My March 5, 2007 blog entry,
March Madness documented the increase in the number of calls made this time of year to the Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling Helpline. The Executive Director of the Council on Problem Gambling Rose Gruber says March tends to be a record-setting month for people calling in to seek help for addictive gambling. During 2005, the hotline recorded 10,049 calls, with 10% or 1,095 coming in March. Numbers for March 2006 are unavailable, but leading up to March Madness, February 2006 the Hotline recorded over 1100 calls.
I pointed out the significant social costs of gambling to the state of Wisconsin. The average debt of callers to her hotline is $43,000, up from 37,000 last year. Wisconsin has 332,000 serious problem gamblers, up from 265,000 last year, a significant increase.
The USA TODAY reports, “the Road to the Final Four, the nation's fourth biggest gambling event, is paved with personal and financial ruin.”
“If the NCAA wants information on the human toll from gambling, it should ask Sandi Snook. The 41-year old mother from Charles City, Iowa, says she lost two 17-year-old sons, directly or indirectly, to the sports betting addiction of Meng-Ju "Mark" Wu, a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Wisconsin.
Dane County (Wis.) prosecutors said Wu, furious over a $15,000 sports betting debt, shot Snook's son Dustin Wilson to death in his sleep June 26, 2003, in Verona, Wis., with Wu's bookie Jason McGuigan, 28, and Dan Swanson, 25. McGuigan was the real target, says Bernie Coughlin, Verona's police chief. Wilson and Swanson, McGuigan's roommates, were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hours before his trial was to begin, Wu hung himself in jail Jan. 17, 2005.
Wilson's death devastated his brother and best friend, David, and Nov. 19, 2005, David Snook locked the door of his bedroom and hung himself in his closet. “
You can read the entire USA TODAY article
here. The Fond Du Lac Reporter newspaper has a report on the lost productivity that results from March Madness. You can read the article
here.
