Gambling spurs social, legal woes

One thing is clear, Measom and Kalm agree: Someone who has become hooked on gambling needs psychiatric, social, behavioral and spiritual support to successfully stop, just as someone addicted to drugs or alcohol or nicotine needs that support. It is rare that doing it all oneself cures an addiction, Measom says.

"Sometimes they are church things, treatment programs, therapy. It doesn't matter as long as something is in place," he says. Family support is important, but it's most effective when relatives become involved in programs like Al-Anon and learn how to help, rather than trying to do their own thing.

Giving someone who is addicted to gambling a lot of money, perhaps to resolve their financial problems and telling them "you have to promise not to do this any more" is not the way to help, he says.

For people with a gambling addiction, someone who is more than a casual gamer, the act of betting provides a temporary relief. "You can say you're feeling depressed, want to feel better and trying to win provides that."

Stigma is a major barrier for gamblers who have gotten out of control and need help. "These things are pretty hush-hush," says Measom.

"The culture around here is that addiction is a moral illness, not a biological illness." That's different in some other places, such as the European approach to an alcohol addiction. "You could get the same kinds of intervention with gambling, but I can't think of anyone that's an intervention specialist" for gamblers, he says.

Gambling's costs

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission said in 1999 that while studies disagree on how many problem gamblers there are, "all seem to agree that pathological gamblers engage in destructive behaviors: They commit crimes, they run up large debts, they damage relationships with family and friends, and they kill themselves."

The National Opinion Research Center estimated in 1999 that "the annual average costs of job loss, unemployment benefits, welfare benefits, poor physical and mental health, and problem or pathological gambling treatment is approximately $1,200 per pathological gambler per year and approximately $715 per problem gambler per year."

It figured that amounted to $5 billion to $6 billion a year nationally. When those numbers are extrapolated using maximum estimates of problem gamblers in Utah, the costs in here would be about $75 million a year.

Those numbers should be considered minimums, according to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. It said the NORC study focused on "a small number of tangible consequences" and "did not attempt to estimate the financial costs of any gambling-related incidences of theft, embezzlement, suicide, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, and the non-legal costs of divorce."