.COM
WWW.ASWEXLER.COM

New Jersey will OK real-money skill gambling FARMVILLE AND CANDY CRUSH !

 The earlier a person starts gambling the greater the risk they will become an addicted gambler.

New Jersey will OK real-money skill gambling
Those free games people download and play on their phones could be the next big thing in gambling.    New Jersey casino regulators say they are ready to approve gambling on social games that involve an element of skill. 

The state Division of Gaming Enforcement says it is seeking game developers’ proposals to conduct real-money gambling on skill-based games, which would make New Jersey a nationwide laboratory for a betting phenomenon many have predicted will become the next big thing.

And because of its vast potential reach, some are worried that the addictive nature of the games and their easy availability on smartphones and tablets could cause some people to get in way over their heads when the money is real. But New Jersey sees it as another way to help its struggling casino industry.

“More and more we’ve been watching the social gaming arena and hearing about the opportunities it presents,” said David Rebuck, director of New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement. “We thought, ‘Wait a minute: why aren’t these companies coming to us?’ We are ready, willing and able, under existing law, to deal with this. This is not theoretical anymore; this is real.”

Gary Loveman, CEO of Caesars Entertainment, has long lamented that people spend millions of dollars on games like Farmville — where they buy equipment for a virtual farm — with none of that money going to his company.

“Millennials typically find traditional slot machines boring because there’s little or no skill involved; they’d much rather play games were there’s an element of skill and the opportunity to socialize or compete with friends while doing so,” said Caesars spokesman Gary Thompson. “It’s clear skill-based games are going to be a big part of the industry’s future.”

By Arnie Wexler ccgc

The earlier a person starts gambling the greater the risk they will become an addicted gambler.

Can your child become an addicted gambler?

Based on the results of 14 studies of people with gambling problems, “young people suffer from disordered gambling at about two to three times the rates of adults.”.
A Canadian survey of 1,471 college students found that nearly 27 percent of the pathological Gamblers among them didn’t just fantasize about killing themselves, but had actually attempted suicide.
Arnie Wexler, gambling treatment specialist:” We run this gambling hotline ( 888 LAST BET ) and in the last five years, one third of all the calls coming in are coming in are from poker players between the ages of 12 and 30, young kids or parents of these kids. I see these kids all the time who don’t want to go to college. They want to be a professional poker player.”


The following are some other personal stories I have heard from high school college students:

* Paying someone else to take exams or write papers so as not to interfere with time needed to gamble.

* Betting on games they were playing in.

*Gambling under age in legal gambling establishments.

*Shaving points in High School while being looked at by Division I colleges.

* Robbing a convenience store and a bank for money with which to gamble.

* Using fake credit cards, bouncing checks and creating phony checking accounts to get money for gambling.

*Selling drugs and their bodies to pay gambling debts.

*Stealing objects and money from other students, or from college property.

*Selling or pawning property that belonged to the college they were attending.

*Running bookmaking rings, football pools or card games in college(in order to pay off gambling debts).

*Using tuition money for gambling.

*Using financial aid or other loans for gambling.

*Conning their parents to send additional money, which was used for gambling.

*Robbing 8 Banks, to support a gambling addiction.

*Stealing cars, items or money from employers for gambling.

*Selling personal property for money to gamble with.

One case , in particular, has had a lasting impression on me. This young man played college football, and even appeared in a Bowl game. He was also a track star for his college. His gambling started with a $5 football pool card and progressed to the point of embezzlement of $350,000 from his employer.

These questions were prepared by:

Arnie and Sheila Wexler Associates.

GAMBLING PROBLEM CALL 888-LAST BET

Www.aswexler.com

YOUTH QUESTIONS

These questions may help you consider whether or not you have a gambling problem.

1. Do you find yourself gambling more frequently than you used to?

2. Has anyone ever suggested that you have a problem with gambling?

3. Did you ever gamble more than you intended to? (time or money).

4. Do you have a fantasy that gambling is going to make you rich?

5. Do you believe you have superior knowledge when you place a bet?

6. Do you lose time from school due to gambling?

7. Do you have intense interest in point spreads or odds?

8. Do you make frequent calls to sports phones or lotteries?

9. Have you ever bet with a bookmaker or used credit cards to gamble?

10. Have your grades dropped because of gambling?

11. Have you ever done anything illegal to finance your gambling?

12. Is gambling language or references part of your vocabulary?

13. Do you prefer to socialize with friends who gamble?

14. Does anyone in your family have an addiction?

15. Have you ever borrowed money to finance gambling?

16. Has anyone ever paid your gambling debts for you?

17. Does gambling give you a “rush or high ”?

18. Do you find yourself craving another gambling experience?

19. Do you find yourself “chasing: your losses?

20. Have you ever tried to stop or control your gambling?

21. Have you lied about your gambling to family and/or friends?

22. Are you spending more time on the internet?

23. Are you playing poker on the internet?

ARNIE WEXLER CCGC.

954 5015270     561 2490922

HELP 4 GAMBLING PROBLEM CALL 888 LAST BET.

aswexler@aol.com.

Gambling with America’s Health?

Gambling with America’s Health?

The public health costs of legal gambling

By Elaine Meyer

Published September  2014

Publicly, Scott Stevens, a chief operating officer of a company in Steubenville, Ohio, was a well-regarded member of his community. A married father of three, he was active in his local Catholic church, involved with high school sports teams, and helped develop parks in the area. Privately, Stevens was addicted to gambling. First exposed to slot machines at a trade show in Las Vegas in 2007, Stevens became a regular slot player at the Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack, & Resort, about 30 minutes away in Chester, West Virginia. By 2010, he had embezzled $7 million from his employer to gamble, and when they found out, he lost his job. Stevens continued to gamble secretly for the next 10 months, going to Mountaineer nearly every day, drawing money from his family’s savings, his 401(k), and his children’s college fund.

On August 13, 2012, that money ran out. In a suicide note to his wife, he wrote: “I know you don’t believe it, but I love you so much. I have hurt you so much. Our family only has a chance if I’m not around to bring us down any further.” That evening, Stevens asked his 13-year-old daughter to bring him his hunting bag from the attic. He drove to a local park he had helped develop and called 9-1-1. When the sheriffs arrived, he shot himself.

“This is one of the biggest public health issues in America today that no one has been paying attention to.”

“If it can happen to a guy as smart as he was, then it can happen to anybody,” said Indianapolis attorney Terry Noffsinger in a talk last November at Harvard Law School. Noffsinger, with other attorneys, is representing Stevens’ widow Stacy in a lawsuit filed last month against Mountaineer Casino, its parent company MTR Gaming Group, and slot machine maker International Game Technology, alleging they are liable for her husband’s suicide. The suit accuses both the casino and the slot designer of using predatory and deceptive tactics to profit from people with gambling problems, like Scott Stevens.

