Size of 'vulnerable population' has professor who did study concerned

One woman embezzled $300,000 to feed her gambling habit.

A retired teacher hid her addiction from her husband as she pushed thousands of dollars worth of quarters into slot machines.

And two Tucson grandmothers smuggled a trunk load of pot in their car to finance their gambling.

Older gamblers, often faced with loneliness and the loss of spouses and friends, may be up to five times more likely to be sucked into gambling than the general population, according to one recent study.

"There's clearly a vulnerable population out there that's bigger than I would have guessed," said Dr. David Oslin, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, who led the study.

As with any addiction, compulsive gamblers do not suffer alone. Families must deal not only with the loss of financial security but also with the emotional devastation brought on by compulsive gambling in an older relative.

"It's very hard for family members to accept that their parent, especially their mother, has a gambling problem," said Paula Burns, education and prevention administrator at the state Office of Problem Gambling in Phoenix.

"Many (adult) children have sent money across country, only to have it all go into a machine."

Treatment can help compulsive gamblers. But in Tucson, few mental health providers have been trained in treating gambling addiction.

With casinos, lottery, Internet gambling, church bingo and neighborhood poker games, there is no shortage of gambling in Tucson. As gaming opportunities grow, so do the numbers of compulsive gamblers, young and old.

Every day, buses roll up to the doors of casinos, and bands of retirees head for the slot machines. Some are on oxygen. Others rely on a walker or wheelchair.
For most, a trip to the casino is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon away from the retirement center. But for some, gambling is an addiction as hard to beat as heroin.

And while little has been documented, those working in the field say the problem can be especially devastating to retirees, who cannot recoup their financial losses.

"I think it's an epidemic," said Marilyn Lancelot, a 75-year-old recovering gambling addict who helps other Arizonans as a volunteer with the Arizona Council on Compulsive Gambling. "It doesn't matter if you are from Park Avenue or living on a park bench. Anybody can get addicted. Who ever thought the little old lady in the corner could be a compulsive gambler?"


Picture of addiction 

An elderly woman sits at a dollar slot machine, blood running from her nose.
With an oxygen tank and a walker, she is surrounded by casino staff, who encourage her to take a break. She refuses, holding tissues to her nose.

Moments later, she is playing the machine again. Blood covers her pink gingham shirt as she breaths with the help of oxygen, puffing on a cigarette.
This picture of addiction was spotted firsthand last year at the Desert Diamond Casino, southwest of Tucson.

"There are retirees who are losing everything to gambling," said Daniel H. Altman, a certified compulsive gambling counselor at La Frontera Center in Tucson. "Some are using their government assistance, retirement checks, funds they started for their grandchildren to go to college. They are losing it all."

Little research has been done on compulsive gambling among the elderly. But one recent study found that people over 65 may be at greater risk.

Researcher Oslin found that 11 percent of the 870 seniors in his study were at risk for becoming problem gamblers - a number he thought would be closer to 2 percent, more in line with the general population.

Oslin, who said far more research is needed, undertook the study hoping to debunk what he thought were rumors. "There were stories floating around that people were taking their Social Security checks and gambling them away instead of using the money for food and living expenses," Oslin said in a telephone interview.

"I was a naysayer in terms of whether this was a problem," he continued. "I thought we were going to put some of these issues to rest."

But the study convinced him older men and women seem to be at greater risk, and strategies are needed to identify and help them.

Gambling can momentarily soothe emotional and physical pain that can come with growing old, according to local experts.

"Seniors face loss in abundance. The loss of friends, the loss of employment, the loss of a spouse, the loss of mobility, the loss of health," said Burns, of the Office of Problem Gambling.

"Some find that when they sit in front of a slot machine, all the pain and sadness and loneliness goes away," she said. "It's like the best drug they ever took. But when the gambling stops, it all comes crashing down on them."

That's apparently what happened to two 68-year-old Tucson women in 1997.
Jacqueline Homa and Gloria Slopec received national headlines after they were caught driving a trunk load of marijuana. They had been approached at a casino with an offer of cash for the delivery.

"Loneliness was a big part of why they went to the casinos," said Jeffrey Marks, one of the lawyers in the case.

Neither of the women had so much as a traffic ticket on her record.
"Here were these sweet little grandmas charged with a felony," Marks said. The two received probation and were ordered to undergo gambling treatment.
Local casino executives say they do not want the business of compulsive gamblers and are funding treatment.

Treena L. Parvello, director of marketing and public relations for the Tohono O'odham Gaming Enterprise, which operates the two Desert Diamond casinos, said, "Our main focus is providing entertainment. We want people to have fun. From the beginning, we felt we wanted to be a responsible business."

Dovar Flores, director of strategic operations for Casino del Sol and Casino of the Sun, operated by the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, agreed.

"We don't want anyone throwing away their life savings," Flores said. "We don't want anyone breaking laws to get money to go gambling. We want to get help to the people who need it and want it."

Free treatment available 

In Tucson, free treatment for compulsive gamblers is found at La Frontera Center.

"More and more, the people we see coming in seem to be older," said Eric P. Schimmel, certified compulsive gambling counselor at La Frontera. "They are people who have had full, complete lives."

Gamblers seeking help are most often older women who are widows or retired and are addicted to slot machines, Schimmel said.

"Often, a woman's purpose has been to be a mother and wife, and her kids are gone, and her husband is dead, and she no longer knows what to do with herself," he said.

Addiction is devastating, Schimmel said. "One woman blew $80,000 in three weeks in the casinos. They are living on Social Security, and they have to go back to work because they've got to eat."

Schimmel said older addicts are often "really straight people who never so much as smoked a cigarette. They are horrified and shocked to find themselves out of control."

And then there are the "scratch ticket junkies," Altman said, who buy 50 to 100 lottery tickets at a time, three or four times a day.

Addicts gamble until the last nickel is spent, Altman said. And when the money is gone?

"One in 5 will seriously consider suicide," he said. "I think some older folks end up living on hot dogs and ramen."

Losses incurred by senior gambling addicts can be impossible to recoup, said Don Hulen, the 67-year-old executive director of the Arizona Council on Compulsive Gambling. "If someone loses everything at 35, they have half their life or more to get it back. If you lose it all at 65, it's very hard to recoup."

"Carlene," a 63-year-old retired Tucson grandmother, said she believed a big jackpot was waiting for her during her 18-month obsession with the slots.
"It is a disease," said Carlene, who asked that her real name not be used. While the Tucson Citizen has a policy of not using unnamed sources whenever possible, editors decided to use her story to more fully explain addiction.

"I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I'm very health conscious," she said. "But when I walk into a casino, it grabs me. You put in that first quarter and it's like eating a peanut. You can't stop."

"I don't blame casinos," she said. "I think it's a genetic predisposition. For me, it's going to be there forever. That's what's so sad."

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