In one local Casino, it seems everybody minds their “own business”. The old, the youth, and some very influential government officers all meet at the place to try their luck. They concentrate their minds in the machines and a greeting is often ignored.
As some are busy playing, others, perhaps whose money is finished, sit next to the last machine they were playing at, praying and wishing they could get another loot to spend.
In some instances, the loser might not have paid rent, school fees or bought food. As gamblers jostle for machines, they have one thing in their minds - to leave the Casino as rich people.
A middle-aged man in green overalls, who has been busy for the past thirty minutes leaves to go and buy more playing time. However, he comes back to find a woman playing in his station. He does not hesitate to vent his frustration on the woman. “This is my machine. Could you please leave my station? I want to continue playing.”
Looking at the frown on his face, the woman does not waste time. She knows the rules and she moves to find another slot machine. However, within a short time, the man has folded his hands and is starring at “his machine”.
It is evident that the money is finished and perhaps he is contemplating selling his overall, shoes, his car, if he has one, or going home to auction his furniture or maybe his wife and children.
Those who transport the gamblers home after they lose money or win big have an interesting story to tell. One taxi-driver, who preferred not to be mentioned by name, related the agony that is gambling.
His eyes show great sadness when he relates the gambling stories he has come across during his 10 years of being a taxi-man. None of the stories has a happy ending.
“You cannot get rich from gambling, believe me I have seen this many times. It’s a bad habit, once you start, you cannot stop. I cannot begin to tell you how gambling destroys many lives. Some of the gamblers are my customers, sometimes I take them home for free after losing all their money,” he said.
He told Mmegi that gambling is so bad that it sometimes comes between families, especially married couples. He knows of a particular marriage that went sour because the wife was a gambling addict.
“The woman was here all the time, she would leave to go take a bath and come back,” he said. The woman ended up selling the Audi car her soldier husband bought her.
“The husband has come here many times and they always fight, because she does not want to go home,” said the taxi-man.
That is just a story of one. He knows many lives destroyed by gambling. Take the example of the man who sold everything he had to finance his gambling habits.
“The man had about two cars, and a house, and he sold all, with a belief that he will win big, but now he has nothing and still comes to the casino,” he said.
“This is just one example, there are many of them who sell even little things, just to get a few bucks to throw into the machine. We see a lot here,” he said.
Even those who hit jackpots every once in a while, end up putting it back into the machines. Another taxi-driver who did not want to be named said he sometimes feels pain for gamblers after they have lost all their money. He sometimes takes them home for free. He has a number of them selling everything they own in the name of gambling. He knows of a gambler whose business shut down after he failed to pay his employees for months.
An employee of one of the casinos said some gamblers lose everything but still hang around. Such people believe that gambling is a nice thing and one can make one rich overnight.
Crasch, as he preferred to be called, is a former employee of a casino in Gaborone. He said he had seen many lives deteriorate because of gambling. He said most people start by going to gamble with friends. “When most of them win in their first visit to the Casino, they always come back hoping to make more money. As they lose the money, they insist that they want to recover their money until they start visiting the casino everyday,” he said.
Crasch said some gamblers do not go home while others do not even go to work. He cited an incident in which a gambling addict did not go home for weeks sleeping and taking baths in the hotel toilets until the management was alerted. The woman eventually disappeared. He said in some instances, a gambler would spend most of the time staring at the slots’ machines when their money is finished.
“They just stay there and start coaching other people and advising them on which machine they should play,” he said. He revealed that when casino employees try to tip or warn the gamblers about the dangers of their habit, they get a hostile response.
He said he had seen many families break due to gambling while some gamblers have attempted to commit suicide. Crasch warned that gambling is a bad habit difficult to kick.
The California Council on Problem Gambling (CCPG) website says gambling is divided into two; There is pathological and compulsive gambling. Pathological gambling is recognised as a bona fide mental disorder. It was defined as a progressive disorder characterised by a continuous or periodic loss of control over gambling. It is a preoccupation with gambling and obtaining money with which to gamble despite adverse consequences.
Once a gambler develops this habit, they can go for days without sleep and food and sometimes they do not even bath. Pathological gamblers might also develop sweaty palms, rapid heart beats, nausea or queasiness especially when gambling or when in a situation that reminds them of gambling.
However, some pathological gamblers are more interested in escape than the gambling excitement and are free to speak about their quest for oblivion. The diagnosis of pathological gambling include loss of control, tolerance, withdrawal, increasing preoccupation, gambling to escape problems and dysphoric feelings, jeopardising family, serious financial difficulties requiring a bailout as well as engaging in illegal activities to finance or pay gambling debts.
For many years, there has been talk of a Gamblers’ Support Group in Botswana but to date it has not been established.
The National Casino Control Board is either dysfunctional or is just a toothless dog. Mmegi only got a response from the board after waiting for a month.
The board said it sensitises people on ‘responsible gambling’ through a radio programme “Tsa Baji Bareki”. “The board would, however, like to do more through other means to ensure that consumers are fully protected against themselves and unscrupulous operators; the current policy restricts gambling to hotels of International Standards as a way to minimise access to gambling by people who can least afford to gamble,” the statement from the board said.
The board said family members have requested that their spouses be barred from casinos because of irresponsible gambling. But it had difficulties in doing this because it involved a third party.
The new Gaming and Gambling Act is being finalised and through it a Clinic or Counselling Centre will be established to deal with addictive gambling, advertising restrictions and establishment of a national lottery.
