Conference Seeks Help For Gamblers

Ellen Hauge knew something was wrong when she got a $10,000 credit card bill from Holland.

Her husband had secretly gambled away a portion of the family’s savings while he was on a business trip with a credit card he’d never told her about.

It was just the beginning. He gambled away $20,000 from a 401k plan. He used her Social Security number to transfer money out of her account. He depleted stock options.

“My assets were getting drained before my eyes,” said Hauge, of Sammamish, Wash. She wondered how she’d take care of her small daughter.

Hauge sought help. She found practically nothing. She found few counselors to treat gambling addiction. Few Gam-Anon meetings. No inpatient treatment center in the state. After a legal separation failed to protect her assets, she filed for divorce.

So on Thursday, she pleaded with a roomful of counselors at Deaconess Medical Center to get involved with gambling addiction treatment.

Hauge was a keynote speaker at a two-day conference Deaconess is hosting on the problem. The medical center is on the cutting edge for providing gambling treatment in the state. The conference ends today.

Though only an estimated 2.3 percent of the adult population in Washington has a gambling problem, the addiction can have devastating results.

In addition to the financial and emotional strain that families go through, addicted gamblers are at a higher than normal risk of committing suicide.

One study that compared national suicide data to Las Vegas found the suicide rate significantly higher in the gambling mecca.

The expected number of suicides in Las Vegas from 1989 to 1991, based on national statistics, was 310; the actual number was 497, said Dr. Paul Quinnett, founder of the QPR Institute, which does work nationally for suicide prevention.

In another study, 90 percent of those calling gambling help lines - and who met the criteria of being a pathological gambler - had contemplated suicide, Quinnett said.

Gambling addiction in and of itself is not the cause of suicide, Quinnett said.

“There is generally some underlying mental disorder that needs to be treated, such as a major depressive disorder or a bipolar disorder,” he said. “Having gambling losses can be a precipitating factor. It can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

The good news is that 95 percent of all suicides are preventable, Quinnett said.

But getting treatment to suicidal people - especially gambling addicts - can be difficult because of a lack of funding.

Rep. Alex Wood, D-Spokane, another conference speaker, promised to try to get $150,000 annually for gambling treatment from the state lottery budget if re-elected. However, Wood has tried to pass similar bills in previous sessions and failed.

“The gambling industry is involved in treatment, the health care industry is involved, the insurance industry is involved,” Wood said. “For the state not to be involved is a huge embarrassment.”

One of the conference sponsors, H.T. Higgins, owner of Players & Spectators, a mini-casino and entertainment complex in the Spokane Valley, told attendees there was a source of funding - but no political will to use it.

The county taxes mini-casinos at 15 percent of their winnings. Under that tax, Players & Spectators paid $750,000 to the county last year - five times the amount Wood would seek for spending on problem gambling statewide.

“Folks, the money is there,” Higgins said. “And we’re sitting here trying to find funds for a gambling program. It doesn’t make sense. We need to question our local officials about why that money isn’t going to deal with the ills of our community.”