Problem gambling has never been treated the same as any other type of addiction. Unlike the physiological addiction to things like drugs and alcohol, problem gambling is a compulsion to commit destructive behavior. As such, many people view it as being not as bad. Others think that the gambler should be able to control the problem; I mean, it’s not like being addicted to heroin!

While there are certainly differences, mental addiction can be just as strong as physiological addiction. The mind is a very powerful thing. A person’s own mind can mess them up much worse than any drug. Just stop by a mental hospital if you don’t believe me.

The point is that gambling addiction, or problem gambling, or whatever you want to call it, is a very real problem. It needs to be treated as such. A British charity is doing their part to help spread awareness about the problem and help those afflicted with destructive gambling compulsions to get some help. The Responsible Gambling Fund (RGF) has launched a campaign to train general practitioners across England, Wales and Scotland.

RGF is hoping to train 1,500 doctors in the UK within the first two years of the program.  Baroness Julia Neuberger, the chair of the RGF, said the problem is that “only a small proportion of people get the help they are looking for by going direct to specialist treatment services. We want to see them being identified earlier and helped to get access to services they need.”

The program will train doctors to identify patients with gambling problems or who are at risk to develop gambling problems. Doctors are already trained to identify physical or mental illness and this is only an addition to the current expectations. Dr. Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said that the program will “support patients and doctors by building the knowledge, skills and competence of GPs” to identify and support those with gambling problems.

“Gambling is a dangerous and potentially destructive activity,” says the government, “and must be carefully regulated, or sometimes even banned, for your own good. Unless, of course, we are the ones offering the gambling games – in which case it’s totally safe.”

It may sound a little odd hearing it said like that, but such a statement is made by the government’s actions every day. How many countries ban casino gambling but offer a lottery? How many U.S. states do the same?

Now the state of Florida is adding a new game to their lottery: Lucky Lines. Already a hit in Michigan, Lucky Lines is an electronic game that allows players to win, or lose, instantly. Like some scratch-off games, there is no need to wait for a drawing later on. Players instantly know whether they have won or lost.

Experts say it is exactly that type of instant gratification that is attractive to people with gambling problems. The statistics back that up as well. Of those who have contacted Gamblers Anonymous because of a problem with lottery games, 81% indicated that their problem is with games that have instant results.

Lucky Lines plays like a combination of bingo and keno, which is a casino game that the state of Florida only allows in tightly-regulated tribal casinos. In the game, players choose seven numbers ranging from 1 to 49. They can also have the computer randomly choose some or all of the numbers for them. The computer terminal then prints a game board that has spots for 49 numbers. If any three of the player’s chosen numbers appear in a line – vertical, horizontal or diagonal – the player wins. Players can win up to $3 million on a single play.

Though there is a $5 limit to the amount you can bet on each card, there is no limit to the number of cards you can buy, so a compulsive gambler can keep buying card after card. Anytime he doesn’t win, buy another. With a game like the Lotto, where you have to wait for the drawing, compulsive behavior like that is not rewarded, because you still have to wait for your results. If you know right away that you didn’t win, though, that is incentive – for some people – to buy another one.

If the game we were talking about was keno, slots or roulette, Tallahassee would say that the games were dangerous and they must protect people from their compulsive behavior by only allowing those games in regulated tribal casinos. Since it’s a lottery game, though, players can find this at any convenience store, gas station and many other retail locations.

Here at Gambling Review, we recognize that most gamblers are fine, upstanding citizens who are wise with their money and simply want to have a good time at the casino. We would be remiss, though, if we didn’t mention the handful of idiots out there who probably shouldn’t ever set foot in a casino or log onto an online casino.

That handful of idiots includes people caught cheating at blackjack, people who embezzle money from their employer to fund their gambling habit, people who rob casino dealers and more. In this case, it’s a woman who decided that playing some casino games was more important than the safety of her children.

Though the ballots for Mother of the Year have not yet been tabulated, it’s a safe bet that Sharon Balek won’t be the winner. The 35-year-old mother of two left her children – ages eight and fifteen – in the car for almost six hours while she was busy gambling at Parx Casino.

Balek was too busy playing her favorite slots in the Bensalem, Pennsylvania casino to worry about a little thing like her children. Balek drove her children to the casino at approximately 6:30 PM and left them in the car to go play some slots. Leaving her kids in the parking lot wasn’t a big deal because it was for a short time – only six hours. At around 12:30 AM, the teenage child flagged down a passerby and borrowed a cell phone to call their father. It was a short time after that that Sharon Balek found herself in police custody. Her excuse for child abandonment? She “lost track of time.”

This should go without saying, but Mrs. Balek has a problem. I don’t know if she has a gambling addiction or anything like that, but she definitely suffers from one affliction: stupidity. If I felt the urge to go play the slots at the local casino and needed a place to put my kids for six hours or more, the casino parking lot would be pretty low on that list. At home with a babysitter, with their other parent with relatives or at a friend’s house would be options I look at first.

