Help is available for the very small number of people in Montana who have problems controlling their gambling activity.
The first program established in April 1998 provided a 24-hour toll-free hotline for problem gamblers to call to receive information on help available to them (1-888-900-9979).
That early effort, along with those that have been undertaken more recently, have been financed by the Montana Tavern Association, the Montana Coin Machine Operators Association, the Gaming Industry Association of Montana and individual gaming businesses including Town Pumps and machine manufacturers.
Today, helpline calls are answered by trained counselors who can offer counseling over the phone as well as direct callers to local help sources such as licensed treatment providers, group therapy sessions and Gamblers Anonymous meetings, and will send literature on compulsive gambling upon request.
Gaming businesses have produced posters that displayed the toll-free hotline number and led a campaign to have them placed in gaming establishments.
"We see the posters in a lot of casinos and taverns, but we'd really like to see them in all establishments," said Rich E. Miller, executive director of the Gaming Industry Association.
Further, licensees have been encouraged by business associations to tag all retail advertising with the message: "Please play responsibly."
The educational effort was followed by a project administered by the Montana Council on Problem Gambling (1-406-256-1848) in which people with gambling problems can attend group counseling sessions in 18 Montana cities where they receive help from licensed counselors. This program also has been largely financed by gaming establishment owners.
The help services are promoted through extensive television advertising, yellow pages advertising, billboards and with full-color posters on display in progressive licensed establishments--all paid for by gaming businesses and their associations.
The move toward a private solution for problem gambling has come after three separate legislatures (in 1995, 1997 and 1999) rejected proposals for using existing gambling tax revenues to finance help services. Among the reasons was that gambling tax money was committed elsewhere and that it would be difficult to determine how much money would be needed because the extent of the problem is not well known.
Experts on problem gambling have said those who experience distress must first acknowledge that they have a problem and then agree to receive some kind of treatment.
The Montana Council on Problem Gambling was formed almost six years ago and has been funded primarily by gaming business associations.
The policy of the council, however, is established by a board of directors that includes public officials, representatives of gaming businesses and critics of gambling.
Donna Johnson is the MCPG administrator and is unabashedly proud of what the Montana council has accomplished, and that it has done so without great quantities of money.
"I'm excited when I get to tell this story because it's a wonderful success story," the MCPG executive director said in a Sept., 2004 interview with the Montana Tavern Times.
"I just came back from a national meeting in Arizona, and I'm amazed at how much other councils spend and don't have nearly the program we do," Johnson said, "and we do it by keeping it simple."
Source: Special Reports I,
published and distributed to 180,000 households state-wide, winter 2001; Montana Tavern Times, Sept., 2004, both published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.