“Mountaineer Casino knew, or should have known, that the condition of disordered gambling, especially slot machine addiction, is associated with severe adverse health and other consequences for individuals and their families. Not only are gambling addicts like Scott Stevens liable to literally gamble away everything they own and end up in crippling debt, but also to become suicidal at far higher rates than the general population and even the population of persons addicted to substances such as illegal drugs and alcohol,” the suit states.

 

Although the suit’s success is not assured—the few other cases in this area have not succeeded—it is part of a growing movement of activists, academics, lawyers, and former gambling addicts who are trying to spotlight the health, economic, and social costs of legal gambling. This group believes the gambling industry preys upon vulnerable people, including low-income individuals, youth, and problem gamblers and that gambling availability is linked to larger societal problems like crime and economic inequality.

For its part, the gambling industry points to a record of funding research into gambling addiction and trying to educate the public about problem gambling. They maintain that they offer a fun activity that most people can do without serious consequences. The opening of new gambling venues shows no signs of slowing down, despite the planned closing of four casinos in Atlantic City and financial problems for casinos in other states. Last fall, New Yorkers approved the building of up to seven casinos. Many other states are in various stages of building casinos. Some in the gambling industry are trying to legalize online gambling, which is currently allowed in only three states, Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware.

A debate over the social and health costs of legal gambling has largely been sidelined even as availability has expanded dramatically in the last 25 years. This is not because of a lack of merit, say experts and activists, but because of the political power of the gambling industry. They allege that the industry has employed tactics in the same spirit as those of tobacco companies, which for many years misled consumers about the addictive properties of cigarettes and advertised to young people and other vulnerable consumers.

According to Les Bernal, the national director of Stop Predatory Gambling, a Washington DC-based nonprofit, “This is one of the biggest public health issues in America today that no one has been paying attention to.”

A few experts predict that as stories of gambling addiction become more common, suits like that of Stacy Stevens will increase and could even succeed, as tobacco lawsuits did. “Ultimately gambling will be linked to the increase in social costs, gambling will be linked to the problems it creates, just like smoking was ultimately linked to cancer,” says Dr. Earl Grinols, a professor of economics at Baylor University. “It can take a while.”

Addictive Properties

In the world of gambling, the most addictive property is electronic video gambling machines, often slots, which bring in 70 to 85 percent of the revenue for casinos. In some states, electronic video terminals are even available in other venues, like restaurants and bars. The machines do not typically have warning labels or cut offs for heavy users. Casinos  aggressively market to frequent patrons, giving them complimentary flights, hotels, and other perks. Meanwhile, the success of state voluntary exclusion programs where problem gamblers sign up to ban themselves from casinos is unclear.

 

Today’s slots are not the old lever-operated “one-armed bandits” but video game-like terminals that keep users playing by deliberate design, according to Dr. Natasha Dow Schüll, an associate professor in the program in science, technology, and society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas. “The particular addictiveness of modern slots has to do with the solitary, continuous, rapid wagering they enable. It is possible to complete a game every three to four seconds, with no delay between one game and the next. Some machine gamblers become so caught up in the rhythm of play that it dampens their awareness of space, time and monetary value,” writes Dr. Schüll in a New York Times commentary.

“A lot of people think it’s a tax on the stupid,” recovering gambling addict Kitty Martz told the Oregonian. “Really, we’re behaving exactly the way the machines want us to.”

The idea that gambling lends itself to addiction like drugs or alcohol has taken some time to be acknowledged. Until the 2013 publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic Statistics Manual, or DSM-5, problem gambling was classified as an “impulse control disorder” in the same category as pyromania and kleptomania, even though most clinicians who treated problem gamblers recognized it as an addiction, says Dr. Silvia Martins, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

These gamblers exhibit many of the same problems as other addicts. “Everything you see with substance abuse you can make an analogy to gambling problems,” Dr. Martins says, citing family strife, financial hardship, and struggles with depression or anxiety.

 

“Give your dreams a chance”

To gamble legally 40 years ago, one had to travel to Nevada, go to a racetrack, or live in one of the handful of states that offered lotteries. In most towns, the closest one came to a betting game was playing charitable Bingo at church. Video slot machines had not yet come to market.

For most Americans today, a casino is just a car ride away. There are about 1,400 of them in 39 states, and 43 states sponsor lotteries with games that are recognizable even to non-gamblers, like Mega Millions, Powerball, Pick 10, and instant scratch off tickets. In advertising to citizens, states use slogans like, “Hey you never know,” “Give your dreams a chance,” and “Believe in something bigger.” Hawaii and Utah are the only states that offer no forms of legal gambling.

Gambling addiction is often considered a small cost, one brought upon by the individual unwise gambler.

Casinos represent a substantial part of the nation’s economy and enjoy support from members of both political parties. In 2012, the industry took in $37 billion in gross revenue, employed 332,075 people, paid $13 billion in wages, and contributed $8.6 billion in taxes, according to the American Gaming Association. Many casinos are not just places to play blackjack and slots but to eat or take in live music and comedy acts.

In this environment, gambling addiction is often considered a small cost, one brought upon by the individual unwise gambler. “They think that it’s an easy painless way to raise revenue but they don’t see the other side of it,”  says Arnie Wexler. Wexler quit gambling over 45 years ago after a nearly three-decade addiction and has since served as executive director of New Jersey’s Council on Compulsive Gambling. He also runs counseling services for compulsive gamblers with his wife, Sheila.

        PRESS TO WATCH THIS INTERVIEW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQOQe70CLPE

According to a conservative interpretation of the available research by the National Center for Problem Gambling, 1.1 percent or 3.4 million Americans have a pathological gambling disorder and 2 percent or 6.2 million engage in problem gambling, a less severe form of gambling addiction. (The term problem gambling is often used to refer to both problem and pathological gambling). Internationally, prevalence is as low as .5 percent of the population in Denmark and the Netherlands and as high as 7.6 percent in Hong Kong, according to a 2012 review for the province of Ontario. Though problem gamblers are a minority of visitors to casinos, their spending accounts for anywhere from 35 to 50 percent of the revenues, according to several studies summed up in a paper by the Institute for American Values, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on family and social issues.

Betting on Science

Neuroscientists have found commonalities between the brains of gambling and drug addicted people, like increased impulsivity and lower levels of activity in a region of the brain’s reward system, which leads people to seek bigger and potentially dangerous thrills. But it is not clear from this research when or how someone becomes addicted to gambling.

Compared to other nations, there has been relatively little epidemiologic research on rates of problem gambling in the U.S. The existing studies find that problem gambling increases with proximity to casinos. The federal government’s 1999 National Gambling Impact Study found that areas within 50 miles of a casino had twice as high a rate of problem gambling as those within 250 miles. The presence of a casino within 10 miles of a survey respondent’s home was positively related to problem or pathological gambling, according to a 2004 study by the University of Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictionspublished in the Journal of Gambling Studies.