So here is my advice to you. If you have such a strong urge to play casino games that you can’t find somewhere safe for your children to be first, then do everyone a favor and go see a judge and tell him that. The judge will be happy to remove the children from your custody and then you can gamble any time you want without worrying about them.

Needless to say, Sharon Belek was arrested for child endangerment.

Drugs can lead to addiction. We all know that. However, a new lawsuit is alleging that drugs designed to treat the effects of Parkinson’s disease have caused gambling addiction. That’s news to me.

A group of more than 100 people have joined a class action lawsuit in Australia. They are seeking legal action against two companies: Pfizer Australia, who makes the drug Cabaser, and Aspen Pharmacare, who makes the drug Permax. Both drugs are used to treat the tremor symptoms that are associated with Parkinson’s disease.

Those involved in the lawsuit – which will be heard in a federal court in Melbourne, Australia – allege that the drugs led to compulsive gambling behavior that resulted in the losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the loss of jobs, and a breakdown in their family situations. Some also allege that since taking the drugs that have developed compulsive sexual habits, such as becoming addicted to looking at internet pornography.

So is there any substance to the claims? The court will decide that and there is still debate about the causes of gambling addiction and whether it is really even “addiction” in the same way that people can become chemically addicted to drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

It should be noted, though, that both drugs are classified as dopamine agonists, which are drugs designed to mimic the natural effects of the brain releasing dopamine. There is an established link between dopamine agonists and several harmful side-effects, which includes pathological addiction. That link that been explored in medical and psychological journals.

However, if those possible side effects were noted when the patients decided – of their own free will – to take the drugs, how can the drug companies be held accountable? I don’t know about Australia, but in the United States, all known side-effects for drugs must be disclosed before the drugs can be taken. There are no secrets. Anyone who takes the drug is agreeing that there is a possibility they will have those side-effects. If a blood thinner says it carries a risk of stroke and a person who takes it has a stroke, the drug company can’t be blamed – at least in America (and in the court of Common Sense). I don’t know about in Australia, though.

There is some good news for people who take dopamine agonists, though. Among the bad side-effects, there is also a very good side-effect. The use of dopamine agonists is known to cause increased orgasmic intensity. Isn’t that worth the risk of addiction?

I’ve always said that if you want to have really bad gambling odds, you should play the lottery. Well, some genius in Ohio tried to use lottery tickets to fund her gambling habit. In her defense, she was stealing the lottery tickets, so she wasn’t really losing money there.

Deborah Strong used to work at a Kroger store and part of her job duties involved refilling the lottery scratch-off ticket machine when it was empty. Somewhere along the line, she got to thinking, Hey, I bet no one would notice if I just stuck some of these tickets in my pockets. I can steal thousands of them over time and scratch them off and win big money! I can then blow that big money by spending it at a casino! And the best part is that no one could ever find out! It’s perfect! I really am a genius!

I have not analyzed Ms. Strong and cannot testify to her level of intelligence but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I believe she was wrong if she actually thought that “genius” part. Depending on who you ask, Strong stole either $189,000 or $530,000 worth of scratch-off tickets. Yeah, I know that’s a big difference. Kroger officials estimate that they lost out on $530,000 of revenue from Strong pocketing the tickets, but in court Strong admitted to a theft of $189,000, though she didn’t seem clear on that amount, either.

When asked about the money, she said that it didn’t seem like that much and was quick to point out that “a lot of them are losers,” so it’s not like she “got that much money.” So her defense against prison time only makes her plan look way dumber. Yeah, a lot of the tickets she stole are completely worthless, and yet she’s going to prison just the same.

Yesterday, the judge sentenced Strong to five years in prison.

Of the many flaws of Strong’s plan, this one sticks out: If none of the tickets are big winners, then she risked going to jail for nothing and didn’t make enough money for it to be worth the risk. However, if she were to scratch off any big winners, when they are redeemed the Lottery Commission requires that the winner submit her Social Security number. That’s how she was caught.

Once Kroger determined that they had a problem with lottery ticket theft, they began to go through the names of lottery winners who redeemed big cash prizes. They then found Strong’s name next to tickets worth $5,000 and $10,000. After that, it didn’t take much time to build a case against Strong.

After all, this isn’t her first time stealing from an employer. In 2001 she stole $14,150 from Cash City and while working as a teller for Provident Bank, she stole $20,000. In both cases, she stole the money to fund a gambling habit. As a result of her prior convictions, she was placed on probation for four years and was ordered to repay the employers, stay away from the Indiana riverboat casinos and attend weekly Gamblers’ Anonymous meetings.

