Counselors say proposal will water down effectiveness of gambling self-exclusion list

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — With gambling addiction on the rise, thousands of Pennsylvanians have opted to ban themselves from casinos and online sportsbooks. 
Addiction counselors applaud these so-called self-exclusion lists, but they told KDKA-TV they do not support a proposal that they say would water down their effectiveness.
“They start you out with free money to get you started,” University of Pittsburgh student Aiden Kasner. “And once they have you in, they have you forever.”
In the dismal aftermath of a losing football weekend, they call addiction therapists like Jody Bechtold.
“After a Sunday night or a Monday morning, they’re saying, ‘I have a really bad gambling problem, I need help now, I’m ready to address it,'” gambling counselor Jody Bechtold said. 
For problem gamblers, the allure of the sports books or the bright lights of the casino can be too much. So in addition to treatment, 21,000 Pennsylvanians are currently enrolled on the state’s self-exclusion lists: voluntarily barring themselves from entering a casino or placing a bet online.
The number of new enrollees has nearly quadrupled in the past five years: from 1,600 in 2020 to nearly 6,000 this year.
“It is very effective,” Bechtold said. 
But Becthold and others oppose a proposed regulation change that they say will water down the list’s effectiveness. Enrollees can currently ban themselves from casinos for one year, five years or a lifetime. But if they decide to resume gambling, they must actively make an application to the state to get off the list even after those time periods expire. The state wants to eliminate that requirement.
“We were seeing people going into the criminal justice system because they forgot they were still on the list,” Richard McGarvey of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board said. 
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which administers the lists, says some gamblers forget they have to make that application after the time period expires. As a result, they go to a casino thinking they’re free to go but are charged with trespassing.
“It just slipped their mind,” McGarvey said. 
But Bechtold says the requirement protects problem gamblers from relapse.
“At the end of one year, you’re like I really like how my life is,” Bechtold said. “You don’t have to do anything. You just indefinitely stay on the list.”
The requirement only applies to casino gambling, and the control board is taking public input on whether to drop it. But Bechtold wants the requirement to be expanded to online gambling and sportsbooks, which she says alert people when their exclusion period is over.
“They get an email,” Bechtold said. “They get tempted. And they gamble thinking they can gamble responsibly and find out very quickly they can’t. The shame and the guilt is so much that many have actually thought of suicide. So, this can literally put blood on the hands of the state.”
Bechtold and others say gambling abuse has now become an epidemic and now is not the time to loosen protections against addiction.