Gambling and the Elderly

The May 24, 1999 issue of Christianity Today carried a frightening article about the way the gambling industry is targeting senior citizens. Here are some excerpts:

According to John Eades, fifty-seven, author of a new recovery book, Gambling Addiction: The Problem, the Pain, and the Pathway to Recovery (Thistle Press), increased gambling among the elderly comes at a huge cost to themselves, their families, and their churches. “As older persons become addicted, they use Sunday as a gambling day, not a church day. Once they’re hooked, they’re ashamed to come back to church. They need to have a spiritual transformation to change.” Gambling is a great way of getting nothing for something.

Compulsive gambling causes people who have no past criminal behavior to suddenly write bad checks or steal money from relatives. Out-of-control bettors lose their jobs, gamble away cars and homes, file for bankruptcy, divorce, go to prison, or kill themselves-all because the addiction becomes paramount in their lives.

Gambling enterprises make it easy and affordable for the elderly to bet. Casinos commission tour companies to arrange low-cost trips to gather senior citizens from specified sites and bus them to the site.

“These trips are sponsored by everybody: church groups, banks, senior centers, retirement centers,” says Dennis P. McNeilly, a forty-five-year-old Jesuit priest who is a psychologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.