| PERSPECTIVE |
(May 24, 2002) -
Older adults love to gamble. Research shows bingo, slots machines and keno taking up more and more of their time. Walk into any casino, especially during the day, and you’ll see rows of older adults camped in front of slots. Most play for a while, eat and head home a few dollars poorer, at worst. |
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Transcript of Perspective
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Watch the Perspective story here:RealPlayer | QuickTime
Jim, a problem gambler, and his wife Leona talk about the growth of Jim’s gambling problems:RealPlayer | QuickTime
Konnie Kirchner is a therapist with Family Service, and Jim and Leona’s counselor. She talks about why older adults gamble:RealPlayer | QuickTime
Jerry Bauerkemper is executive director of the Nebraska Council on Compulsive Gambling. He talks about why older adults don’t seek counseling help with gambling problems:RealPlayer | QuickTime
Jean Hunt of Ainsworth and Chuck Spence of Omaha are private practice counselors who work with problem gamblers. They tell stories of older adults they’ve worked with who have gambling problems:RealPlayer | QuickTime
Dr. Dennis McNeilly is a clinical psychologist with the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He’s also one of the nation’s experts on older adults and gambling. McNeilly talks about dealing with older adult gambling in the future:RealPlayer | QuickTime |
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Transcript of Gambling With Their Golden Years
[Ernie Jager/Omaha]
I'll go on this with a smiling face. Be here when we come back and I'll have a sour puss.
[Mike Tobias/Reporting]
95-year-old Ernie Jager likes to gamble. So do a lot of older Nebraskans. Buses like this one from Crown Pointe Retirement Center head across borders every day.
[Jagar]
Fun. You never win anything but you hope you will.
[Dena Altman/Omaha]
I just love to go to the casino. There are so many people and it's so lively. When you live in a retirement home and you're among all older people, you have a tendency to get in a rut. Sluggish.
[Dr. Dennis McNeilly/UNMC Dept. of Geriatric Psychiatry]
All you have to do is go to any casino during the daytime and a large percentage of the people that are there early morning to mid afternoon are going to be older adults.
[Tobias]
A few years ago McNeilly went looking for research on older adults and gambling. There wasn't much, so he started doing his own. Now he travels the country talking about his work. One study found that casino trips are the second most popular activity at senior centers and retirement homes. Second only to bingo.
[McNeilly]
This really provides a real safe environment. It's a way, a lot of times to fill the day or particularly if they are bored or isolated, there's lots of marketing and promotions, free transportation, that kind of thing, lots of buffets that this generation takes advantage of.
[Tobias]
McNeilly says most older adults are responsible gamblers. They get on the bus with a set amount of money and stop gambling before it becomes a problem.
[Jagar]
I take 12 quarters. I give her 6. We bet one, then we bet two, then we bet three. And if we don't win anything, then we don't play anymore.
[Tobias]
Jim couldn't stop. And that wrecked the life he and his wife Leona had built together. They agreed to let us tell their tragic story - but asked that we disguise their identities. Leona's in her early 60s. She used to work with visually impaired kids. 74-year-old Jim was a college education professor. He retired from full-time teaching in 1994. That's when the problems started.
[Jim]
Once I retired from the University I had this feeling of a need for something to fill the space. And the casinos seemed to take it.
[Tobias]
At first it wasn't gambling that drew Jim and Leona across the river. It was big band music, champagne fountains and free shrimp cocktail. They'd play slot machines, betting nickels and quarters.
[Leona]
At the beginning we'd take maybe five dollars apiece. Then that escalated over time to 10 dollars apiece, and then that escalated to 20 dollars each.
[Tobias]
The betting grew. Occasional weekend casino trips became more frequent. Before long Jim was gambling on his own - losing hundreds of dollars at a time. Sometimes Leona waited in other parts of the casino. Sometimes Jim drove over by himself. And sometimes he lied about where he was going.
[Jim]
A number of times instead of going to the part-time job I would go over to the casinos. And tell the boss at that job that I had something else to do.
[Tobias]
Leona never realized what Jim was doing. He was keeping the checkbook, managing the couple's finances. And taking out more and more money. Within a couple years they were so far in debt they couldn't pay the property taxes on their acreage.
[Jim]
So all this time I'm not only using our checkbook, but I'm using the credit cards, and this override on the money at the bank. It seemed like I had a lot of different sources of income.
[Leona]
Took everything he could.
[Tobias]
Jim thought gambling could get him out of debt.
[Jim]
This was one way to get myself out of debt, was to hit a big one. But it never seemed to work that way.
[Tobias]
Rock bottom came in 1998. Leona had cancer. She was in surgery to have a life-threatening brain tumor removed. Jim was waiting - in front of a slot machine.
[Leona]
It was devastating. It still hurts. I'm not able to dwell on it very much. He wasn't there.
[Jim]
I think this is where I started picking up the cards, do you need help, and calling that number on the card.
[Tobias]
By the time they got help, slot machines had taken every dime they had and more.
[Leona]
30 thousand dollars minimum of debts and loans. Minimum.
[Jim]
Are you sure?
[Leona]
Yes I'm sure, and it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart.
