Video Gambling Creates Addiction, Study Says Experts Say Oregon’s System Of Video Poker Almost Couldn’t Be Better Designed To Spur Compulsive Gambling

Compulsive gamblers are providing a huge share of the more than $200 million in profits raised by video poker each year, The Sunday Oregonian reported.

Based on a two-month review, the Portland newspaper reported that the number of Oregonians seeking help for gambling addiction is increasing, and most of them say video poker is their main problem.

Lottery officials don’t know how many problem gamblers are in Oregon or how much they play video poker. No one in the state has done a study to find out.

“The state of Oregon is selling something that a small percentage of the population can get into trouble playing,” said Oregon State Lottery Director Chris Lyons.

But stories like Bob Thompson’s are common. He always gambled, but his fixation took a darker turn when the Oregon State Lottery’s video poker machines arrived in 1992.

Within a year, he was fired for neglecting his job. His wife moved out with his son and divorced him. He gave up his house and car to help pay at least $30,000 in gambling debts.

Thompson ended up sleeping under a bridge in Oregon City.

“Talk about something so bad it would destroy your life and get you into recovery,” he said. “That’s how bad video poker is.”

Since the game’s arrival, the number of Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Oregon has climbed from three a week to more than 30.

Calls to a statewide gambling hotline rose from less than 3,000 in 1995 to more than 4,000 in 1996.

More than 1,000 people have entered state-subsidized gambling treatment programs since counting began in January 1995.

Experts around the country, from psychiatrists who treat problem gamblers to academics who study casinos, said Oregon’s system of video poker almost couldn’t be better designed to spur compulsive gambling.

From the machines’ wide accessibility in more than 1,800 bars and taverns to the speed of play, the game is a magnet for people who keep betting long after they should have stopped, said William Thompson, a gaming researcher at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

“It is the worst kind of gambling,” he said.

State officials will decide later this year whether to expand into video slot machines, a move critics say could add to Oregon’s compulsive gambling problem.

Studies in about 15 other states have found that about 3 percent of adults are problem gamblers. In Washington, a study found the rate was 2.8 percent.

But this small percentage of compulsive gamblers can produce big profits for the lottery. It appears they strongly gravitate to video poker.

A 1996 study of gamblers entering treatment programs in Oregon found that 81 percent gambled primarily on video poker machines.

If Oregon’s addiction rates are similar to other states, that means this state has about 71,000 problem gamblers.

Peter Bragdon, a Portland lawyer who was staff counsel for a recent governor’s task force on gambling, said he came away convinced that video poker revenues depend on problem gamblers.

“It’s absolutely true that we’re getting a big chunk of our money from compulsive gamblers,” Bragdon said. “I don’t know how big a chunk that is. … But this is one of the few areas where government depends on something bad happening to its citizens.”

Bob Thompson now stays at the Union Gospel Mission in Portland.

Sometimes, alone at night, he feels the old urges to play video poker.

He forces himself to sit tight and imagine what would happen if he sank back into compulsive gambling.

“You can get to the end result very fast,” he said. “I cannot gamble a dollar, just as an alcoholic cannot take a drink.”