NEW YORK—One of the more celebrated incidents of people coming to the defense of the bingo card was played out in New York more than a decade ago, when John Cardinal O'Connor had suggested to his priests that they find a “more dignified” method of raising money.

The simple request, reported in the archdiocesan newspaper, was picked up by the secular news media and trumpeted nationwide in such headlines as “O'Connor Says Bingo's Number May Be Up.”

The cardinal received a number of letters from lay people asking him to reconsider and pastors were flooded with questions from long-time parishioners, “Is he going to take away our bingo?”

A number of pastors did follow his cue and close down the games. But that incident was only one of a number of problems arising from the popular game of chance.

Dan Smith, who heads a compulsive gambling treatment center at St. Anthony's Medical Center in St. Louis, said that the Church walks “a fine line” by using gambling such as bingo and casino nights for raising revenue. If a parish is going to conduct such events, there should be an awareness of the dangers to problem gamblers, he said. The lone individual or couple who go five nights a week to five different parish bingos should not be seen as engaging in harmless recreation, said Smith.

“They're probably not going to go bankrupt on bingo, but there are other factors,” Smith said. “If they're out five nights a week, they are probably neglecting some duties in their lives, and they certainly are looking for a way to escape problems.”

He has seen patients who have run up $10,000 in bingo debts on credit cards.

Smith is one of only a handful of counselors nationally certified to train other counselors on problem gambling.

“Gambling has been around a long time. In biblical terms, we see gambling at the foot of the Cross, when the soldiers cast die for the garment of Jesus,” he said.

Bingo is Fine — For Most

The familiar parish bingo night which is good social fun for most and a welcomed fund-raiser for church and school can present dangerous temptations for some people. Without realizing it, these people can be drawn into a pattern of compulsive gambling that may pose grave threats to their health, their finances, and even their lives. They are among a small percentage of Americans who have what is recognized by medical authorities as a mental disorder that produces in them an overwhelming and self-destructive impulse to gamble.

Whether it is the simple Friday night bingo game or a high-stakes roll in Reno, the venue and the amount of money matter less to these people than the thrill of the chance and the sense of exhilaration and escape. In clinical terms, they are in the grip of an addiction that can be treated with a form of the 12-Step Program promoted the world over by Alcoholics Anonymous. Although non-denominational in orientation, the 12 Steps require participants to acknowledge a Higher Being and to admit that they are powerless in overcoming their addiction alone.

The corresponding international organization, Gamblers Anonymous, is not as well known as AA, and compulsive gambling is not as widely recognized as an addiction as excessive drinking. Gamblers Anonymous was formed in 1957, and the American Psychiatric Association has classified compulsive (or pathological) gambling as a mental disorder since 1980.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not object to gambling as such, but warns against abuse and addiction. “Games of chance (card games, etc.) or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement. Unfair wagers and cheating at games constitutes grave matter, unless the damage inflicted is so slight that one who suffers it cannot reasonably consider it significant” (No. 2413).

“The main message we want to get out to the world is that compulsive gambling is truly a disorder that is biochemical in origin, and it is treatable,” explained Dr. Robert Hunter, a psychologist in Las Vegas who specializes in treating gambling disorders. “The problem is that not many people know that this type of gambling is an addiction and the public as a whole does not view gambling as an addiction. As a result, compulsive gamblers tend to look at themselves not as ill but as evil. The people in their lives look at them as weak.”

A person can live a normal life and have a predisposition to compulsive gambling exposed by circumstances later in life, he continued.

‘A Way to Ease the Pain’

Hunter, a Catholic, gets some referrals from the Church in Las Vegas, but he said most addicted gamblers are not likely to show up at Mass on Sunday or knock on a rectory door for help. As a result, most priests and other Church officials are not aware of the signs or the dangers of dangerous gambling behaviors.

A place like Las Vegas, where gambling is legal and casino chips show up in the parish collection baskets, provides more opportunities for compulsive gamblers, Hunter said. However, addicted persons are found everywhere and do not always fit the model of the desperate man at the poker table or the poor soul feeding coins into the “one-armed bandit” slot machines. More than half of Hunter's patients are women and 98% of them play games outside the Las Vegas casinos. Video poker and other video chance games account for the majority of the addictive behaviors.

“Videos are considered by most people lightweight gambling and innocuous, but they can be attractive to compulsive gamblers because they are easily accessible,” said Hunter.

Carol O'Hare of Las Vegas, who describes herself as a recovering compulsive gambler, was addicted to video poker. She has not gambled for eight years and is executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, a state chapter of a national organization.

“For me, it was a coping mechanism, a way to ease the pain,” she said. “When I gambled, something changed in my brain and allowed me to escape into myself. When I gambled, I didn't care, I didn't deal with life and could live out my own fantasy.”

She started playing video poker after her divorce and to deal with the pressures of raising three school-age children on her own. Soon she was spending two to three hours a day and much-needed funds on gambling and was “absent even when I was present to my children.”

A friend led her to a recovery program after she tried to acquire an overdose of tranquilizers.

“I figured that if I couldn't undo what I'd done, at least I could stop doing it for good,” she stated.

She does not practice any formal religion and said that all churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, “need to deal with the addicted person without burdening him with more guilt than he already feels.”

Bingo does not carry with it the high-stakes dangers of casinos. But it still can have adverse effects on individuals and can tarnish the image of the church with people making references to “St. Bingo.” Loyalty to the game runs deep, however; outside some churches, the bingo signs still dwarf the Mass-schedule notices.

www.addictions.net

Smith has developed an Internet Web site on compulsive gambling, www.addictions.net, which outlines symptoms of problem gambling. Symptons include a periodic or constant loss of control over gambling; progressive increase in the amount wagered; preoccupation with gambling, or obtaining money just to gamble; gambling to elevate mood; lying and considering illegal acts to hide or finance gambling; and continuing such behavior despite adverse consequences.

The serious dangers of the addiction became evident in St. Louis after river-boat gambling was introduced in 1994 and two gambling-related suicides followed almost immediately, Smith said.

He pointed out that problem gamblers whose cases are not complicated by drug or alcohol addiction have an excellent chance of recovery. The phases run from the high of winning, the low of losing, the desperation of gambling at any cost, the crash of personal life and the seeking of help, and the hopefulness of recovery in a program such as Gamblers Anonymous.

Carol O'Hare lived through the phases. “It was a vicious cycle. Gambling allowed me to escape the stress of life, eventually the gambling added to the stress, and the only way I knew how to deal with stress was to gamble more,” she explained. “The change came when I faced an emotional crisis and a friend of mine admitted he was a recovering compulsive gambler and offered to help. I finally had to break the denial over my behavior.”

Brian Caulfield writes from New York.