 

“Basically what we’ve learned is that as with many other kinds of environmental exposures, there typically is an increase in the prevalence rate of problem gambling in the wake of major introductions of new forms of gambling, whether it’s lotteries back in the 1980s and 1990s or casinos in the 1990s and 2000s,” says Dr. Rachel Volberg, a research associate professor of University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a researcher for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. Dr. Volberg has found that rates of problem gambling began increasing during the most rapid expansion of gambling opportunities in North America and in Australia.

Yet she says problem gambling rates seem to level off after awhile. A study by the Research Institute on Addictions that has not been published yet found that rates of problem gambling did not continue to rise between 2010-2012 despite greater opportunity to gamble. Principal investigator Dr. John Welte, senior research scientist in psychology at the University of Buffalo, says it is not clear why, but he says it could be a result of the economic crisis.

“If I were the gambling industry, I would want to fund people who had the disease point-of-view…because [they are] putting the source of problem gambling between the ears of the gambler.”

The National Center for Responsible Gambling, or NCRG, is the charitable arm of the gambling industry’s trade association, called the American Gaming Association. NCRG cites a few studies that it says show problem gambling has not risen since the 1970s. After a casino moves in, problem gambling may become more widespread initially, but after a while, people “adapt”—they become more aware of the risks, seek treatment, or simply lose interest, says Christine Reilly, the senior research director of NCRG. This is called an “adaption effect.”

But prevalence studies do not tell the full story, says Dr. Stephen Q. Shafer, the chairman of the Coalition Against Gambling in New York. “One of the fallacies is that, let’s say you assume that your prevalence statistics are absolutely correct and you show that the prevalence of pathological gambling has not risen. It was, say, five years ago 1.1 percent. Last year it was 1.2 percent. What that forgets is that the prevalence is a pool out of which people move and into which people come, and looking at prevalence compared to time one and time two, you have to account for the people who have recovered, died, moved away.” For instance, a prevalence study conducted in 2008 would have counted Scott Stevens, but one in 2013 would not have.

For this reason, there need to be studies that use more rigorous epidemiologic methods, says Dr. Shafer, who is also a retired professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia’s College of Physicians & Surgeons and the Mailman School. He has pushed to get New York State to commission such a study, but the state’s health department, the legislature, and the gambling commission has shown no interest.

Individual Disease or Public Health Problem?

Funding for gambling addiction research in the U.S. is about one-twentieth of funding in Australia and Canada, where gambling availability has also risen significantly in the past several decades, according to Dr. Volberg. Within the National Institutes of Health, there is an institute for research on alcohol disorders and an institute for research on drug addiction, but no institute for general addiction. Investigators who study problem gambling typically have to propose to look at it in conjunction with drug or alcohol use in order to win grants.

Gambling availability has other public health ramifications beyond addiction. It may exacerbate economic inequality, which has a strong relationship to health.

The NCRG is the only private funder of gambling addiction research in the country. According to Reilly, they fund research by top scientists at universities like Caltech, Duke, and Stanford, which are published in peer-reviewed journals. “We are funding some of the best people in the country, people who will lead us and force the issue at a national level,” says Reilly.

The majority of the NCRG’s funding goes to research based on a “disease model”—which investigates what goes on in the brains of individuals addicted to gambling—rather than the public health model, which looks at how availability affects population rates of problem gambling and potential social costs.

Both the disease model and the public health model “have points of truth, and they’re not mutually exclusive,” says Dr. Welte. But he adds, “If I were the gambling industry, I would want to fund people who had the disease point-of-view…because [they are] putting the source of problem gambling between the ears of the gambler.”

According to Reilly, the disease model is more practical because it can lead to treatments and that it is less prone to the flaws of survey research. “To me it seems kind of silly to spend time and money on an issue that is extremely difficult to research, because you can’t count on people’s memory,” she says.

 

But it is not in the gambling industry’s interest to have good research conducted on the social and economic costs of casinos and other forms of gambling, says Dr. Grinols. He points out that the federal government’s 1999 National Gambling Impact Study Commission recommended a moratorium on further gambling expansion until more research could be done on the economic and social costs and benefits. “No research of the type and focus hoped for by the Commission has been forthcoming since. That’s because the gambling industry has done what it could to question these studies and has not itself funded such studies,” says Dr. Grinols. “The whole conclusion of the Commission has been ignored and in fact thwarted by the failure of money to be available for good research.” Dr. John Warren Kindt, a business administration professor at University of Illinois whose research looks at the social and economic costs of gambling, calls what NCRG funds “pabulum research designed not to hurt the gambling industry and to misdirect the debate.” In response to such criticisms, Reilly is adamant that the NCRG has a totally independent review board, which she says mimics the structure of the National Institute of Health and does not interfere in the work of its researchers.

As for self-reporting, there are ways to validate responses. Dr. Robert Williams, a professor of addiction counseling at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada, has compared what respondents report they spend on gambling to actual gambling revenue. He says the more reliable studies are those in which the total of the revenue reported by participants is closer to the total revenue made by the gaming industry. Dr. Williams points out that self-reporting may also underrepresent problem gamblers, who would be more likely to have their phone disconnected.

Growing the Economy or Exacerbating Inequality?

Gambling availability has other public health ramifications beyond addiction. It may exacerbate economic inequality, which has a strong relationship to health. It levies regressive taxes which take a larger share of income from lower than from upper income Americans. If taxes on gambling revenues substitute tax increases on income—which are progressive—the tax structure in a state becomes even more regressive. And those who spend money on certain forms of gambling are more likely to be low income.

There is “a strong positive relationship” between state lottery sales and the poverty rates, according to a 2007 study in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology by economists at Cornell University that looked at data over 10 years. The most typical lottery player is a black, male, high school dropout making less than $10,000 a year, according to a 1999 report to the National Gambling Impact Study commission. Problem gambling is significantly worse in economically disadvantaged areas according to two studies from 2013, one by Dr. Welte and his colleagues and another by Dr. Martins and her colleagues. And the presence of a casino is associated with rises in bankruptcy filings, according to a 2005 study from Creighton University.

 

While casinos may bring new jobs when they open, most are low-paying service work. The national median wage in the gambling industry is $10.76 per hour. While better than some service jobs, it is less than the $16.87 hourly median wage for all industries, according to 2013 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And rather than boosting a local economy, casinos often draw business away from other food and entertainment venues. Many casinos are losing patrons to newer competition in neighboring states, straining state budgets and threatening local economies.

When casinos lose money or fail, the repercussions are significant. Delaware is spending hundreds of millions to keep struggling casinos afloat. In Atlantic City, several casinos plan to close by the end of the month, including the Revel, a two-year-old, $2.4 billion casino, entertainment, and conference center that was supposed to buoy the city’s flagging economy. The closures leave thousands of jobless people in a city that already has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country at over 15 percent as of April 2014, a violent crime rate six times the rest of New Jersey, and 29 percent of its population in poverty—a 7 percent increase since 1974, two years before New Jersey voters legalized gambling.

