"A Family's Stuggle: Fighting Gambling Addiction" Part 2

"It escalted to the point to where the family member was going everyday, some days spending 8-10 hours, at Greenetrack," says the West Alabama woman. For many people, Greenetrack was one of the places in West Alabama that brought jobs and money to one of the poorest counties in the state. But for others, it was a place where family members lost themselves.

The West Alabama woman says, "I dont know what in this circumstance what could have been done. But at times, it seemed desperate for a little money to go. To be that controlled by. Lying and things like that to get it." And as the woman's family member was getting deeper into her addiction, Greenetrack was becoming a bigger headline in the news.


"A lot of the hype is, is it electronic bingo game or is a slot machine. But when you really think about it is that issue? Aren't lives the issue? It's not whether it's bingo or not," says the woman. But when she saw Greenetrack close, she got was happy.

"This problem has been going on in our family for some years. I am Christian, and I started praying for God to shut down Greenetrack. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'm sure there are hundreds of Christians that are thinking the same thing. And he listened and answered our prayers," says the West Alabama woman, "I do have compassion for the people who lost their jobs. I don't mean to sound hard, and not compassionate towards them. but the greater travesty is the thousands of lives that are destroyed through gambling."




Greenetrack CEO, Luther Winn, agrees with the woman from West Alabama that addiction is a disease, but Winn says Greenetrack has done what it can do.

"I think it's jsut like an alcoholic, drug addict. You are going to have people with problems, shopping. Just being irresponsible with money. We run across those people every once and awhile and we tried to assist them whenever we could," says Winn, "We also work with family member who have a member who has an addiciton problem. We have several names of people who have come in and actually asked to be barred and we've complied with that. But we have to be careful and they gotta be where the person them selves want to try and get help and in those cases we try to get them help and try to cooperate with the individual and their family."

But the woman from West Alabama says getting that help is often difficult and expensive.

"A person who's addicted most of the time, can't stop themselves. Like you need therapy for drugs or alcohol. And we searched and searched for some therapy for people who are addicted to gambling, and we couldn't find anything in our area, and that's sad because it's a great need here in West Alabama."

By WVUA's Matt McCoy July 28th, 2010 6:20 p.m.

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News & Politics

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