The rural counties between Rochester and Buffalo have close access to casinos at Batavia Downs, Hamburg, Niagara Falls and Salamanca. The state has proposed expanding the hours and adding table games at the eight video gaming centers, including at Batavia. That would raise $45 million for a cash-strapped state, Michelle Hadden, the prevention specialist with Problem Gambling, told about 60 people Tuesday at a gambling awareness program.

New York also has joined the multi-state lottery, Powerball, which is expected to generate $134 million for New York this year. The state is considering expanding Quick Draw, expecting that would yield $33 million for the state.

That money comes out of peoples’ pockets, putting many of them in deep debt, Hadden said at Terry Hills Golf Course and Restaurant, which hosted the forum coordinated by the Genesee/Orleans Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.

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The Council on Problem Gambling wants the state to expand problem gambling prevention and treatment programs, and launch a study looking at the impact of the state’s gambling push on families. The Council favors a youth education program about gambling, a program modeled after the DARE program, she said.

The council estimates about 668,000 adults in New York, 5 percent of the adult population, is a problem gambler. However, only about 1,000 people receive treatment for the problem.

There is more help today for problem gamblers than five years ago, when there was only one problem gambling treatment program in the state. Now there are 41. But, Hadden said, 31 counties still lack programs.

The state has increased its budget for gambling treatment and prevention programs from $1.3 million in 2005 to $4.3 million this year. The Council would like that amount increased to $7.24 million, to fund programs in all counties and to do a state-wide “social impact study” on gambling’s impact on families and friends of problem gamblers.

The Council would like bankruptcy courts to find out why peoples’ finances collapsed. Gambling is a likely factor in many of those cases, but Hadden said right now the reason for bankruptcies doesn’t have to be stated.

Joyce Barrett can attest to a downfall through problem gambling. The resident near Syracuse spiraled into $80,000 in debt though her addiction to video poker, casinos and bingo.

Barrett said she neglected her children and strained her marriage with her compulsion.

“I lost myself,” she told the group at Terry Hills. “When I was gambling, I wasn’t Joyce.”

She entered a gambling treatment program 20 years ago today. She paid off her debts over a decade, and her husband stayed by her side.

Problem gamblers need a strong support system to resist their gambling impulses, said Barrett, who found a new career as a gambling treatment counselor.

The growing number of casinos and gambling games in the state results in more problem gamblers, said John Welte, a senior research scientist with the Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions.

He shared results of national gambling studies, one focused on youths ages 14 to 21, and the other on adults.

If a casino is more than 10 miles from their residences, 3.1 percent of the adults are problem gamblers. That jumped to 7.2 percent if a casino was within 10 miles, Welte said in the study that surveyed 2,631 adults in all 50 states in 1999-2000.

The survey shows that problem gambling peaks between the ages of 31-40, and men have a greater tendency for the problem. Lower-income people also reported more problem gambling tendencies and Welte said that demographic sometimes looks at gambling as a chance for income rather than as recreation.

The best prevention program, he said, would be to not expand gambling games and venues. He warned more “liberalized gambling laws” will lead to more societal problems.

Hadden, from the Council on Problem Gambling, cited several programs around the state for using engaging ads in their communities. Those ads tout the benefits of responsible financial stewardship, compared to the risks in a casino and with Lottery.

“Why bank on a bet when saving is a sure thing?” reads the ad from Otsego County, part of the group’s Web site at www.clickthepig.org.

Hadden said the Council is trying to respond to the ad campaigns from Lottery, which took in about $2.5 billion last year. The state, however, only budgeted $4.3 million to assist problem gamblers.

“We need to counter the PR that says gambling is normal and good,” she said.