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Ontario Problem Gambling Program Failing

TORONTO – As reported by the Canadian Press: "Ontario's Ministry of Health should hand over responsibility for the province's problem-gambling strategy because not all the money earmarked for prevention and treatment is getting to the people who need it, said a report released Tuesday.

"The report by Stanley Sandinsky, a former chairman of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, urges the province to put the arm's-length Alcohol and Gaming Commission in charge of the strategy to make it more effective.

"…The problem stems from a Health Ministry policy that allows the ministry to use some of the strategy's $36-million allocation to fund substance abuse programs, the report found.

"New Democrat Peter Kormos accused Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government of abandoning problem gamblers -- the very people whose addictions help fill the province's coffers.

"…The province is supposed to dedicate two per cent of gambling revenues to the treatment of problem gamblers, but in 2003-04 only $22 million of the $36 million that was allocated to problem gambling actually flowed through to those services, Kormos said…"

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