Golfer John Daly says he’s lost $50 million to $60 million gambling, and people find it lovable. Two cable channels showcase championship poker, inspiring waves of kids to take up the game and dream of turning 21 and hitting Vegas. Gov. Blagojevich’s ideas for funding education run from legalizing keno to selling off the Illinois Lottery. Some 52 percent of Americans buy lottery tickets, spending an average of $184 per person a year. Gambling is to Americans what food is to the French.
Sadly, some are in financial extremis because of it. Especially harmed, experts say, are the elderly, for whom gambling fills a void created by loneliness and ill health. A 1999 University of Chicago study found that the number of seniors who gamble nearly tripled over 20 years-not surprising since the casino industry markets heavily to them.
Happily, we’re zeroing in on the brain chemistry of addiction. For example, dopamine is linked to the urge to gamble. When seniors take L-dopa, a form of it, as treatment for Parkinson’s disease, some become problem gamblers for the first time in their lives. And a Minnesota study found that the drug nalmefene curbs the craving to gamble. Says Dr. Robert Freedman, of the American Journal of Psychiatry: “The study is emerging evidence that gambling, once thought to be a problem in moral integrity, is instead a problem in brain biology and can be treated successfully.”
