Published: April 15, 2007 11:19 pm      

Ex-gambler: Casinos can cause problems

Arnie Wexler once was so hooked on gambling that he often kept a radio playing under a pillow while having sex with his wife so he could keep up with games on which bets were riding.

Wexler caught the fever at the tender age of 7, flipping baseball cards for wagers, pitching pennies and playing pinball machines. He even ponied up to bet on cockroach races.

At 14, he won the princely sum of $54 in a bet in his first visit to a race track.

Within three years, he was stealing comic books from a candy store to feed a gambling habit that plummeted him to the depths of life.

It was a tumble so painful that in desperation he wished his pregnant wife would die while going through a miscarriage as a solution to his problems. At one stage, a bookie wouldn’t accept his bet, so he promptly sold his car to a neighbor.

By the end of his personal tragedy, he owed 32 people the equivalent of three years’ pay and entertained thoughts of killing himself.

“I thought that I was the only one living the way I was living and doing the things that I was doing,” he recalled.

“I found out that I was not alone and that I could stop gambling with the help of the other people. I had hope for the first time.”

Not in 38 years has he laid another bet.

But in three decades-plus since he broke off his ties to gambling, he has helped problem gamblers follow his successful path of freedom.

“I’m not running around the country to stop gambling,” Wexler said.

Yet, as voters in four West Virginia counties prepare to vote on legalizing casino-style gambling at dog and horse tracks, Wexler says the state needs to brace itself for more problems.

“It’s inevitable,” he says.

Wexler points to a Gallup Poll taken after New Jersey added casinos in 1978. Before then, 31 percent of those quizzed admitted to playing illegal numbers. Once a lottery came online, the number of participants shot up to 81 percent.

For added proof, he points to 15 weekly meetings of a gamblers’ support group before gambling grew more sophisticated. Once casinos arrived, within three or four years, there were 512 weekly sessions.

“The fact is, when you add gambling, or expand gambling, you’re going to get more people trying it and more people get addicted,” he said.

Many eschew gambling on moral grounds as long as it is illegal, but legalization can change attitudes, he said.

“There are people who wouldn’t go to a house of prostitution in West Virginia,” he said.

“Let’s assume the state of West Virginia said, ‘We’re now making prostitution legal.’ A percentage of people now will try it because it’s legal. Same thing with gambling.

“I never gambled in a casino in my life. I got in plenty of trouble without gambling in a casino.”

As states become enmeshed more in gambling revenues, Wexler said voters need to remember that 5 percent of the residents in a gambling county are likely to get hooked.

“My advice is to put 5 percent of all the money coming in for treatment services, education and prevention. That’s the least they could do. Good people can play and not have a problem. But don’t delude yourself that you’re not going to have problems.”

Nowadays, Wexler works with addicts from all walks of life — even judges, state senators and an editorial writer in New Jersey who became ensnared once casinos were added. In Florida, one woman he is helping pilfered $1.7 million in less than three years from a chamber of commerce where she worked.

As gambling pressures intensify, embezzlement and other white-collar crimes naturally follow when a gambler exhausts his own resources, he said.

“You’re paper will be running articles about those people soon,” he predicted, if casinos are authorized.

“It usually takes about a year or two.”

Wexler and wife Sheila run a national hotline to help problem gamblers. After he appeared on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” in the last decade, there were 5,900 immediate calls. In three days, the number had soared to 10,000.

Can one get addicted after one bet?

“There’s no way of telling ahead of time,” he said. “People say to me, if you bet on the Final Four, will you get addicted? We don’t know. The answer is, if you took 100 kids to a bar and gave them a shot of beer, or took 100 kids and let them smoke a marijuana cigarette, or 100 kids and let them play poker or some other game, we don’t know which would get addicted. But about 5 percent in those areas would get addicted.”

Most people can simply walk away after the first bet, he said.

“But you’re playing with fire when you start out on the games,” Wexler warned. “You don’t know what’s inside of you.

“When you start off with gambling, you want the money and you want to feel good about yourself. Once you’re hooked, it’s about the action. It’s not about money any more. As you get into desperation, your family doesn’t mean anything. Your kids don’t mean anything. Your wife doesn’t mean anything. Jobs don’t mean anything.”

In fact, he said, life telescopes to a singular obsession — that next bet.

“You’re totally hooked, and you can’t stop,” he said.

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com