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bingo parlors and other locations.
"The study was done in an unidentified city in the Midwest,
where casino gambling and a state lottery had become available in
the last six years.
"A total of 315 people - a
relatively small sample size - returned the questionnaires. About
11 percent of those who gambled showed signs of being
pathological, or compulsive, gamblers, McNeilly said.
"For example, they gambled with increasing amounts of money
to achieve a desired level of excitement, returned to try to win
back their losses and borrowed money to gamble.
"'This is a pretty high percentage," he said. Only about
1 percent of the overall adult population is considered to have
such severe gambling problems, according to surveys compiled by
Harvard Medical School's Divison on Addictions.
"'The largest percentage said they went to relax, to pass the
day away, to pass time if they're bored, and the highest thing
that they endorsed was the meal - the inexpensive buffets,"
McNeilly said.
"Those themes rang true Monday at the President Casino on the
Admiral downtown.
"Mary, 65, of Lemay, takes a Bi-State bus to Laclede's
Landing anywhere from once a month to twice a week to board the
gambling boat.
"While sitting at a bar watching a soap opera, she pulled out
of her purse a sheet of coupons she gets in the mail every month
from the casino for free buffet meals and other perks. Mary, who
declined to give her last name, said she spends about three or
four hours on the boat, usually playing the dollar slots and
abiding by a $50 budget.
"Another regular - a 60-year-old man from Festus who wouldn't
give his name -said he and his wife take a free shuttle bus to the
casino once or twice a week.
"'We don't gamble that much," he said. "I like the
meals.'
"The man said he keeps his gambling to under $40 and spreads
it over a three-hour period. He gets discount coupons for the
buffet on the shuttle.
"'You can't afford to come up here and gamble too much,"
he said, sipping draft beer out of a plastic cup and looking down
from the second floor at people gathered around a roulette wheel.
"You have to know what you're
doing.'
"Arlene Miller, a certified gambling counselor in the St.
Louis area, said casinos provide an insulated, artificial
environment, with employees trained to know customers' names.
"'Where else are we so hospitable to the elderly?' asked
Miller, who attended the conference Monday.
"She also said it's the nature of older people not to seek
out help for problems and the same is true for problems related to
gambling. And older adults on a limited income might not be able
to recover from gambling losses and be inclined to gamble even
more, she said.
"Scott Damiani is the executive director of the Outreach
Foundation for Problem and Compulsive Gamblers, based in suburban
Chicago.
"He said in a telephone interview that his group recently
stepped up its education and awareness efforts at centers for
older adults in the Chicago area and that he noticed more denial
of gambling addiction among them.
"They feel that at their age, 'This can't be happening to me.
I've got the money, so what if I spend more?'" he said.
W. Scott Wood, a Drake University psychology professor, said more
older adults are exposed to gambling through targeted marketing
that makes the pool of potential addicts greater.
"'They've got money, they've got time,' he said by telephone.
'If you've got an aging mother, she's probably taken a tour bus to
a casino one time or another."
"In Missouri, 1,446 people called a hot line in the first six
months of this year to seek help for gambling problems. That's
more than twice as many calls as in the first half of last year.
The data released at the conference did not indicate how many of
those people were older adults. The average age of the callers
this year was 38 years old."
The article went
on to cover a proposed "Responsible Gambling Week"
scheduled the week of August 8, 2001.
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