While Maryland voters are gearing up to decide whether a sixth Maryland casino will be built in Prince George’s County this November, the University of Maryland School of Medicine has been working to mobilize problem gambling prevention by establishing a Center of Excellence for Problem Gambling.
The center—the first of its kind in the state—will provide services including training for up to one thousand behavioral health professionals annually, a phone helpline service to refer problem gamblers to treatment, a public awareness campaign, and a statewide prevention education. The center will also emphasize training for current behavioral health providers, including addiction counselors, therapists, social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists.
The original state legislation required an annual $425 fee for each slot machine, which was approved by lawmakers in 2007 to support the Problem Gambling Fund, according to mdproblemgambling.com. This urged the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to give the UMD School of Medicine a three-year, $5 million dollar grant to establish the center in Baltimore.
“If the state of Maryland is going to legalize expanded gambling, then they have the social responsibility piece that goes with that to make sure there’s a safety net,” said Center for Excellence program director and president of the Maryland Council on Problem Gambling Joanna Franklin. “We have the first young generation that is being raised stigma-free from gambling, so we have to put some prevention in place.”
A 2010 survey of Maryland households conducted by the UMBC Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research found that almost 90 percent of the Maryland population has ever gambled in their lifetime, with almost 22 percent gambling monthly and 15 percent gambling weekly in the previous 12 months. Also, people between ages 18 and 29 appeared to have the highest risk for developing gambling problems.
While only a small 3.4 percent of adults over 18 were found to have problem or pathological gambling, the number affected is higher than it may seem.
“That [percentage] does sound like a small number, but in reality that’s about 150,000 people in the state of Maryland,” said Franklin. “The truth is you can double that because each problem gambler affects between seven and 10 people.”
Problem gamblers not only face debilitating problems themselves, but they also place a large burden on their families as well as a much wider community.
“Unfortunately for a lot of the gamblers that are left untreated, it’s the tax payers that are paying the bill for that,” said Franklin.
