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Gambling funds could be used to fight addictions
by Chris Green, Harris News Service, 5/26/2007

TOPEKA - Two percent may not be a lot but that small figure could produce a windfall that doubles state funding to fight addictions.In authorizing four state-owned destination casinos and slot machines at three racetracks earlier this year, state lawmakers dedicated that portion of new gaming profits for the prevention and treatment of gambling, alcohol and drug problems.... Read More

Issues of Problem Gambling Hits the Air
"Addicted to Gambling" was broadcast, July 3, 2006, on Kansas Public Radio, by reporter Bryan Thompson. This broadcast is part of their "Kansas Health: A
Prescription for Change," public affairs program.

To listen to an archive of the broadcast, click on the following link, then scroll down to the second story on the page. KPR Story

New Resources Available
The new Kansas Problem Gambling Helpline cards and brochures are in and ready for distribution to providers and businesses statewide. If you would like some, please email your request to ksgamblinghelp.com or call (800) 522-4700.

Please indicate the requested quantity and if you want cards, brochures or both. Also, indicate if you need a display holder for the brochures, if you already have a display holder or if you will just be mailing the brochures out with packets of other information. The helpline cards will come with a display holder.

Sponsored by the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, Addiction and Prevention Services and the Kansas Coalition on Problem Gambling

National Problem Gambling Awareness Week (NPGAW) – www.npgaw.org
NPGAW is the only national grassroots public awareness effort that focuses on problem gambling. The goal of the campaign is to educate the general public and health care professionals about the warning signs of problem gambling and raise awareness about the help that is available both locally and nationally.

Lifetime Casino Ban Scrutinized
Missouri may alter self-exclusion program for problem gamblers.
By RICK ALM Fri, Aug. 18, 2006
The Kansas City Star

Troubled gamblers who banned themselves for life from Missouri’s casinos may get a reprieve.

The Missouri Gaming Commission next week is expected to consider changes in the state’s pioneering self-exclusion program that would add short-term banning options.
Melissa Stephens, the commission’s problem-gambling program administrator, disclosed the possible policy change Thursday at a three-day regional conference on problem gambling in Kansas City. Details of the proposed policy changes are not yet public, she said.
The annual Midwest Conference on Problem Gambling and Substance Abuse closes today and attracted more than 200 counseling and treatment professionals from a four-state region who heard more than three dozen speakers discuss the latest trends, practices and research in the rapidly growing field.

Keith Spare, a Kansas City counselor and executive director of the Missouri Council on Problem Gambling Concerns Inc., said he was wary of changes in Missouri’s self-banning program.

“ There are concerns whether this is advisable,” Spare said in a break at the conference. “I don’t see anything that improves the safety net” for gamblers.
Spare argues that state resources are better used to fund more outreach programs for troubled gamblers and develop sophisticated outpatient and residential treatment programs to supplement the state’s less-intensive free counseling programs.

Since the program was launched a decade ago, more than 10,000 Missourians have agreed to ban themselves for life from the state’s 11 riverboat casinos.
At the time, compulsive gambling was considered a lifetime affliction, like alcoholism. But more recent research suggests recovery is possible and that there is no one-size-fits-all treatment.

In his remarks Thursday conference keynote speaker H. Westley Clark, a top director in the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, pointed to new research that showed around one in three problem gamblers may experience either natural or counseling-assisted recovery, with about half of them reporting being problem free for as long as five years.

But Clark also warned his audience of counselors that “you’re not just dealing with pathological gambling.”

He outlined other new studies that tie gambling problems to other public health issues at alarming rates. For instance, 73 percent of troubled gamblers also have alcohol abuse disorders. More than 40 percent suffer mood or anxiety disorders and 38 percent abuse drugs, he said.

“ Income is not an issue,” added Clark, who explained that pathological gamblers were found in roughly even proportions at every income level and together represent around one-half of 1 percent of the total population.

Clark said other emerging research points to certain demographic subgroups as potentially more susceptible to gambling problems, including widowed and divorced persons, those with less than a high school education, the upper middle-aged, blacks and Asians.

Many conference attendees were heartened by news of legislation recently introduced in Congress that calls for $70 million in funding over five years for problem gambling research and treatment grants to states and social service organizations. Clark noted that various forms of gambling are legal in 48 states but only 22 states provide funding for treatment programs.

Duane Olberding, a Topeka counselor and president-elect of the Kansas Coalition on Problem Gambling, said federal aid could make all the difference in Kansas, which collects around $66 million a year in legalized gambling taxes, but earmarks no money for treatment and just $80,000 a year to the coalition for its problem gambling programs. Among other things, Olberding said an infusion of federal dollars could finance critically needed prevention programs in schools.
He said youngsters nationwide were gambling at sharply increased rates in large part because of the popularity of televised poker tournaments.
School administrators seem oblivious to the phenomenon, said Olberding, while there is no funding to provide the state’s educational community with training materials.

“ There’s very little being done” to reach out to school-age gamblers, said Olberding, while gambling rapidly is becoming “normalized” as a social activity.

“ The message we’re sending kids is very troubling,” added coalition member Jean Holthaus, of Topeka-based Prevention and Recovery Services.
She has a collection of gambling-related games and toys purchased in Kansas.

“They’re marketing to kids 6 and up,” Holthaus said, with products that range from child-sized poker tables to slot machine lookalike games in kiddie arcades.” “It’s pretty disturbing,” said Holthaus. “We call it ‘gamblers in training.’”

For more information about the conference and Missouri assistance programs for gamblers: www.888betsoff.org . In Kansas: www.ksproblemgambling.org
To reach Rick Alm, call (816) 234-4785 or send e-mail to ralm@kcstar.com.