Although these statistics do not prove that the city’s gambling economy caused its problems, they do call into question claims by politicians and developers that casinos are an engine for economic growth. Nevertheless, some New Jersey politicians and business leaders are now talking about opening a new casino—or four—at the Meadowland Sport Complex in Bergen County, New Jersey.

Tribal lands that have casinos have seen improvement in jobs and county-level mortality rates, according to a 2002 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Yet these communities still see more bankruptcy, violent crime, and auto thefts and larceny after a casino opens.

Legal gambling is also linked to social problems like rises in crime and risky behavior in youth. Counties where casinos have opened have seen rises in the number of rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies, and auto thefts, compared with counties without casinos, according to a study by economists Dr. Grinols and Dr. David B. Mustard, which looked at county FBI data from 1977 to 1996.

 

Because children are now growing up in an environment where gambling is so widely advertised and available, they could be especially vulnerable. Youth are at greater risk for problem gambling than adults, according to a 2007 study from Canada. Two percent or about 750,000 teens ages 14 to 21 described gambling with three or more negative consequences in a national survey by Dr. Welte and colleagues in 2008. Another 11 percent gambled twice or more per week, which is considered frequent. Teen boys who gamble are more likely to become fathers before age 20, especially those who problem gamble, according to a study by Dr. Martins. African-American teens who are problem gamblers are more likely to have sex and get arrested at a younger age than those who don’t gamble. Teens who had depressive symptoms early in adolescence are more likely to have gambling problems later in adolescence, according to another Martins study from 2011.

A Pervasive Gambling Culture

Former U.S. Representative Robert Steele has observed the casino economy at work in southeastern Connecticut, the district he represented from 1970-75, which in the early nineties became home to both Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun Casinos.

The casinos created a “pervasive gambling culture.” He adds: “the people in southeastern Connecticut were in no way ready for the casinos.”

“They became almost instant successes and the two biggest casinos in the world,” says Steele, who has written a novel, The Curse, which is inspired by the story of the two casinos and the tribes behind them. With Atlantic City as their only competition in the Northeast United States, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun drew about 60 percent of their customers from out of state and created 20,000 jobs.

But soon came problems no one seems to have anticipated. Drunk driving arrests in nearby Norwich more than doubled, and annual calls to the local police department went up fourfold, according to Steele. There was a sharp spike in the number of people who sought treatment for gambling addiction. The rate of embezzlement increased 400 percent, according to a report from the state. Steele’s own tax collector went to prison in 2001 for embezzling money from the town to gamble.

Much of the promised employment was in low-paying service jobs, sometimes part-time and often filled by non-English speaking workers who came from outside the area. This influx put pressure on local housing and social services. The local school system gained 400 children who collectively spoke 31 different primary languages, requiring them to create an “English for speakers of other languages” program. Teachers observed value changes in their students, says Steele. “[They] say, ‘we try to teach the kids the way to succeed in life is through hard work. Then the casino culture comes in and says, ‘you hit it big, you hit the lottery. You hit the payoff.’”

Today, revenue from Connecticut’s casinos is down 35 percent since its high point of 2007. Ultimately, says Steele, who used to have a property abutting Foxwoods, the casinos created a “pervasive gambling culture.” He adds: “the people in southeastern Connecticut were in no way ready for the casinos.”

Citizen Action

 

In Massachusetts, citizens are campaigning to repeal a deal that allows for MGM Resorts to build the Lago Resort and Casino in the economically depressed town of Springfield. “We see this as very much a perpetuation of income inequality, and the implications that income inequality have on public health —that people stay in poverty basically, stay under-compensated. It’s the transfer of wealth from people who don’t have money to people who have abundant resources,” says Steven Abdow, a senior staff member of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts. “This would be intentionally bring[ing] in a product that destroys lives.”

“When everybody knows everybody, a good portion of the people you know are going to be affected—even if not directly—through broken homes, bankruptcy, the whole gamut,” says Dawley.

Abdow is working on a campaign to oppose the building of an $800 million casino by MGM Resorts International. Once viewed as a way to revive the city’s dwindled fortunes, the casino’s fate is now in jeopardy. In June, a judge ruled in favor of ballot measure that would allow the citizens of Massachusetts to repeal a 2011 law that authorized casinos in the state.

Tyre, New York, is a town of less than 1,000 people 270 miles northwest of New York City. The town’s website boasts of a community that “strives to maintain its rural flavor,” welcoming visitors to stop by and visit the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge and the Erie Canal. Last December, residents learned that a Rochester-based real estate company called Wilmorite was bidding to open a casino on agricultural land, across from an Amish farm.

“I grew up my whole life in this area. A casino certainly is not what you anticipate showing up on your doorstep,” says Jim Dawley, a resident whose property borders the proposed spot.

Dawley and his wife, who own and run a small manufacturing company, and two friends formed an organization Casino Free Tyre to oppose Wilmorite’s plans. “When everybody knows everybody, a good portion of the people you know are going to be affected—even if not directly—through broken homes, bankruptcy, the whole gamut,” says Dawley.

 

Over 200 residents have signed a petition against the casino, but members of the town board are supportive of Wilmorite, which is promising multi-million dollar revenues. The Dawleys are not letting up, even though they are new to activism. “This is so far outside of my normal realm, it’s unbelievable. I have a little manufacturing business out in the woods. I’ve been involved in our church and things like that but as far as any political-rooted opposition, this is our first time.”

Following in the footsteps of cigarettes?

In the court case over the Massachusetts casino deal, an organization called the Public Health Advocacy Institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief that made a public health argument against the gambling industry. “Legalized casino gambling causes devastating effects on the public’s health, including not only the gambler but also their families, neighbors, communities and others with whom they interact,” the brief says. Electronic gambling machines “are designed to addict their customers in a way that is similar to how the tobacco industry formulates its cigarettes to be addictive by manipulating their nicotine levels and other ingredients.”

“Mirroring the tobacco industry’s strategy of creating scientific doubt where none truly exists, the casino industry has co-opted and corrupted scholarship on the effects of gambling through the use of front groups that funnel money to beholden scientists who are able to sanitize its origin,” the brief continues.

“The commercialization of a dangerous product that threatens both individual and public health has been called an ‘industrial epidemic,’” the brief continues, citing a 2007 paper published in the journal Addiction by Drs. René I. Jahiel and Thomas F. Babor. This is an epidemic “driven at least in part by corporations and their allies who promote a product that is also a disease agent.”

The brief argues that the citizens of Massachusetts have an interest in regulating gambling the way they have regulated cigarettes.

Given the power of the gambling industry and the dependence of states on gambling revenues, winning legal damages and regulating availability may presently seem like a pipe dream in the U.S. However, other countries employ harm reduction strategies in casinos to intervene on potential problem gambling, according to a 2011 report from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In Holland, computers identify anyone who visits a casino more than 15 times a month as having a gambling problem. In the United Kingdom, casinos have to display the odds of winning on slot machines. And in Australia, there are limits on playing speeds and betting amounts.

