At 32 years old, Bill Kearney was a self-made millionaire who had overcome
the limits of his ninth-grade education to own a thriving business. At 33,
his life began to disintegrate. He was a compulsive gambler who was well on
his way to losing his wealth, his drapery manufacturing business in
Philadelphia and his marriage. “I was using every means possible of getting
money to gamble, except robbing a bank,” Kearney said. Kearney’s spectacular
self-implosion was caused by his lust for the blackjack tables. In the early
1980s, he began gambling at Atlantic City casinos and racked up more than $2
million in losses in only four years. Kearney blames only himself for his
downfall, but wonders whether he could have avoided financial ruin if the
casinos would have sent him a simple statement each month listing his
winnings and losses. Now he is working with Pennsylvania lawmakers on
legislation that would require the Keystone State’s new slot parlors to
issue monthly, credit card-like statements showing gamblers how much they
have spent. “This whole crusade that I’m doing with the statements is to
prevent other people from destroying their lives,” said Kearney, now 55 and
a mortgage broker in Philadelphia. Kearney, who has since stopped gambling,
said compulsive gamblers may be too far gone to be helped by monthly
statements. But the statements would serve as a wake-up call to casino
novices who are at risk of betting over their heads, he maintained. “This is
for the virgins, the sheep who never gambled before,” Kearney said. “They’re
the ones who are going to be slaughtered.”
Facing intense opposition from casinos, the legislation has stalled in the
Pennsylvania Legislature and seems a longshot for final approval, but the
very idea of monthly gambling statements is shaking the gaming industry.
“You can understand why the casinos are against it,” said Frances Gizzi, a
clinical social worker who counsels compulsive gamblers at her private
practice in Red Bank, Monmouth County. “If you’re keeping your gambling in
check, the casinos don’t want that. It would prevent them from making
money.”
Atlantic City casino operators, hoping the proposal will die in
Pennsylvania, are not saying much about the gambling statements while the
issue is being debated by Pennsylvania lawmakers.
“If it ever comes to pass or is ever discussed here, then we’ll comment on
it. But it’s a Pennsylvania issue. It’s not a New Jersey issue,” said Joseph
A. Corbo Jr., president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, a trade
group representing Atlantic City’s gaming industry.
Robert M. Pickus, executive vice president and general counsel for Trump
Entertainment Resorts Inc., argued that monthly gambling statements are
unnecessary and would be too intrusive – a type of “Big Brother.”
“To some degree, in my mind, I would equate these statements to a bar owner
mailing out statements to patrons about how many drinks they’ve had,” Pickus
said.
Trump Entertainment, owner of three Atlantic City casinos, is competing for
a license to operate one of two slot parlors that have been approved for
Philadelphia under Pennsylvania’s 2004 gaming law. Overall, there will be 14
slot parlors and racetrack casinos throughout Pennsylvania, with the first
site preparing to open Nov. 14 near Wilkes-Barre.
Trump Entertainment has been negotiating with neighborhood groups for
community benefits that would make its proposed Philadelphia slots parlor
more palatable. In earlier drafts of the proposed agreement, Trump had
consented to sending out gambling statements to customers on a quarterly
basis. Pickus said the proposal was later dropped at the request of
neighborhood groups after the negotiations focused on other issues.
Kearney said the gaming industry fears the monthly statements because they
would create a paper trail allowing gamblers and their families to sue the
casinos for gambling losses.
Nationwide, the full extent of the compulsive gambling problem is anyone’s
guess. The American Gaming Association, the casino industry’s national
lobbying group, estimates compulsive gamblers represent about 1 percent of
the customers. The New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling says 5 percent
is the figure for Atlantic City’s casinos, with another 10 percent to 15
percent of the gamblers in danger of becoming addicts.
States and some casino companies have programs to help compulsive gamblers
kick their habit. In New Jersey, for instance, gamblers may voluntarily
place themselves on a “self-exclusion list” that bans them from entering
casinos. More than 500 people have signed up for the program, according to
the New Jersey Casino Control Commission.
“New Jersey is very concerned about the issue of compulsive gambling,”
commission spokesman Daniel Heneghan said. “We want to see everyone who
comes here to the casinos to gamble responsibly. We think the programs we
have to help people who have a gambling problem are indeed helping them. And
we’re always open to suggestions for better, more efficient and more
effective ways of doing that.”
Atlantic City casinos must include a toll-free number – 1-800-GAMBLER – in
their advertising to direct people to a 24-hour hot line run by the New
Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling. Each year, the first $600,000 in
fines that are imposed by the Casino Control Commission on the casinos for
gaming violations go to finance the Council on Compulsive Gambling, Heneghan
said.
When Kearney talks of his compulsive gambling, he stresses that he is a
reformed compulsive casino gambler. He says he did not succumb to other
forms of gambling – the blackjack tables were his vice.
Now, nearly 20 years after beating his addiction, Kearney is fighting the
powerful casinos to get legislation passed in Pennsylvania for the monthly
gambling statements.
