More seek help after casino opens

[admin]

MORE people have been seeking help for gambling addictions, or applying for orders to bar themselves or their loved ones from casinos here, since Resorts World Sentosa's casino opened its doors to the public in mid-February.

The number of calls to the National Council on Problem Gambling's (NCPG) helpline has more than doubled over the past two months, jumping from an average of 200 a month before the casino's opening, to 450 in February, and 523 last month.

The nature of the calls has also changed, from inquiries on the nature of problem gambling and its symptoms, to seeking advice on dealing with problems stemming from pathological gambling, NCPG said yesterday.

The number of family exclusion orders where a person bars a relative from entering a casino and self-exclusion orders, where a person bars himself from entering a casino, has also leaped.

Thirty family exclusion orders were filed in February and last month, up from only 19 orders filed between last April when applications opened and January.

About a third, or 17, of these 49 individuals were aged 41 to 50. Forty-one of them were employed, but 23 lived on less than $2,000 in gross personal income a month.

NCPG has also seen a significant rise in the number of self-exclusion orders. It gave out 218 such orders last month alone, a marked increase from the 158 given from last November to January. There were 191 self-exclusion orders filed in February.

More than a third, or 207, of the 567 individuals under self-exclusion orders were aged 31 to 40. Most of them 460 were employed.

Although the growing statistics may be worrying to some, Mr Lim Hock San, NCPG's chairman, sees them as an "encouraging" and "heartening" change, as he said that they mark the public's "strong aware- ness of the helpline and social safeguards" offered.

Thye Hwa Kwan Moral Society, which gives out family exclusion orders at its Tanjong Pagar Family Service Centre, noted that there has been a rush for such orders in the last several months, but declined to comment on the reason for this.

It could not say if more people had been visiting its Moral Gambling Counselling Centre.

The Government has also banned some 29,000 undischarged bankrupts and persons under social assistance from entering casinos here, under the third-party exclusion order. Separately, another 3,500 people with serious criminal records have been barred by the police.