[Jerry Bauerkemper/Executive Director, NE Council on Compulsive Gambling]
I think Jim and Leona are pretty typical of the older adults that come in. They spend a little bit of time gambling, they see it as recreational, and before they figure it out it jumps up and bites them. And now they're at a point where they can't retire and they're working to just get even. That's tragic because they have no ability to get their retirement back, they have no ability to get out of that hole.
[Tobias]
There are likely thousands of Jim and Leona's throughout Nebraska. Exactly how many is uncertain - partially because older problem gamblers don't seek help. The Council on Compulsive Gambling provides a 24-hour hotline [800-560-2126] from a bare-bones office in Bellevue. During this visit hotline director Susan Hoegeson didn't field any calls. But every month 250 to 300 people usually call for help with gambling problems. Less than 5 percent of callers are older adults - in spite of the fact that 14 percent of Nebraska's population is 65 or older. Bauerkemper says of the 300 to 400 people in gambling counseling each day, less than 1 percent are older adults. Instead they turn to doctors or clergy, if anyone at all.
[Bauerkemper]
They've gone through a lot of things in their life. And counseling has never been one of them. And to need help is so hard for that age group to admit. And their doctor's not going to work on their finances for them. The doctor's not going to help them understand the loss and the tragedy of gambling.
[McNeilly]
They sometimes refer to this as sort of a hidden disorder among this age group because they're going to be less likely to talk about it, they're going to be more apt to see it as a financial problem more so than a gambling problem. And as a result they're more likely to call a consumer credit hotline I think rather than a gambling hotline.
[Jean Hunt/Private Counselor, Ainsworth]
I made the rounds to our local senior centers this year, and did my presentation on problem gambling with older folks, but I still am not seeing very many people coming in the doors.
[Tobias]
The Council on Compulsive Gambling hopes to change that. This workshop was part of the first step - training counselors and others on helping older adults with gambling problems.
[Bauerkemper]
We're going to train them on how to refer, and how to recognize, and then we will spend our outreach time working with going to the senior centers and going to the places where older adults are, and training them to talk to each other.
[Tobias]
McNeilly says more research is needed to understand why and how older adults become problem gamblers. His previous work found older women reach a crisis stage faster then men. And depression and boredom contribute to problem gambling.
[McNeilly]
And so they're seeking some sort of release, and way to sort of deal with their dysphoria or boredom.
[Tobias]
He's now looking at the impact of a cognitive impairment called frontal lobe demensia.
[McNeilly]
All the sudden they're by themselves, spending increasingly periods of time alone, maybe they're developing a frontal lobe demensia in which they would in many ways appear and act pretty much as they always had, with the exception of they'd increasingly have poor judgement, or they would be more impulsive, or they would do things that would be uncharacteristic of them.
[Tobias]
The number of older adult gamblers is growing. Casinos know that, and target this age group. Omaha counselor Chuck Spence would like to see senior centers and retirement homes find other forms of entertainment for older adults.
[Chuck Spence/Addiction Counselor]
They believe that they are doing them a service, but what really what they're doing is they're setting them up in a negative way of meeting their social needs. If we substituted alcohol for bingo, would that we acceptable?
[Tobias]
Bauerkemper says as the population grows, more money is needed to help older adults pay for counseling.
[Bauerkemper]
Do you think older adults can pay for counseling? They're on fixed incomes. Counseling hours are 75 dollars an hour. That's why it's incumbent upon the state that if we're going to promote gambling, to help people with gambling problems.
[Tobias]
Leona and Jim got help. Now gardening has replaced gambling in their lives. It wasn't easy - they first tried calling the 1-800-BETSOFF number advertised in the Council Bluffs casinos. In spite of the fact these casinos are filled with Nebraskans, this number can't be accessed outside Iowa. Leona and Jim eventually found counselor Konnie Kirchner.
[Konnie Kirchner/Family Services Therapist]
Even though the shame is there, one of the unique things about them is that they were able to put that pride aside and come in and get the help that they needed.
[Tobias]
The scars of problem gambling show on Jim and Leona's farmstead. Repairing this roof is just one thing they've put off. They're out of debt, but still struggling financially.
[Leona]
It's pretty much eking it out yet. No, I wouldn't say we have any dreams of retirement.
[Tobias]
There are other scars, much harder to see and repair.
[Jim]
I find that the business of establishing trust again is pretty tough.
[Leona]
If we need something from the store, or a specific item from the hardware or something like that, I'll write the check out completely to the store and sign it, and he'll go and, we have this agreement now, he'll bring home the receipt, he'll fill in the check amount.
[Tobias]
In spite of the problems, they say their relationship - once on the rocks - is stronger than ever.
[Leona]
We've gotten closer, actually, in our marriage. And that's fun.
[Jim]
"We've got 11 acres, about 5 acres in lawn and garden, and flower gardens and that sort of thing. So there's a lot of time we spend on that that we weren't spending before.
[Tobias]
A row of pine trees near Jim and Leona's house is a symbol of what might have been. Leona says had the gambling continued unchecked, Jim would be buried here, unable to afford a better grave. There's another symbol. Jim put up this makeshift cross when Leona was recovering from cancer. She could see it from her bedroom window. It helped her survive that life-threatening disease. She hopes it will get them through another that will never completely go away - problem gambling. Reporting for Statewide, I'm Mike Tobias.
NOTE: Need Help? Call the Nebraska Council on Compulsive Gambling Toll-Free 24-Hour Helpline – 1-800-560-2126