By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — State health officials told the state Lottery Commission on Wednesday they plan to use a portion of the lottery’s start-up budget to launch a program to help problem gamblers, though it may be nearly two years before comprehensive services are available statewide.
The nine-member commission also voted to hire Michael F. Hyde of Benton as the lottery’s internal auditor at an annual salary of $118,500. Hyde has been the state Highway and Transportation Department’s chief auditor for the past six years.
David Laffoon, director of the Arkansas Department of Human Services’ Division of Behavioral Health Services, told the commission the division will use $200,000 of the lottery’s start-up budget to begin putting together a problem gambling program.
The legislation setting up the lottery requires that at least $200,000 from unclaimed prize money be used annually for treatment of compulsive gamblers and education about compulsive gambling disorder. Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue said he wants to have help available by the time ticket sales start on Sept. 28, so the lottery will provide borrowed money to get a program started, pending legislative review.
The Legislature has approved a $6 million loan to the lottery to cover its start-up costs, to be repaid through lottery revenue.
The lottery law says the state Health Department is responsible for helping problem gamblers, but Laffoon said the Health Department and lottery officials asked DHS last month to take over that responsibility because DHS is the state agency that deals with behavioral health issues.
“We asked (lottery staff attorney) Ms. (Bridgette) Frazier when we had to have this program up and running, and she said, ‘By the time we sell tickets,’” Laffoon said. “This was three weeks ago. After we got over our heart attacks, we started working on it.”
Laffoon said funding from the lottery will be used to train counselors; establish a statewide network of treatment centers, counselors, Gamblers Anonymous groups and other services; create a Web site; establish a system of collecting data and measuring outcomes; and educate the public about problem gambling. Grants to pay for training are expected to be available by Nov. 1.
Creating a network of counselors will take time: Only two people in Arkansas are now trained to treat gambling addiction, and only one is certified in that area. Laffoon said the target date for comprehensive treatment services to be available statewide is July 1, 2011.
From the time the games start, however, Arkansans will be able to call the national hotline of the National Council on Problem Gambling for help, Laffoon said.
The hotline now receives about 325 calls per month from Arkansans, but only 20-25 calls are from people in need of treatment, Laffoon said. Many of the calls are referred to out-of-state counselors, he said.
The commission met in executive session for more than two hours Wednesday before voting to hire Hyde, who will start as internal auditor on Sept. 17.
Hyde was one of seven candidates the commission interviewed last week for the position.
Also Wednesday, Lottery Procurement Director Bishop Woosley said three companies have submitted bids to provide surety bonding for the lottery’s retailers: The Bond Exchange of Little Rock; Tupelo. Miss.-based BancorpSouth; and Stephens Insurance of Little Rock.
The commission authorized Frazier to explore the possibility of adopting a bonding system like Oklahoma’s. Oklahoma charges retailers a $50 bonding fee per location and acts, in effect, as its own bonding agency, Frazier said.
The commissioners also viewed a lottery “play station,” a plastic stand holding tickets and information. Officials said the stations are now being installed at retail locations across the state.
Also displayed were samples of the games’ first scratch-off lottery tickets. The tickets will go on sale just after midnight on Sept. 28, Passailaigue said.
Passailaigue told reporters after the meeting he remains confident the lottery will start on time.
“We’re going to be tight with a lot of these deadlines, but we feel good,” he said.
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A countdown to the lottery’s launch can be found online at www.myarkansaslottery.com.