Now she has a lot more money to pay back. In addition, though I don’t think she’ll be able to attend her meetings, Ms. Strong has plenty of time to think about gambling responsibly or not at all. A lot of people will look at her prison sentence and ask “was it worth it?” For me, there’s something else, though. If Strong stole $530,000 worth of tickets, that’s a lot of tickets to scratch. As the judge joked, she must have carpal tunnel by now.

When I first read this report, I had to double-check to make sure my source wasn’t The Onion, The Daily Show, MSNBC or some other source of fake news. It wasn’t. It seems as though this report I’m about to give you is actually true.

A Pennsylvania man forfeited $2,000 in casino winnings and was arrested for violating his self-imposed ban. The 55-year-old man, who has not been named, placed himself on Pennsylvania’s self-exclusion program in April 2009. Many people place themselves on a self-exclusion list if they have a gambling addiction or some other problem of irresponsibility and they want to make sure they are unable to go to a casino and lose money.

If you are on the self-exclusion list, no casino is allowed to admit you and let you play. Somehow, a Pennsylvania casino – the Presque Isle Downs & Casino in Erie, PA – did let him enter and play. Not only that, but he won a $2,000 jackpot. Once it was learned that he was on the self-exclusion list, his winnings were forfeited and he was arrested for trespassing.

And there’s where I think this goes into the realm of insanity. Players like this man have a problem controlling their urge so to take away the temptation of gambling at a casino, they voluntarily place themselves on an exclusion list. It is the choice of the individual to place themselves on the list as a way of helping them fight the temptation to play at a casino. The casinos then oblige by helping them with that. Why are criminal charges involved?

I get the forfeiting of the money. That makes sense because if he gets to keep it he is being rewarded for giving in to temptation and playing at a casino. Since the man wants to avoid that, you don’t want to reward that behavior. I don’t think a punishment in the form of criminal charges is warranted, though. Did he know when he agreed to the self-exclusion that he could be charged with trespassing if he violated the self-imposed ban?

It seems to me that if people with gambling problems learn that putting themselves on a self-exclusion list could bring criminal charges against them, they won’t do it. Let’s face it, if they didn’t have a problem with willpower, they wouldn’t be trying to exclude themselves. If relapsing can result in a criminal conviction, though, it seems like many will say “no thanks” and will not get help with their gambling problem.

Charging this man with trespassing is wrong and the charges need to be dropped immediately. Anything else is absurd and just morally wrong.

Efforts to expanding gambling in the Granite state will go nowhere. New Hampshire Governor John Lynch has been looking for an excuse to veto any gambling bill that winds up on his desk. Now he has one.

Last week, the state Senate passed an amendment that would expand gambling in the state by allowing 4 sites to have a total of 10,000 video slots. The amendment passed the Senate by a 14-10 vote – with bipartisan support – and was then sent to the House, where today it was voted down 212-158.

The amendment was introduced by Senator Lou D’Allesandro (D), who has been pushing for gambling expansion in the state for a decade. He believed that now was his best chance to get it passed, since the state is looking for ways to cut down on the $300 million budget deficit.

However, even if the amendment had managed to pass the House, Lynch threatened to veto the gambling legislation. He cited concern that an increase in gambling would lead to an increase in gambling addiction. Lynch, as a Democrat, loves deciding for people what is best for them and protecting them from themselves.

Before he could make any decision on gambling expansion, Lynch said the he wanted to look at the information that the Gaming Study Commission had been gathering over the last nine months. Yesterday, the Commission released a report that said “expanded gaming would generate additional revenues and economic activity, but it would also generate additional societal and economic costs.”

What a shocking turn of events! It turns out that the commission that was appointed by Governor Lynch and then ordered, via Executive Order, to study the impact on expanded gambling on the economy and public safety concluded exactly what Lynch hoped to find. That’s pretty convenient that the report said exactly what Lynch wanted to hear. It’s certainly good news for Lynch, who now has a good excuse to veto the amendment: “Look at the report! It says it will turn everyone into degenerate gambling addicts!”

People like Lynch think that people are incapable of taking care of themselves and need the government to protect them from things that could be potentially dangerous. I could waste too much money on video slots. Please ban them so I can’t spend my money! While we’re at it, this fast food I’ve been eating is making me fat and I’m worried about heart disease. Please ban fatty foods, salt, foods high in sugar and anything else that makes food taste good. Also, every time I get in a car, I’m worried about getting in a wreck and being thrown through the windshield. Can you make it a crime to not wear a seat belt?…Oh, you already did that? Thanks. Now that I have your attention, it’s time to talk about guns.

Well, iPhone applications are causing a fuss again. This time isn’t not an app for shaking a baby or snorting cocaine, though. This time it’s about gambling.

Australian parliamentarian Nick Xenophon is outraged about poker iPhone apps that allow children to play the popular card game, betting fake money. He says the apps should be banned because they teach children to gamble at an early age and could lead to gambling addiction.