The underlying principle behind this is articulated by Dr. Williams: “If provincial governments are going to make gambling available to their citizens, then concerted efforts are needed to prevent problem gambling, to effectively treat gambling addiction, and to minimize the amount of gambling revenue that comes from problem gamblers.”

Little Help Available

People with gambling problems tend to elicit little sympathy. They are seen typically as exercising bad judgment when it is known that the “house always wins.” They have often hurt people they are closest to, both financially and emotionally.

“You don’t even have to be in action or sitting behind a machine because you’re constantly thinking about: When am I going to gamble? When am I going to win or lose? It just compounds.”

Former gambling addicts readily admit to their flaws. But, like most people, they typically started gambling because it was available, entertaining, and provided a potential if unlikely monetary reward. However, unlike most people who gamble, they became “hooked.” That’s how Catherine Townsend-Lyon speaks of her gambling addiction. She began playing video lottery terminals at delis and restaurants near her home in Grant Pass, Oregon, sometime after they were introduced in the 1990s. She became obsessed with a game called Flush Fever and soon began playing before and after work and during her lunch hour. She lied to her husband about her whereabouts and started secretly gambling their mortgage payments. She stole from the collection company she worked for and sometimes wore bladder control underwear so she wouldn’t have to get up to use the restroom while playing. When she lost money, she played to win it back, and when she won, she played to win more. In an extreme moment, she skipped the funeral of a close friend to drive 40 miles to an Indian casino so she could win enough money to prevent her home from being foreclosed. Instead, she lost everything. She drove home in tears and slit her wrists.

 

“It’s like a battle you have with yourself with the triggers and the urges and the obsessiveness. You don’t even have to be in action or sitting behind a machine because you’re constantly thinking about: When am I going to gamble? When am I going to win or lose? It just compounds. It’s exhausting. It’s never-ending,” says Townsend-Lyon, who, after seeking treatment several times, has managed to stay away from gambling for the last seven and-a-half years.

Townsend-Lyon says she turned to gambling at a difficult time in her life. With her husband frequently traveling for work, she found herself bored and looking for a way to fill the time. She had undiagnosed bipolar II disorder and had been sexually abused when she was younger but had not been raised to know to seek therapy. “I wasn’t a drug person or an alcoholic or anything like that, although I did drink more when I gambled. And because I was gambling, that was my coping skill. That’s what I was using to escape it, those feelings. I couldn’t stuff them away anymore. I would just use gambling to escape, not feel, zone out, you know what I mean?” she says.

She published a book last year about her former life, called Addicted to Dimes (Confessions of a Liar and a Cheat). What troubles her is how easy it is for people in her position to gamble. She didn’t have to fly to Nevada or even drive to a casino in state. The video poker and slot machines she played, which are sponsored by the Oregon State Lottery, are allowed at bars, restaurants, and delis.

“[I]f these machines weren’t in the bars and delis, then I would not be gambling. It’s that simple for me,” says a 33-year-old man quoted in a recent series on the state lottery by the Oregonian who estimates he has lost $15,000 over 12 years from gambling. “That may sound like an excuse, but ‘out of sight is out of mind.’”

 

For people who are trying to recover from gambling addiction, it can be difficult to find help. Calls per month to the National Problem Gambling hotline are over two-and-a-half times what they were 14 years ago, from 9,642 in 2000 to 24,475 in 2013, according to Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling. Yet funding for treatment centers, hotlines, and programs to prevent gambling addiction is minimal, says Dr. Martins. Funding for substance abuse treatment is about 281 times greater at $17 billion than public funding for problem gambling, at $60.6 million, although substance use disorders are only 3.6 times more common than gambling disorders, according to a 2013 survey by the Association of Problem Gambling Service Administrators and Problem Gambling Solutions. Just a little over half of the 50 U.S. states have someone whose full-time job is to administer problem gambling services, according to the same survey. By comparison, there are 113 lottery employees in Iowa and approximately 80 in Rhode Island. In several states legislators have cut gambling treatment funding or seen declines as a result of decreases in gambling revenue, which sometimes funds such programs, according to a Wall Street Journal report from 2011.

Gamblers’ Anonymous, a 12-step program modeled after Alcoholics’ Anonymous, is the most widely available and used treatment in the U.S. Members admit they are powerless over their gambling addiction and embark on changing their character through group meetings and the support of a “sponsor” or older mentor in the group. Little research exists on the efficacy of Gamblers’ Anonymous. A study from 1988 found that only 7.5 percent of members had abstained after one-year, and nearly a quarter of members did not go to a second meeting. However, those who regularly attend Gamblers’ Anonymous say they benefit significantly.

As with any kind of addiction, there is no pill for treating problem gambling. Medication and therapy may be used with varying success to treat a related psychiatric illness like depression or bipolar disorder. Moreover, a small number of problem gamblers seek treatment.

For these reasons, a public health approach, which would favor limiting the “exposure” of gambling to prevent addiction from occurring in the first place, is compelling. It is the same as the argument to tighten access to prescription opioids in order to prevent people from becoming hooked.

A Disease of Society?

At a Gamblers’ Anonymous meeting in New York in August, about 65 people, mostly men, are celebrating one member’s five-year anniversary of abstaining from gambling. He gets to choose the topic for the night, and he picks “starting over.” Other members stand up to say that adhering to the Gamblers’ Anonymous program has fundamentally changed them. They have gone from being selfish and unable to make mature decisions to being better spouses, parents, friends, and members of society. They talk about small triumphs, their families, jobs, illness, and making amends with the people they hurt and stole from during their addiction.

“People adapt to their dislocation by finding the best substitutes for a sustaining social and spiritual life that they can, and addiction serves this function all too well.”

“I think it was known to pretty much everyone in this room that I was an asshole. And I think I have become a decent member of society,” says a man in his early 30s who has been abstinent for 10 years.

Another man echoes this sentiment. “I was anything but a good citizen,” he says. He has been abstinent for over 22 years, but like many others in this room, attends meetings on the Gamblers Anonymous principle that former addicts are always in recovery. “It’s not just starting over, we still have to own our past. We have to settle up with people as best we can.” When his mom passed away, he says he was grateful that he could access his emotions—not something he could have done in his gambling days.

“I can say without a doubt, gambling has ruined my life,” says another member. He has gone to Gamblers’ Anonymous for eight years but has had relapses, and it has been 201 days since he last bet. “Abstinence is for real this time.”

Compulsive gambling is often viewed as an addiction to money, but Gamblers’ Anonymous believes it is an emotional rather than financial disease. The addicted person “wants to escape into the dream world of gambling” and “finds he or she is emotionally comfortable only when ‘in action.’” But it doesn’t end up being much comfort, say  formerly addicted gamblers who speak of how lonely their life was then.

