Oklahoma’s 128 tribal casinos host 46 million visits and rake in $4.5 billion a year – but there isn’t a single billboard in the state that tells problem gamblers where they can find help.
“We can’t afford it. It costs $1,200 to $1,400 a month for a billboard,” said Wiley D. Harwell, executive director of the Oklahoma Association for Problem and Compulsive Gambling.
With $186,000 from the state and about $100,000 from Indian tribes and other donations annually, Harwell’s group operates a hotline, trains counselors and gives public education talks. Billboards won’t fit into the budget – which might explain why the hotline received just 1,020 calls in 2016, even though an estimated 65,000 Oklahoma adults have a gambling problem.
Overall, the Sooner State dedicates $1 million a year – 25 cents per capita – to help problem gamblers. The national average, among the 40 states that spend anything at all, is 37 cents per capita.
By clearing the path for all states to permit sports betting, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week set the stage for “the largest potential expansion of gambling in our nation’s history,” said Marlene Warner, executive director of the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling and current board president of the nonprofit National Council on Problem Gambling. She predicted that problem gambling will increase too, “unless steps are taken to minimize harm.”
Warner would like to see any state that permits sports betting dedicate a percentage of revenues to prevention and treatment. In many states, that is unlikely to happen.
The federal government mostly leaves gambling regulation, and gambling addiction programs, up to the states. Only 17 states pay for one or more full-time staff positions to help problem gamblers, according to a 2016 survey of problem gambling services by the National Council on Problem