Calls to gambling hotline increase 15%

By Ann McGlynn | Wednesday, July 18, 2007

With the number of Iowa casinos increasing, others expanding and record revenue of $1.32 billion posted, the number of phone calls to the gambling help line also is on the rise, with a 15 percent jump in fiscal year 2007, state officials announced Tuesday.

More than 7,300 calls came in to 1-800 BETS OFF between July 1, 2006, and June 30. The most calls came in during January, when 792 people dialed the number seeking help, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. Calls increased as the year went on, with 29 percent more calls in the second half of the year as the first.

Aggressive advertising directly affects the number of calls the hot line receives, said Mark Vander Linden, Iowa Gambling Treatment Program coordinator. But with four new casinos in two years, the availability of gambling is a “significant variable.”

“You see higher crisis contacts when there are gaming venues,” he said. “If you look at where the casinos opened up, they are in areas where there haven’t been casinos before.”

Common topics include treatment for oneself or another, banning and a request for Gambler’s Anonymous information, statistics show. The calls in June, for example, come steadily throughout the week. The most common time for a call is in the afternoon.

The hot line connects callers with a local gambling addictions program. In the Iowa Quad-Cities, it’s the Eastern Iowa Center for Problem Gambling.

Based in Davenport, the center will open an office in Washington, Iowa, close to the new Riverside Casino and Golf Resort, director Jan Meisenbach said.

The center is receiving more requests from family members of problem gamblers than gamblers themselves, she said.

“They are the ones for various reasons who discover monies have been tapped into that they thought were secure,” she said. “They become fed up with gambling activity, the lies, dishonesty, mistrust, all the things that go hand in hand with compulsive gambling.”

The requests for help in the nine counties that Meisenbach’s center serves has been steady, she said.

“Local casinos have suffered because of the new ones,” she said. “People like change. At some point, they will make the further-distance trip … to find out what they are all about. Due to family, job, location, they always come back home.

“The individuals who are calling aren’t doing a whole lot of traveling. They are going to stay in their home place. Some of the reasoning behind compulsive gambling is they have a specific machine, a specific boat they enjoy.”

Ann McGlynn can be contacted at (563) 383-2336 or amcglynn@qctimes.com.