Dr. Bruce K. Alexander, a psychologist and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, believes the loneliness experienced by those with gambling and other addictions has a strong social dimension. In his book, The Globalization of Addiction: A Study of the Poverty of the Spirit, he says: “A free-market society is magnificently productive, but it subjects people to irresistible pressures towards individualism and competition, tearing rich and poor alike from the close social and spiritual ties that normally constitute human life. People adapt to their dislocation by finding the best substitutes for a sustaining social and spiritual life that they can, and addiction serves this function all too well,” he says.

 

Bernal of Stop Predatory Gambling believes that our nation’s dependence on gambling reveals a deeper civic problem. “What we incentivize as a government shapes the national character,”  he says. “We look at the greatest generation, we encouraged people to buy savings bonds, in the Great Depression. After World War II, we had the highest savings rate in modern American history because the government encouraged Americans to save. Today, half of Americans don’t own any assets.”

Terry Noffsinger, the lawyer for Stacy Stevens, admits that it has not been easy to make the legal public health case against gambling. Neither of the two cases he has represented has won in court, and one even provoked the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to threaten to sanction him for filing a frivolous claim. But he says the tide is turning. He has a conference call with a group of lawyers across the country about once a month to discuss the issue. Last November a group of Harvard Law students published a white paper making the case for legal action “to protect problem gamblers from the predatory behavior of casinos, including legislative reforms, tort litigation, regulations and public policies.”

A couple of well-known trial attorneys have joined him on the Stevens suit, including Sharon Eubanks, who was lead counsel on the U.S. case that ended in a judgment in 2006 that the nation’s big tobacco companies fraudulently covered up the health risks of smoking and marketed to children. The Stevens case also makes product liability claims that the slot machines from which casinos draw so much revenue are intentionally designed, manufactured, and distributed to hurt people. Such claims have never been tried before.

“This is a blockbuster case. There are other cases that are starting to come out of the woodwork. The courts are ready to look more favorably upon addicted gamblers,” says Dr. Kindt of University of Illinois. Dr. Kindt publishedseveral academic articles in the early 2000s outlining the legal justification for mega-lawsuits against the gambling industry, similar to those which states, individuals, and classes of people filed against Big Tobacco.

In his Harvard talk, Noffsinger said he has had 100 or more people call him for help, many suicidal, nearly all of whom he has had to decline to represent. One of the calls came several years ago from a Boeing employee in Seattle who begged him for legal assistance. She had lost all of her money gambling, sold all of her furniture, and was ready to end it all. When Noffsinger told her he couldn’t represent her, she said she had nothing left to live for. Alarmed, he referred her to a lawyer friend in Seattle who found her counseling. About a year ago, she called Noffsinger and thanked him for saving her life.

“Somebody needs to do something…it may not be me.” Noffsinger told the Harvard students. “It’s going to be an uphill battle, but at the top there’s going to be a great big flag to wave.”

Edited by Barbara Aaron and Dana March


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 

 

 

           

New book
All Bets Are Off: Losers, Liars, and Recovery from Gambling Addiction   === OUT NOV 11TH 
Written by Steve Jacobson AND Arnie Wexler

Football is the most bet on sport in America.

Football is the most bet on sport in America.
  BY Arnie Wexler  CCGC
A Book maker once told me I love the N. F. L.
 “I have 200 gamblers who bet with me every day when the N. F.L games start i have over 800 gamblers bet with me its the best time of the year for me”
 I remember when Skip Bayless, then of the Dallas Morning News, had a gorilla in the Dallas Zoo make football picks for them,” Wexler says. “The gorilla’s picks were doing better than the sports writers”.
It is easier today to place a bet than it is to buy cigarettes or a can of beer.
According to the National Gambling Study Commission, there are 5 million compulsive gamblers and 15 million at risk in the U.S.
Wexler says. “In fact, an NCAA study a few years ago noted that there is a disturbing trend of gambling among athletes in college. Do you think that these people will get into the pros and then just stop gambling? ”
“Compulsive gamblers are very vulnerable during the N. F.L season because they are looking for the ‘lock bet,’ Wexler says. “The media hype juices the gambler and — as addictive gambling is an impulse disorder — many compulsive gamblers will be in action and even some in recovery will relapse”.
“With all the games and the media hype about odds and betting lines, there is an explosion of betting on these games,” Wexler continues. “I can’t believe that newspapers carry ads from these so-called handicappers, who are really ‘scandicappers.’ It’s also interesting to note how often the information is incorrect. ”
You would not expect to open your local newspaper and get a price list of illegal drugs for sale; But that’s just about what you can get today when you open your local newspaper to the sports pages all over the country. True, you don’t see drug prices but you do see lines and point spreads on sporting events. Illegal drugs can’t be bought, legally in any state. You can’t place a legal bet in America, except in Las Vegas.
There are ads in newspapers for 800 and 900 numbers that sell information to gamblers. Some of these ads read : “Get the game of the month free”, “We pick 75% winners”, “Last week we went 11 for 12″, and ” Get our lock of the week”.
I think the responsible thing to do would be for newspapers, radio and TV shows to carry a public service message. ” Like if you or someone you know has a gambling problem and want help call 888 LAST BET
Picture the following scenario: A young man uses the lines and odds from his local newspaper and uses it to set up a bookmaking operation in his college. A law officer comes in and arrests the bookmaker and players. The next day the headline in the paper says: ” John Doe Arrested For Bookmaking and Hank Smith Arrested For Illegally Betting”. Hypocrisy you say? The very newspaper that carried the lines, now is carrying this headline.   YOU BET IT IS .
Years ago i was on a TV show that Howard Cossell hosted (ABC Sports Beat). The topic was: Does the media encourage the public to gamble? Bobby Knight, Indiana basketball coach, said: “A newspaper who published point spreads should also publish names and addresses of services that render to prostitutes. They practically have the same legality in every one of our states, and I can’t see why one is any better than the other” On the same show former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn said: “Anything that encourages gambling on team sports bothers me. We all look hypocritical but than why are we putting up the odds unless we are trying to encourage it” David Stern, NBA commissioner said: “We don’t want the weeks’ grocery money to be bet on the outcome of a particular sporting event”
I would like to pose a few questions:
• Do point spreads in newspapers cause a proliferation of gambling?
• Do people see point spreads in the newspaper and think it is legal to place a bet?
• Does the media entice people to gamble?
• Does the media have any responsibility for the increase in numbers of compulsive gamblers in America?
• Does the media give the appearance that it promotes and condones gambling?
Get the real scoop — talk to Arnie Wexler who is one of the nations’ leading experts on the subject of compulsive gambling and a recovering compulsive gambler.
You can reach arnie at 561 249 0922 or his cell 954 501 5270
He has worked with college & professional athletes who had gambling addictions. And has spoken on many college campuses over the years.He has been involved in helping compulsive gamblers for the last 46 years. Arnie has spoken to students who gamble in college day and night. They even gamble during class, and it even goes on in high school lunch rooms. According to a Harvard study a few years ago, 4.67% of young people have a gambling problem.
Experts tell us that the earlier a person starts to gamble, the greater the risk of them becoming a compulsive gambler. In another survey, 96% of adult male recovering gamblers stated that they started gambling before the age of 14.
Data from National Hot lines show:
Forty eight percent of the people who gamble, bet on sports.
Arnie Wexler sais “I have spoken to more compulsive gamblers than anyone else in America over the last 46 years. “Some have spoken about embezzlements, white-collar crimes and destroying themselves and their families. Others were so desperate that they were contemplating suicide. ” “Over the years, I have also spoken to many college and professional athletes who had a gambling problem,”
Arnie Wexler is a recovering compulsive gambler who placed his last bet on April 10, 1968. Wexler has been fighting the injustice of how sports, society and the judicial system deal with compulsive gamblers for the last 46 years. He and his wife run a national help line: 1-888-LAST BET. If you want or need help, please call now.
Anyone who needs help for a gambling problem can call our 24 hour national help line
1-888-LAST BET
http://recoveringgambler.com/
aswexler@aol.com
561 249 0922
954 501 5270
ARNIE WEXLER CCGC