Citing concerns that it would get children used to the idea of playing poker for money, he said that “kids can become poker machine experts years before they are legally allowed to set eyes on a real machine.” In Australia, you must be at least 18 years of age to place a bet in any of their casinos.

The iPhone apps addressed by Xenophon are applications that have been endorsed by some of the big-name online casino companies. Though the games are free and you only gamble with play money, Xenophon worries that it could develop a pattern and teach kids that playing poker is a good way to make money. He said that the iPhone apps are “a training application for kids to lose real money when they turn eighteen.” Most of the apps do not have age restrictions.

Though he would like to ban them outright, Xenophon acknowledges that removing access to them in the country may not be possible. As a more realistic goal, he intends to push for legislation that would make it illegal to provide the iPhone gambling apps to children.

The Task Force on College Gambling Policies, an industry funded organization targeting problem gambling on University and college campuses is sharpening its focus on gambling addiction as a health concern. Surely gambling may not be as common a problem on college campuses as substance abuse and addiction, but when it occurs it is similarly tragic. Isn’t it refreshing to see a group that isn’t funded by our seized tax dollars doing something like this? Truly, a breath of fresh air.

Christine Reilly, executive director of the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders insists the goal of her task force is, “to bring together people in higher education to help us figure out how to curb underage and pathological gambling among college students.”

The task force has cited several studies indicating that somewhere between 3 and 11 percent of American college students have serious gambling problems. For example, my gambling problem was which girl to buy beer. The right choice could mean a night of debauchery while the wrong could mean I’m footing the bill for some better looking frat boy’s screwfest. All kidding aside, the college campus is one ripe for opportunity when it comes to problem gambling. When mixing mom and dad’s credit card with high speed internet access to online casinos, there is no doubt the chance for these students to make the wrong decisions. These decisions can lead to academic, financial and even mental health issues.

The task force is asking universities and colleges to establish committees and create gambling policies in hopes of raising awareness and recognizing problems where they lie. “It is important, we believe, for schools to send a clear, unified message about acceptable behaviors,” Reilly said, “It’s very common for schools to have different rules for alcohol use… and for gambling, and so we think this is an issue that colleges should think about.”

“If a student presents himself to a university health service with a physical problem such as kidney disease or a fractured hip, the college will bend over backward to assist the student,” Reilly continues, “Addiction is a different category.”

Addiction and excess is certainly one of the most intimidating demons college students must encounter during their years of study. While colleges and universities do their best to regulate what students can and can’t access online, the technology often moves faster than they can. Online gambling laws do not necessarily prevent college students from logging on and doubling down. For years colleges have tried to block file sharing sites that violate copyright laws and yet pirated movies and music continue to flourish on college campuses.

Regardless of the challenge, colleges are being receptive to the task force’s message. George S. Mclellan, vice chancellor for student affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne agrees that “all the recommendations are spot on.” He goes on to say that “If the college takes lottery money to fund scholarships, if it takes gaming money to support scholarships, if it allows the licensing of its logo on a poker table…then there’s a gap between what we say and what we do and students will head through that in an eye-blink.”

New Zealand is best known for rowing, sheep and scenic landscapes that look good for hobbits and elves to walk through on their journeys. Before that, it was known for Xena: Warrior Princess. Now you can say that the isolated country is also known for its interesting take on combating problem gambling.

Tomorrow is Gamble-Free Day in New Zealand. Before you get too excited, that doesn’t mean you can gamble for free. It means that for one day the country is encouraging people to avoid gambling, including both in person and in online casinos. The reason? They want to bring awareness to the Problem Gambling Foundation and encourage people to seek help. I certainly hope this is only a small part of the awareness-raising campaign, because reminding people once a year to seek help for their addiction doesn’t seem good enough. According to some sources, gambling tends to increase during a recession, with people trying to recoup lost money by betting. This of course, flies in the face of both logic, which states that when you’re hurting for cash you need to be more conservative with your finances, and statistics that show that the gambling industry has seen a decline in profits during the recession.

Despite that, gambling addiction is definitely a problem, regardless of the economic climate. And people with a gambling addiction might be more likely to try to make money at the betting tables during a recession. While it’s unlikely that any online casinos will shut down their business for a day, restaurants and bars that have gambling have agreed to not offer gambling services tomorrow. The restaurants will encourage people to not gamble during Gamble-Free Day and anyone with a Gamble-Free Day voucher will receive a discount. It is another example that, despite the perception of some, those that make money off of gambling are actually concerned about those who have a gambling problems. In fact, worldwide, casinos and other gambling-related companies are the top contributor to groups that help with problem gambling. So remember, New Zealand Gambling Review readers, tomorrow just say no. And if you have a problem with gambling, go seek help. That last part goes for everyone, not just New Zealanders.