1-800-GAMBLER

An article appeared in today's Charleston Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.com/News/200807290142 under the title of W.VA gambling help line logs 7,000 calls. It was short and sweet and to the point, so take your time and go read it for yourself. Really, go ahead I'll wait...

I had some questions related to the subject of the article, but this required me to go do a little research for myself. Some facts about the 1-800-GAMBLER gambling help line and the costs associated with it have me scratching my head. Here are some of my observations. Oh but first just a pet peeve and maybe it's not absolutely insisted upon by any style manual but would it be possible to just use the "WV" 2-letter abbreviation for the state of West Virginia? I mean, it's only been that way officially since 1963 when the United States Postal Service adopted this little time-saver. What say we give it a whirl after 45 years? What do you think?!?

On to the facts of the article:

Fact #1 Since the toll-free help line 1-800-GAMBLER was set up 7,000 calls have been received!

In all fairness the "unnamed" author did mention that the hotline was created eight years ago, but fails to point out that this totals out to an average of 875 callers per year.

Fact #2

"Calls come not only from gambling addicts, but also their family members or loved ones."

Of course there is no break-down of the statistics for repeat callers (although that's difficult with an annonymous hotline I suppose, so I'll let that one slide. But it is absolutely conceivable that somewhere among those calls was a repeat caller. And it's possible that a concerned family member called about a loved one only to provide the number to that same person with the problem who later called for themselves.

Fact #3

Kanawha County accounted for 1,141 of the calls.

That leaves 5,859 calls, to be accounted for, but also means that only 143 calls per year were received from residents of Kanawha County on average per year.

Fact #4

Wood County (my home) came in second in calls to the help line.

Of the 55 counties of West Virginia, Kanawha was 1st, Wood was 2nd. Kanawha had "more than twice" the number of calls than those which came from Wood. So, let's call that less than 570. (570.5 X 2 = 1,141) So, in the county of Wood the gambling epidemic is causing under 72 people on average per year to call in to the help line.

And further the remaining 53 WV counties accounted for 5,289 calls to the help line. That totals out to just under 100 callers per county in the total eight years or just under 13 calls per year per county.

Fact #5

Nearly half of those who called (or were the subject of the call) had full-time jobs.

Which means just over half of those who called didn't... I don't know what that means, but I thought I'd point it out.

Fact #6

1,176 of the callers reported income of $50K or more.

I'm assuming they meant income per year, not lifetime... but the statement also means that 4,683 callers had less than $50K incomes.

Fact #7

4,348 callers said that video poker machines were the main problem/cause of their gambling habit.

That leaves only 606 callers suffering from something other than those damned video poker machines. Funny, there are no fingers pointed at the WV Lottery, Keno, dog or horse racing, or Bingo for that matter.

But frankly we all know the real culprit here don't we people. All those problem gamblers out there are also compulsive liars as well, for their real problem isn't the video lottery or any other form of "state sponsored" and "state sanctioned" gambling. No, my friends the real culprit is, come on say it with me... ONLINE POKER!!! C'mon you know it, and I know it. My goodness, why it'll be the ruination of this great land. Our monthly NDPT tournaments (conspicuously in Wood County) are obviously skyrocketing the problem gambling of our area. And damn near everyone of those degenerates makes at least the reported $50K per year. Coincidence? I don't think so. And I just know that my grinding away at the micro limits online is just gonna break me and what will my family do then?

Here are some of my conclusions:

The 7,000 callers over the last 8 years of the roughly 1,818,470 residents of the State of WV, according to the U.S. Census Bureau website http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/54000.html make up roughly .0038%. Sadly, per year the 875 callers on average make up .0004811% of the population.

Okay, in all seriousness addiction is a bad thing and I get it and I don't wish it on anyone. But I'm sorry these numbers just don't add up to much of anything but maybe some sort of whacked out "new math."

The deeper I started digging the more obsessed I got about it all and I came across some other eyebrow raising tidbits. I wandered over to http://www.1800gambler.net/ and started crunching some numbers. Available on this website are 3 years worth of annual reports from the Problem Gamblers Network of West Virginia (a.k.a. the 1-800-GAMBLER folks.)

In Calendar Year 2005, the Problem Gamblers Help of West Virginia spent the following:

Outreach, Advertising, Public Awareness $770,594.00

Diagnostic Assessment and Outpatient Treatment/Therapy $296,826.00

Administration $263,418.00

Training (new clinician; continuing education; clinical supervision $89,192.00

In FY 06, the Problem Gamblers Help of West Virginia spent*:

Outreach, Advertising, Public Awareness $440,274.00

Diagnostic Assessment and Outpatient Treatment $267,613.00

Administration ( rent, utilities, supplies, etc) $252,434.00

Training (new clinician; continuing education; clinical supervision) $80,183.00

Help-line Personnel (salaries, benefits, payroll taxes, travel) $309,339.00

*This does not include administration fee taken by the Department of Health and Human Services.

In FY 2007, the Problem Gamblers Help of West Virginia spent*:

Outreach, Advertising, Public Awareness $472,130

Diagnostic Assessment and Outpatient Treatment $226,780

Administration (rent, utilities, supplies, etc) $216,519

Liability Insurance $21,920

Training (new clinician; continuing education; clinical supervision) $84,989

Help-line Personnel (salaries, benefits, payroll taxes, travel) $303,926

*This does not include administration fee taken by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The three year available breakdown of funding from the website adds up $4,096,137.00. Let's call that roughly $10 Million for the 8 years that the 1-800-GAMBLER help line has been set up, having helped 7,000 callers at a cost of a little over $1,400 per person. Hmmm.

Regards,

cheer_dad