Arnie Wexler
Arnie & Sheila Wexler Associates
Lake Worth, FL
561-249-0922 954 501 5270

Arnie and Sheila Wexler have provided extensive training on Compulsive, Problem and Underage Gambling, to more than 40,000 gaming employees (personnel and executives) and have written Responsible Gaming Programs for major gaming companies. In addition, they have worked with Gaming Boards and Regulators, presented educational workshops nationally and internationally and have provided expert witness testimony. Sheila Wexler is the Executive Director of the Compulsive Gambling Foundation. They also run a national help line (888 LAST BET) and work at Recovery Road, a treatment facility in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida that specializes in the treatment of those suffering with gambling addiction

Gambling addiction rife in Japan: study

Gambling addiction rife in Japan: study

21:02 Thu Aug 21 2014

Nearly five per cent of Japanese adults are addicted to gambling, a rate up to five times that of most other nations, according to a study.

The study, released to local media on Wednesday, also showed rising adult addiction to the internet and alcohol in a society long known for its tolerance of boozing and its love of technology.

“If something new becomes available, addiction will only rise,” Susumu Higuchi, Japan’s leading expert on addiction, who headed the study, told local journalists, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

The survey, taken last year and sponsored by the health ministry, came as the Japanese government mulls controversial plans to legalise casino gambling in certain special zones, with some saying it would boost the number of foreign tourists.

Low public awareness of the perils of gambling addiction – despite a robust gaming industry – separates Japan from other industrialised nations that are relatively more willing to talk openly about the problem, said a campaigner who has worked on the subject.

Researchers estimated that roughly 5.36 million people in Japan – 4.8 per cent of the adult population – are likely pathological gamblers who cannot resist the impulse to wager, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The study said 8.7 per cent of men and 1.8 per cent of women fit the internationally-accepted definition of addicts, according to the Mainichi Shimbun.

The wide availability of pachinko parlours – loud, colourful salons that offer rows of pinball-like games – and other gambling establishments is believed to be contributing to the problem.

The ratio of compulsive gamblers in most nations “stands more or less around one per cent of the adult population. So Japan’s ratio is high,” a member of the study group told reporters, according to the Nikkei newspaper.

Gambling is everywhere in Japan, with pachinko halls dotted around train stations and along major roads, attracting many middle-age men, but also women and young people as well.

Betting on racing – horses, bicycles, motorbikes and speed boats – is also common, with horse racing featuring on weekend television.

“There is an absolute lack of preventive education for (gambling) addiction,” said Noriko Tanaka, head of campaign group Society Concerned about the Gambling Addiction.

Japan has allocated insufficient social resources to publicly discuss the problem, while more open efforts are made in the US and Europe, she said.

Open discussion of the matter is rare as Japanese people in general shy away from disclosing what can be regarded as family dishonour, Tanaka said.

“We are not calling for a ban on gambling and we recognise it has its own economic merits,” she said.

“But we must also discuss the negative economic and social impacts” of gambling, she said.

The study questioned 7000 Japanese adults nationwide, of whom 4153 gave valid answers.

Around 4.21 million adults are believed to show signs of internet addiction, the study found, a rate that had risen 50 per cent in five years, the Nikkei said.

Researchers blamed the spread of smartphones and the increasing quality of digital content for the rising number of IT addicts, who often prefer the internet over other essential activities such as sleeping, the Nikkei said.

More than a million people were believed to be addicted to alcohol, compared with an estimated 830,000 people a decade ago, the Mainichi said.

Pete Rose !! Here we go again should he be in the H.O.F.

                                    Pete Rose  !!  Here we go again should he be in the H.O.F.

                                                                                                    

Lake Worth ,                                     FL
                                    Tuesday, August 19, 2014

                                                                                                

Pete Rose  !!  Here we go again should he be in the H.O.F.
 Rob Manfred  will  be the new baseball commissioner
 Is it  time for baseball to forgive Pete Rose?
DOES PETE ROSE BELONG IN THE HALL OF FAME? 

BY ARNIE WEXLER CCGC
There are people in various sport’s halls of fame who are convicted drug addicts and alcoholics, yet compulsive gamblers are unable to get into these halls of fame. In fact, as far as professional sports goes an alcoholic and chemical dependent person can get multiple chances, whereas a gambler can not. I am a recovering compulsive gambler who placed my last bet on April, 10, 1968, and I have been fighting the injustice of how sports, society, and the judicial system deal with compulsive gamblers for the last 46+  years. Compulsive gambling is an addiction just like alcoholism and chemical dependency and all three diseases are recognized by the American Psychiatric Association’s D.S.M. Yet, we treat compulsive gambling different then the other two addictions. Society and professional sports treat people with chemical dependency and alcoholism as sick people, yet they look at compulsive gamblers as bad people. In my years of recovery I have met many compulsive gamblers who have found recovery and become some of society’s most productive people. I do not think that the discussion should be whether or not Pete Rose belongs in the hall of fame.
He does!
 But the ball is in his hands 
 If he gets into recovery for his gambling addiction !!
  THE MEIDA MIGHT VOTE HIM INTO THE H.O.F ?
I have been told by 2 h.o.f voters that they would not vote for him even if he did.
 I pray for Pete Rose to find recovery because I know what recovery can do for a person’s life who has an addiction. Some people will believe that Pete Rose doesn’t have an addiction, but I have a copy of a television interview where he says (on the Donahue show 11/8/89), “I didn’t seek help for my gambling problem till the middle of September and I know it’s something I can’t lick by myself. I need help”
Arnie Wexler  CCGC
Lake Worth Florida
561 249 0922 cell 954 501 5270
Need help for Gambling Addiction call me  888 LAST BET

                                

Arnie Wexler
Arnie & Sheila Wexler Associates
                                    Lake Worth, FL

                                                                                     

WHY ARE SOME CASINOS CLOSING ?

 

SOME CASINOS ARE CLOSING ?

SIGN OF THE TIMES ?

NOT ENOUGH GAMBLERS TO KEEP LOOSING THERE $ ??

