Georgia ‘link’ between gambling and drugs

BBC NEWS
Published: 2009/11/28 01:34:52 GMT

With just weeks to go until a controversial new law on casinos takes effect
in Georgia, health workers in the capital, Tbilisi, say they have uncovered
a worrying link between gambling and drug addiction. Tom Esslemont reports.

It’s the middle of the afternoon and Tbilisi’s busiest casino, the Ajara, is
already packed with gamblers.

It is full of grizzled chain-smoking men. They sit hunched at tables under
gaudy crystal chandeliers chatting over the din of lounge music and the
constant whirl of roulette wheels.

Managers at the Ajara say they receive 1,100 clients every day.

Gia Shengelia has just embarked on another night in search of luck. He takes
a long drag on his cigarette before telling me that gambling is not his only
addiction.

"Gambling is a much stronger drug than real narcotics," he says. "I used to
take all kinds of hard drugs. You can stop using drugs – like I did – but it
is impossible to stop gambling."

Gia, 55, says it took him years to give up drugs: Others are finding it
equally hard.

Fees slashed

Across town, therapists at the Anti Violence Network – one of the city’s
best known drugs NGOs – say the gaming trend is fuelling the city’s drugs
problem. And the new law, they say, could make the problem worse.

>From 1 January 2010, licence fees for new casinos will be slashed from as
high as $3m (£1.8m) to as little as zero in designated locations.

Drug counsellor Manana Solokhashvili says that will be bad news for the
clients of her drop-in clinic and for the 13% of Georgians who are
officially unemployed.

"The problem faced by gambling addicts and drug addicts is the same," she
says. "The disease is addiction. More than 90% of the people who come to our
clinic looking for therapy are addicted to both."

The new law will encourage more people to fall on harder times, rather than
encourage them to try to find a job, she adds.

Statistics show there are 270,000 drug users in Georgia, which has a
population of 4.3 million.

Popular pastime

Soso, one of Ms Solokhashvili’s patients who says he is in his thirties,
says gambling perpetuated his drug habit.

³ Had I stopped gambling I would have stopped using drugs sooner ²
Soso Former drug and gambling addict
"If I hadn’t gambled I would have seen things differently," he says. "The
addiction is the same. Had I stopped gambling I would have stopped using
drugs sooner."

You don’t have to spend much time in the streets of Tbilisi to realise how
popular gambling is in this society.

Although there are only three casinos in the city, there are more than 300
amusement arcades.

In one central street the colourful hoardings of five or six of them light
up the street with their bright red and yellow neon lights advertising their
alluring names – Las Vegas, Jackpot, Monte Carlo.

Few of them will let me in, largely because the managers say they are angry
at being portrayed in the media as drugs havens and crime spots.

After some negotiating the manager of Maxi Slot club – who asks to be called
Irakli – accepts the offer of an interview.

State income

Inside the dingy room there are a dozen slot machines, where a couple of
young men are busy trying their luck.

³ We want to see more tourists not only come to Tbilisi but to our Black Sea
towns too. That is why we have dramatically cut casino start-up costs ²
Lasha Tordia United National Movement
I ask Irakli whether he thinks he has a responsibility towards young people,
given the allegations made by the Anti Violence Network.

"People come here for entertainment or maybe to win money," he says. "It has
nothing to do with drugs. In any case, one business leader like me is not
responsible for the whole trend.

"But, gambling is a good income for the state – so that’s probably why the
government wants to encourage it."

He has a point. Just as Georgia is liberalising its gambling laws, others in
the region are tightening them.

Azerbaijan banned gambling in 1998. Armenia has also announced that it
intends to restrict gaming to three regions. Earlier this year, Russia
confined casinos to far-flung parts of the country.

No downside?

Clearly, the Georgian government has the economy in mind as it prepares to
sign into law the amendments. It says its new legislation will attract
foreign gaming companies and much-needed investment to less visited resorts
and towns.

Lasha Tordia, a member of the ruling United National Movement, does not see
a downside to the law.

"I personally don’t see the link between gambling and drugs," he says. "What
we are looking to do is encourage regional development.

"We want to see more tourists not only come to Tbilisi but to our Black Sea
towns too. That is why we have dramatically cut casino start-up costs."

There is no proven link between Georgia’s drugs culture and its people’s
gambling habits. Of course, the new law might sustain addictions like Gia’s
by simply offering more places and more towns in which to have a flutter.

But back at Tbilisi’s most popular casino, no player looks ready to quit. As
they fiddle nervously with their pink, brown and blue plastic gambling chips
the spinning roulette wheels whirl round adding to the cacophonous,
intoxicating atmosphere.

Story from BBC NEWS:
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Published: 2009/11/28 01:34:52 GMT

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