pokeraddiction

A KNN Special Report

Poker machine addiction causes hardship, heartache ... and fear

KILDARE GENERAL, 23 September 1999: by Brian Byrne & Trish Whelan. Addiction to poker machines in County Kildare has split marriages, alienated children and caused depression and fear as well as severe financial loss to people affected.

In a shock interview with KNN, victims have told of being afraid to do their shopping because they can't pass amusement arcades, of spending dole cheques in an hour, and of being threatened by money-lenders they resort to for money to feed the machines.

"I nearly lost everything, including my house," says Rachael (names in this article have been changed to protect confidentiality), a mother of teenage children who have in their own way borne the brunt of the problem. Another mother, Rebecca, told how her dole money would 'be gone in a hour' and if it wasn't for friends she and her children would have starved.

"I even gave up my job because of my addiction, and I got into debt way over my head and more," Rachael says. "I was in there morning, noon and night. Every penny you have with you goes into the machines. I nearly got killed borrowing money because I couldn't pay it back ... the lender came to my house and threatened me in front of my children. I could have ended up in hospital ...

"My relationship with my kids deteriorated because they couldn't trust me with money. They used to come down to the arcade and plead with me: 'Please leave and come home with us, Mum'."

Rachael spoke of the addiction generating its own social life, with fellow players talking together of the 'wins' and 'losses' and hopes of a Royal Flush. "But you'd see them hanging their heads going out the door after they'd lost all their money. You might help a friend out who had lost everything ... and then you'd feel angry when you had nothing left yourself to play with."

Rebecca doesn't go to the arcade any more - she found a mechanism by which she was forced to stay away. But she said 'it kills her' to pass the place. "I also used to do scratch cards ... you dream of winning - it really does your head in."

Rachael is also fighting to stay away after five years of addiction, having got help from an organisation in town which she prefers not to name, though she says it is NOT Gamblers Anonymous.

"I had to get help - I was near rock bottom. They helped me to get out of debt. The agreement was I couldn't even go to Bingo, couldn't play the Lotto ... and now I don't go to a lot of places where there is something to tempt me."

She remembers the first time she ever played a poker machine, in a pub where she put in a £1 and won £20. She and her then husband used to play poker socially and this seemed a harmless diversion. "And I never put more than £5 in a pub machine ... I'd be embarrassed because I'd feel everybody was watching me. But then I found the arcade, and the first time I went in I got a Royal, and after that it became a regular thing. There's not the same embarrassment in the arcade, because everyone there is doing the same thing."

Rachael looked seriously for help after she blew her £200 fund for her children's Christmas gifts last year. "I wanted to make more money to get the kids more than I could afford. Instead, what I had was gone in an hour. I said: 'That's it'."

Though it wasn't, really. She says it's like alcoholism and that she'll 'never be cured'. "The temptation is always there. It's like a big magnet and it's calling me in ... I've fallen back a few times. Even one day I went in to help a friend to try and get her out, and ended up losing all the money I had on me. Now I try and get my messages down town done before the place opens ... or I send somebody down to do them for me."

It is illegal for payouts to be made on winning hands on poker machines, and all such machines have signs saying: 'For Amusement Only'. KNN has been told of a number of operators in County Kildare where payouts are allegedly made on poker machines, using a system of players building up credits for winning hands. These are merely allegations, but it is hard to believe that so many people pour £1 coins into such machines for hours on end without some expectation of return. In the past, gardai in Newbridge have warned operators who paid out winnings that they would be prosecuted if they didn't remove them. But it is a difficult matter to police.

"We can only act where there there is a specific complaint made," says Sergeant Con O'Sullivan of Newbridge Garda Station, headquarters of one of the two Garda divisions which cover County Kildare. "And the difficulty is that people don't make complaints because they need the places for their addiction. And we also have a problem in that we need a court order to go in and search the place, and we can't get that without strong 'probable cause'. We can send in a couple of people undercover, but then they're there in an illegal capacity and we can't use what they see."

The gardai say they will act if specific complaints are made, but without these their hands are tied. However, Sergeant O'Sullivan has promised to put necessary resources on the job if enough complaints are made directly to the gardai to show that what has been described so graphically above is as big a problem as it seems to be.

For people like Rachael and Rebecca, it is the biggest problem in their world. For people who bring their children to the arcades because they can't stay away it is equally big. And for those children brought up in the seductive harpies' music of poker machines, in the chain-smoked atmosphere of the arcades, it could be the beginnings of a terrible future.

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