Testimony of Anita Bedell, Executive Director of
Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems
At the Illinois Gaming Board Meeting of December 3, 2007
I have testified before the Illinois Gaming Board on many occasions and voiced our concern for those who are addicted to gambling and their families. Through the years Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems has heard from many families whose spouses or relatives have lost everything they own including their homes, jobs, savings, families, and freedom due to a gambling addiction.
Family members have told me how they have gone to casinos and begged the management not to let their spouse gamble away the family's assets. Some of these families have also come before the Illinois Gaming Board to ask for help.
One woman went to a casino with her husband's business partner. She told them her husband was going to the casino every day. She said, "Doesn't it occur to you that this man might have a family or a job that he needs to go to rather than gamble night and day?" Casino personnel told them that they are not psychologists and that they do not know when someone is gambling more than they can afford or is addicted to gambling. The man kept gambling, and he lost the two businesses that he owned, his home, and his family. His children lost their father, when their parents were divorced, and his employees lost their jobs because of his gambling addiction. Gambling addiction hurts not only the person who is gambling, it hurts families and other. Dr. Henry Lesieur has estimated that every compulsive gambler impacts 10 to 12 other people.
The Illinois Gaming Board instituted the self-exclusion program as a first step to help people who openly admit that their gambling is so out of control that they cannot even enter a casino. The casinos now know the names of over 5,300 gambling addicts, because these are the people who have voluntarily enlisted in your program to self-exclude themselves from the casinos.
From its inception, our organization has asked the Illinois Gaming Board to require a mandatory ID to keep gamblers on the self-exclusion list from entering Illinois casinos. In the past we were told this policy would not be implemented because the casinos were opposed. This seems to hold true today.
A Chicago Tribune editorial dated January 8, 2006 read, "The Gaming Board is considering a proposal that would require everyone who walks into a casino to show an ID at the door. The Board should approve this measure. The state has an uneasy alliance with gambling--it balances its budget on the take from gamblers' losses. It has a responsibility, then, to help draw a line between entertainment and compulsive behavior." Therein lies the dilemma the board faces.
I talked with a former casino employee. He said when someone reaches the point of problem gambling, all too often it's not that person, but someone in that person's family that approaches the casino and says, don't let him or her play. There are many more problem and pathological gamblers who have not come forward to self-exclude themselves. They are still gambling. So despite the inconvenience of checking ID's, if it saves one person from ruining themselves or ruining themselves further, so be it.
You have been considering the issue of requiring mandatory ID before entering a casino for almost two years, and the number of people on the self-exclusion list continues to grow. How can casino personnel at nine locations in Illinois be expected to recognize and identify over 5,300 people in the self-exclusion program to keep from "knowingly" admit someone from the self-exclusion program? Once inside, the person will gamble.
Earlier this year the Illinois Gaming Board revised the rule to exclude the self-excluded person entry only from the area within the admission turnstiles of a riverboat gaming operation, rather than the entire casino property. Board member Garner, you said that if this rule change were made, that the Gaming Board should require a mandatory ID before people could enter the admission turnstiles.
Casino representatives often say they are the most regulated industry. Today I ask this Regulatory body to take the lead nationally to help the families of these admittedly "sick" people and require the casinos to ID every person who enters the gambling area on every casino property in Illinois. The Illinois Legislature has been trying to pass a mega gambling expansion bill all year. I don't know your position on this matter, but we are praying a solution can be found with no gambling expansion.
If additional casinos are legalized for Chicago and other communities, six racetracks are transformed into land-based casinos, and existing casinos are expanded, gambling addiction will increase, and the number of people on the self-exclusion list will likely increase dramatically. Security guards at Ontario Canada's gambling facilities are expected to commit each face to memory, and then charge those gamblers with trespassing if they're found in the facility. This would be impossible. I ask you to require a mandatory ID and help the openly admitted gambling addicts to do what they cannot do for themselves--keep them from entering the casinos to gamble.