I wrote awhile back about a Leticia Garcia in Arizona and her bingo bust. She was running marijuana to finance her gambling and so she gets a recurrent role in my column for having so many issues (law, drug, betting.) I wrote about the legal and drug issues already. Let’s see what we know about the gambling problem.
There is an American Society on Aging training that includes the following facts:
An estimated 65% of the $3.7 billion profit by Atlantic City casinos in 1997 came from the pockets of people over 60 (New Jersey Helpline).
Older problem gambling has devastating results on lives, including loss of a lifetime of saved income, and suicide.
Americans gamble more each year than they spend on groceries ($600B+ annually) (US Bureau of the Census, 1997).
Older adults now form the largest group of annual visitors to Las Vegas (The Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Authority).
Between 1999 & 2003, calls to California problem gambling hotlines from older adults increased 25% (California Council on Problem Gambling).
Between 1975 and 1998, the over 65 age group experienced the greatest increase in gambling, both for lifetime (from 35% to 80%) and for past-year (from 23% to 50%) (Gambling Impact and Behavior Study, 1999).

Older adults are healthier, wealthier and expect more entertainment than previous generations, maybe because they are less likely to live with family members, maybe because they have the same response to advertising pressure as anyone else with a TV. Availability is the biggest factor in gambling becoming a problem. If a casino opens nearby, if your state has lottery, racetrack or card rooms, all make it more likely the locals will spend their money on supporting “the house.” There is a reason the casinos in the desert send buses to pick up seniors in LA. It’s not because they want to show you a good time. They want all your money!
Lotteries and larceny is at the heart of a second huge problem for older adults. There are crooks out there calling, writing and emailing large numbers of older adults to find just a few who will send the supposed tax payment or some other deposit to receive a huge payoff on the Irish, Canadian, or some other non-existent prize. There are no international lotteries that you entered without knowing it. There are laws against selling them to you if they did exist. It’s a trick.
The challenge is to complete the quote I started earlier. Healthier, wealthier and…