 BY OPENING  IN TO  MANY STATES ??

 OR JUST GREED ?

 AND YET THEY ARE FIGHTING TO OPEN IN NEW STATES

 

Caesars Entertainment Corp. continued its efforts to address its gaming industry-high $23 billion in long-term debt Wednesday by installing separate management in one of the company’s operating entities with the intention for a public listing of the business.  ( GET MORE SUCKERS TO PUT UP $ )

=============================

Revel ATLANTIC CITY CASINO  will go up for sale in August at a bankruptcy auction

============================

JACKSON, Miss. — Caesars Entertainment Corp. plans to close Harrah’s Tunica casino on June 2, citing “declines in business levels in the area stemming from increased competition.”

============================

Pain of Atlantic City casino closings
In January, the Atlantic Club closed, taken down by two rivals in a bankruptcy court auction
The Showboat will close on Aug. 31
 and Trump Plaza on Sept. 16, ================================
 NEED HELP FOR GAMBLING PROBLEM    CALL 888 LAST BET
OR GO TO   WWW.ASWEXLER.COM

CALIFORNIA GAMING NEWS & COMMENTS

CALIFORNIA GAMING NEWS & COMMENTS
ROBERT A. GARCIA ATTORNEY AT LAW
In this Issue…click here for articles:
1.) Renowned Counselor on Problem Gambling
 Greetings!

Welcome to my Newsletter! 
The information provided in this publication is to help you stay on top of the latest gaming developments in California. The commentaries found at the end of each article are based on my 20 years as an attorney in the gaming field.
If you have any comments or questions, please contact me via email here. Or join others and make a comment directly under the article posted on my website by clicking here. 

null

 
Renowned Counselor on Problem Gambling Expresses Concern on Gaming Expansion
 
He’s been helping compulsive gamblers for more than 35 years. His appearances on national television and radio shows such as Larry King, and Oprah Winfrey, have raised the consciousness of the American public, and prodded the gaming industry to acknowledge the issue of problem gambling.
Arnie Wexler is a passionate fighter, Certified Compulsive Gambling Counselor, educator, a compulsive gambler in recovery, and currently the Executive Director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling with the state of New Jersey.
 
In a discussion with California Gaming News & Commentary he talked about the deep concern he has on gaming’s expansion, the internet, the illusion of professional gambling, and how they relate to compulsive and underage gambling.
 
More Casinos More Compulsive Gamblers
“What am I concerned about? It’s all about the over-saturation of gambling in this country” stated Wexler.  “It’s an explosion. All over America. They want to be all over the place. And because of this, more people are being addicted to gambling.  And because of this the casinos are-  in addition to creating more problem gamblers– they are shooting themselves in the foot. The casino industry is starting to go broke. Look at Mississippi, and New Jersey”.  There, several casinos have closed, or have sought bankruptcy protection.
“Before casinos opened in the state of New Jersey there were 15 state wide gambler anonymous meetings. Within 5 years after casinos arrived we had 51 meetings”… and the numbers climbed.
 
“This is the same thing you see in Iowa and Louisiana and other states.” And now “they want to expand into Massachusetts.”
 
As far as casinos helping local businesses- “…the casino buys products and services from outside people but they also put small businesses out of business, like food places and hotels.”
 
Some Casinos Show Callous Indifference
When asked what he’d like to see casinos do Wexler responded … “When they know someone has a gambling problem don’t extend them lines of credit. Don’t be sending them flyers or invites to gambling excursions, or offer them free flights to your sister casino in another state.”
 
“We train casino managers and floor people to spot the signs of problem gambling.” For example, persons seeking large amounts of credit, long sessions of gambling losses and other warning signs.
 
Wexler recounted a story of a man who was a problem gambler and had lost everything in his 401(k) fund, his kids’ bank account, and refinanced his home. He then filed for bankruptcy protection.
 
“He asked the casino to never to give him a line of credit. He told them he was a compulsive gambler.  But a few years later they gave him credit and he lost more than $200,000. And the casino continued to entice him with special promotions and casino discounts. Thankfully, the man finally is in recovery.”
And when a problem gambler has difficulties in paying their gambling debts, “…some casinos threaten to expose them [to public ridicule and embarrassment] by bringing lawsuits to collect their money. All while the casinos were extending lines of credit to this very same person whom they knew was a problem gambler.” This needs to stop.
 
Underage Gambling & the Internet
Internet gambling whether it be poker, or full fledge casino gambling, is slowly making its appearance in America. This form of gaming has been legal in Europe for sometime now. And many European youngsters, ages 14-17, have admitted winning and losing thousands of dollars on the Internet.
Arnie Wexler feels the same thing will happen here.
 
“The internet casinos won’t be able to control underage gambling. They say the can prevent underage gambling but they haven’t proven it anywhere in the world.”
 
“Kids today are so smart. I have helped a lot of underage internet poker players over the years.”
 
As an example- ” A 16 year-old impersonated his dad over the telephone and had a credit card sent to him. He logged on to a website and ran up a $60,000 debt.”
 
“An 18 year-old stole $300,000 from father’s vault and lost it playing internet sports and then owed the internet site over $25,00.00. The internet site was in Costa Rica.”
 
These youngsters wake up at 3:00 a.m. and can log on and play on these websites. “As opposed to driving to a casino where they look at you, ask for proper identification to make sure your of age.”
Self Exclusion Programs
A person who asks a casino not to allow them in their facility to gamble. Do such exclusion programs work?
“No –  they don’t work.”
 
The “Professional” Gambler
There’s an old saying many gamblers have- I don’t want to be a millionaire, I just want to live like one.
Maybe Arnie Wexler has found out why many gamblers live by that philosophy. Because according to him the goal of earning a living as a professional gambler is “Just an illusion.”
 
The “overwhelming number of gamblers are failures. They may win at poker but they lose it all on craps, sports betting, etc. The only person I know who is a successful gambler is Lem Banker”… of Las Vegas. Lem Banker has been a successful gambler since the 1950’s.
 
As to other gamblers Wexler says “Let’s see their income tax returns, let’s see their profit and loss statements. I know poker players who are broke and owe millions.”
 
“Let me give you an example. You have people out there claiming they can teach you how to win at blackjack. They can’t win at it, but they expect you to pay them money to do something they can’t do.”
 
Earning a living as a gambler for the overwhelming majority is “…just an illusion. They live in a dream. A false dream.”
 
The Regular Customer
For most people casino gaming is a form of entertainment. “They go to a casino with a set budget. Stay within it. Spend some time and then leave. No problem.” This is the way to view casino gaming. Go out and have some fun.
 

COMMENTARY
I met Arnie Wexler at a Gaming Conference in 1994 and remained in contact with him ever since. His own story as a compulsive gambler is unique in that he never gambled in a casino. Yet he lost thousands of dollars before he went into recovery.
He can be reached at 1 888-527-8238  –    888 LAST BET  or visit his website at
www.aswexler.com.