Bo Bernhard, director of gaming studies, uses the casino laboratory at the International Gaming Institute on campus to study problem gambling behavior.

Going for Broke

Like alcoholism, pathological gambling is a devastating addiction that quickly and quietly sends the afflicted toward rock bottom. UNLV professors and alumni are leading the nation in research of the widely misunderstood problem.

By Cate Weeks

Picture your average gambling addict. It’s not necessarily the flashy guy at the craps table, hooked on the rush of shooting the dice and looking to get rich quick. It’s the woman in front of the video poker machine – the successful Realtor next door, your child’s teacher, or the bank vice president who approved your home loan. She’s robotically hitting the “Bet All” key as she squeezes in an hour of gambling before she picks up her son at soccer.

As she spirals deeper into her addiction, no one the wiser, she’ll steal from her son’s college fund. She’ll get credit cards in her husband’s name and then hide the bills from him. She may even embezzle from her longtime employer, thinking she’ll repay the money the next time she wins. When she hits rock bottom, in just a couple of years, she’ll be thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt and will have few places to go for help.

“By and large, the thrill-seeking problem gambler is an endangered species,” says Bo Bernhard, a UNLV sociology and hotel administration professor. “Most gambling addicts now are escapists. They don’t engage in these behaviors to feel great; they do it to feel numb. They often want to escape from family issues or workplace stresses. All of us need moments of escape in our lives, but for pathological gamblers, this desire turns destructive.”

Old Stereotypes, New Research
As director of gambling research at the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, Bernhard studies gambling behavior, including the relatively new field of gambling addiction. He points to two statistics that are pushing problem gambling research to the forefront:

• More money is wagered on gambling than is spent on sports tickets, movies, music events, and video games combined.
• 48 states have approved some form of gambling in their jurisdictions.

“Nevada is no longer the lone wolf it was when I was growing up here,” says Bernhard (’02 Ph.D. Sociology). “Not only do we have more access to gambling than perhaps ever before, we also have more access to money that technically is not ours – through credit in its various configurations. It only makes sense that we invest some energy in increasing our understanding of the impact of gambling, both positive and negative.”

Counseling professor Larry Ashley is leading UNLV’s academic programs in gambling addictions. Some of the area’s gambling addicts are finding help through resource brochures available in casinos.

Nature or Nurture?
In the young field of problem gambling, researchers can’t yet offer solid statistics on the social and economic toll that problem gambling takes on society. Nor do they know why, for certain people, gambling becomes a destructive obsession rather than a simple pastime. Because the field is so new, widely accepted data is not available on the prevalence rates, that is, the number of gamblers who have a pathological problem. Various studies estimate that to be between 1 and 6 percent of all people who gamble. By comparison, the prevalence rate for alcoholism is 6 percent.

“There’s an old stereotype that gambling addicts are born losers or masochistic accidents waiting to happen – nothing could be further from the truth,” says psychologist Rob Hunter (’76 BA Psychology). “Some of the brightest, most energetic, competent people I’ve ever met I had in that room,” he said, referring to the group meeting room at the Center for Problem Gambling.

Along with Bernhard and sociology professor Fred Preston, Hunter launched the center in 1998. It is the only full-service nonprofit treatment center in Las Vegas for gambling addicts.

The six-week program employs a combination of educational therapy, peer counseling, and individual therapy. Its participants are required to attend the support group Gamblers Anonymous, and they receive a year of aftercare therapy sessions.
Bernhard and Preston serve as research associates. Their knowledge helps clients understand and cope with their addictions. The center’s Thursday night information session offers clients and their families a chance to learn more about the affliction from the UNLV professors. At one recent session, a female realty executive posed this question:

“I was around drugs in the ’60s. I’ve been a social drinker without a problem. I’ve lived in Las Vegas all my life and didn’t gamble until recently. Why didn’t I become addicted to something else? And why, only now, has this addictive behavior come out?”

Part of the answer, Bernhard says, appears to lie in brain chemistry. “A lot of academics posit that there are a number of individuals in the population who just can’t gamble, just as there are some who just can’t drink. Though my training and sympathies are on the ‘nurture’ side, I’ve come to believe that some of that probably has to do with programming at the factory. In problem gamblers, the brain experiences gambling as a reward in much the same way that cocaine addicts experience cocaine ingestion as a reward.”

The casino lab in the Stan Fulton Building at UNLV will be an exceptionally useful tool in this kind of research, he adds. Generally, studies on gambling behavior have used computer card games to simulate the activity. “In contrast to previous studies, many of which have been conducted with desktop computers, we can approximate the real-life gambling experience in a far more sophisticated way.”

Moving up from the molecular/brain chemistry level, Bernhard believes that there are psychological and small-group issues affecting pathological gambling. Studies have focused on the distorted cognitive process of pathological gamblers, comparing their urge to bet with the desire felt by the general population. And the affects of problem gambling on interpersonal relationships have been studied.

The sociological factors, however, are the least studied, Bernhard says. Only in recent decades has problem gambling been considered a medical problem. For centuries, the issue was left to society’s moral experts.

