Years ago, Thomas, as I will call him, dug himself into a $25,000 debt. He lied to his wife, claiming his paychecks were late, and he used their household money to gamble. The gambling led to his loss of a job, and came perilously close to destroying his marriage.
But four years ago he took part in a week-long rehabilitation program that led him to admit being a compulsive gambler. Now, in his early 60s, he is clean and helps others with their addiction, serving them as an accredited counselor.
Researchers who have studied the matter claim that only two percent of older people are gambling-addicted. Thomas takes serious issue with their findings. “I would boost that figure up to 40 percent,” he tells me.
He is convinced that the general public does not understand how widespread the problem is. Nor do the professionals, he adds. “A lot of people are in denial,” Thomas says, “especially senior citizens.”
This experienced counselor tells of senior women who, as soon as they have received their Social Security checks, prepare to go to Foxwoods, which boasts of being the world’s largest casino. He also has seen older people enter a convenience store, buy a 100 dollars worth of scratch tickets, return to their car, scratch them, and go back to the store to buy more.
In his experience, a single scratch ticket can affect a gambler, just as a single drink can launch alcoholism. He believes the gambling addiction to be an illness, and that people have a disposition toward it.
Not surprisingly, he harbors strong feelings about casinos. Thomas believes they target senior citizens and seduce them by free meals and other perks. He therefore opposes Governor Patrick’s plan to license new casinos in Massachusetts.
A call to Gamblers Anonymous in Boston (617-338-6020 also put me in touch with a woman named Rose. She works there as a volunteer, coming in at three in the afternoon and working all night. About the academic estimates of older gamblers being only two percent of the total number of problem gamblers she says flatly: “I totally disagree.”
Rose thinks of her sister as typical. By getting addicted to scratch cards and games at Foxwoods among other forms of gambling, the latter lost both her family and her home. Now reformed, Rose’s sister looks back with sorrow on her earlier life when she blew away all her resources.
There are many people like her, Rose insists. “They have spent years saving it, and then it’s gone.” They call the Boston number and Rose listens to their sad stories. Then she refers them to the trained counselors who volunteer their services to the agency.
Thomas and Rose are both obviously sincere and speak from real-life experience. They both qualify as highly credible witnesses. But they leave me with a problem since the research done on the subject by reputable scholars concludes that relatively few old people gamble with resulting harm to themselves and others.
After reviewing a dozen or so articles on the subject I have found a scholarly consensus that the proportion of elders who gamble uncontrollably is less than two percent.
Most students of the question believe that older people who have the habit of gambling indulge it largely because it brings them together with other people. Besides, when it’s non-addictive, they find it fun.
About casino gambling in particular, I can cite an important federal research project. This 2003 study looked at eight different casino sites, most of them in the Midwest, and compared the gambling habits of older and younger people. Their findings “do not support the view that casino gambling is a major threat to the elderly, preying on the aged and leading them to destructive gambling practices.”
Furthermore, the study found that the elderly “generally exercise better money management and experience proportionately fewer gambling problems than the general population.”
However, when I asked presenters at a recent Boston College conference on gambling about the percentage of addicted older players, I received conflicting replies. Professor John Hoffman of Brigham Young University agreed with the two percent estimate, but Dr. Marc Potenza of Yale Medical School sees enough of such people to remain somewhat doubtful about it.
In a recent AARP Bulletin another researcher, Emily Sachar, reports: “The gaming industry makes no bones about the fact that older gamblers are its bread-and-butter business. Like the general adult population, most older Americans gamble responsibly, overwhelmingly for fun, and in the hopes of winning money.”
However, she did add the cautionary note that “older gamblers are especially vulnerable to wagering more than they can afford.”
So I leave readers with this dilemma. Do my age peers usually find gambling to be a harmless diversion? Or is it a widespread curse that wrecks the lives of many more older people than commonly realized ?
One sad conclusion we can make: for anyone in the grip of the gambling addiction, it can be devastating.
Richard Griffin