“Special collections at the Lied Library is filled with an amazing collection of old sermons – angry voices from the pulpit who for years have been telling us how to define, diagnose, and treat problem gamblers. Their treatment, quite often, was to ostracize and vilify the afflicted.
“Now medical and psychological experts provide this knowledge, but their 20 years or so of work hasn’t somehow erased the centuries of moral stigmatization. In this instance, an individual’s suffering is profoundly affected by sociological forces far larger than those we tend to consider.”

Alumnus Rob Hunter launched Southern Nevada’s only non-profit treatment center for gambling addicts with the help of UNLV faculty and financial support from casino companies.

Educating the Experts: UNLV Offers Cutting-edge Academic Program
Twenty years of research also has not given communities enough time to develop the resources necessary to treat problem gamblers, says Larry Ashley, a counseling professor and coordinator of UNLV’s programs in additions therapy. This fall, UNLV will offer the first formal academic program for problem gambling therapists in the country.
The counseling department is designing a certification program for graduate students as well as a six-course undergraduate minor for students across campus.

“The minor will offer a foundation for people who want to practice in this area, as well as offer a broad range of students – including those planning careers in the hotel industry, human resources, and any of the human service disciplines – insight into these issues,” Ashley said.
He patterned the minor in problem gambling after the National Council on Problem Gambling’s certification requirements. Eventually, completion of the minor will satisfy the education requirements of the council’s certification. “Previously, there’s been no formal academic training for gambling addictions therapists – it’s like we were supposed to get it by osmosis,” he says.

He added that, until this year, therapists in Nevada were not required to attend the workshops or show any expertise in the field of treating problem gamblers. This spring the Nevada Legislature established a licensing program for problem gambling counselors.

“I feel very strongly that academic training is a must before anyone treats problem gamblers,” Ashley said. “Just because you’ve worked in the human service field, or even specifically in the addictions field, doesn’t mean you’re competent to treat this population of clients.”
Problem gamblers have such unique characteristics that their treatment must be specialized, he says. Diagnosing the pathological gambler can be particularly difficult without proper training.

“Pathological gamblers become pros at hiding their addiction,” Ashley says. “A couple might come in for counseling because of marital discord or an addict may be depressed and appear bipolar, but that might all be related to significant gambling issues.”

Bernhard added, “Alcoholics have physical signs. They show up at the school play drunk, or their coworkers will notice the smell of alcohol. For gambling addicts, invisibility is a luxury that turns out to be a curse. This can mean that ‘rock bottom’ hits after tremendous personal and financial damage has occurred because the people in their lives don’t intervene as soon. As this field develops, we hope to reach people when this is at the I-just-had-a-fight-with-my-wife stage, rather than I’ve-lost-my-family stage.”

Reaching addicts sooner will take both awareness campaigns and an investment in treatment programs, the experts say, and Nevada is sadly lacking in both. Facing severe budget and tax issues in its most recent session, the state Legislature did not pass a bill that would have set aside $250,000 for problem gambling treatment. By contrast, Louisiana spent more than $2 million last year.
“I understand, of course, the number of economic challenges this state faces, but I’m still embarrassed as a Nevadan that we have never spent a dollar to help treat this issue,” says Bernhard, a fifth-generation Las Vegan. “Nevada sets the bar for every aspect of the gaming world, except problem gambling.”

The lack of funding for treatment only compounds the gambling addict’s problems, Hunter says. His treatment center, which typically has a lengthy waiting list, doesn’t charge for its services.“This is a population that by definition doesn’t have money to pay for treatment,” he says. “By the time they get here, they’re not only broke, but frequently heavily in debt – even the doctors and the lawyers.”

The center has kept its doors open through an array of corporate donations, most notably from Station Casinos and IGT, a manufacturer of gaming equipment. IGT employees also attend the information sessions at the center.

“Many in the gaming industry are taking a proactive approach and trying to avoid the model set by other industries that have denied that there are any social costs associated with their product,” Bernhard says. “Of course, there has never been a product in all of history that doesn’t hurt a part of its clientele in some way.”

The Best Place for Treatment
In a sense, Nevada is the best place to get treatment, the experts say. The state has experienced providers who pioneered treatment of gambling addicts as well as a growing group of UNLV scholars tackling the issue. There’s also an active Gamblers Anonymous support community. There are more than 100 weekly GA meetings for Clark County’s 1.5 million residents, compared to Atlanta, which has eight meetings to serve its population of 4.2 million.

“When it comes down to it,” Hunter says, “being a problem gambler in Las Vegas with its convenience store slot machines is no different than being an alcoholic and having to walk by the liquor department every time you need a loaf of bread.”
And Hunter, Bernhard, and Ashley all agree that, although problem gambling has real social and economic costs that must be addressed through enhanced treatment programs, gambling in itself isn’t a bad thing.

“As gambling moves into the mainstream, into the heartland of the country, problem gambling will follow,” Hunter says. “But that doesn’t condemn the industry – Coors didn’t invent alcoholism and I don’t think slot-machine makers invented problem gambling.”

“I feel the native Las Vegan in me come out every time I address this,” says Bernhard. “I believe we should have the right to choose our recreational activities. For the vast majority, gambling is a fun and harmless activity. As a community, though, we have to address the downside just as we do with drug and alcohol problems. If you spend any time with this population, you can see that this is an issue that affects all of us. They deserve our attention and support.”