PALM DESERT, Calif. -- The last time casino promoters approached the Joslyn Senior Center with coupons for the elderly, director Michael Barnard greeted them with a new rule: He would only accept discounts for meals, not gambling.
 
 
 Local casinos also have offered to send buses to and from the center once a week. Barnard has said no thanks.
 
 
 And just a few weeks ago, for the first time, the center hosted a seminar filled with tales of retirees who squandered their savings on slot machines.
 
 
 "This issue is coming to the forefront," Barnard said, "so we're getting more aggressive."
 
 
 Across the desert West, and in other retirement havens and casino capitals around the country, senior care providers and community groups have begun taking tougher stands against a problem they say is becoming ever more serious: elderly gambling addiction.
 
 
 Some are urging casinos, which relentlessly court retirees, to back off. Others are waging new campaigns to warn seniors of the perils of excessive gambling. And all are worried that they are only at the beginning of what could be a difficult struggle as the giant baby-boom generation grays and casinos keep opening.
 
 
 In California, where the elderly population is expected to double to nearly 7 million in the next two decades, counselors on problem gambling are touring the many retirement communities here in the Coachella Valley with films and lectures on gambling addiction. Tribal casinos are expanding to the point that soon California may have more slot machines than any state except Nevada.
 
 
 In Arizona, where tribal casinos also are flourishing, a nonprofit group on problem gambling is meeting with leaders of senior centers. The group also is asking centers to put place mats on their lunch tables containing tips on responsible gambling.
 
 
 In New Jersey, where buses unload thousands of retirees every day on the casino strip in Atlantic City, groups are going to churches and other civic gatherings to tell adult children of elderly gamblers about the dangers the pastime poses to their parents.
 
 
 And in Florida last month, specialists in problem gambling came from across the country to begin developing a think tank devoted to examining elderly addiction.
 
 
 "We used to focus only on addictions to alcohol or medication, but now we're looking closely at gambling," said Michelle Rainier, a director of the Office on Aging in California's Riverside County, which held its first conference on the issue this spring. "But it's going to be hard to intervene and slow this down. There's a lot of denial out there among seniors."
 
 
 Few doubt that the elderly are gambling in growing numbers. A national survey of senior citizens two years ago found that about half of them had gambled "recently." That figure, according to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, is twice as high as it was a generation ago, when hardly any states had any form of legalized gambling. Today, nearly every state does.
 
 
 Researchers also say the nationwide surge in gambling over the past two decades is more apparent among retirees than any other age group. Most of them do not end up wrecking their lives from the habit.
 
 
 But in Arizona last year, about 40 percent of the calls to a hot line for problem gamblers came from senior citizens, nearly twice as many as two years earlier. "It gets higher every year," said Paula Burns, director of the Arizona Council on Compulsive Gambling.
 
 
 "Most of them are lonesome," said Barbara, 69, a retiree from San Diego who would not give her last name because she is recovering from a serious gambling problem. "Going to a casino is a way to be around people. It usually just starts off as a social thing, but then they start throwing a few quarters in the slots, and then more, and then some of them really get hooked. You can see it in their eyes. They get desperate to win. It's easy to get caught up in. And the excuse is that they are not hurting anyone but themselves."
 
 
 Meanwhile, casinos are trying harder than ever to attract retirees: Some are dispatching buses to senior centers or vans to trailer parks -- and timing their offers for free rides to coincide with the arrival of monthly Social Security checks. Some are staging midday entertainment to suit elderly tastes. Casinos also are using direct mailings to entice seniors with stipends to play slot machines or offering discounts for food, drinks or lodging. In some instances, the more customers gamble, the better the bargains.
 
 
 The gaming industry defends most of the overtures and contends that the majority of seniors who come to casinos view the outing more as an inexpensive opportunity to socialize than an attempt to win jackpots. Industry leaders also say they are taking significant steps to promote responsible gambling.
 
 
 At the new Agua Caliente Casino in nearby Rancho Mirage, staff members are being trained to look out for elderly customers gambling to extremes. Brochures on problem gambling are stacked next to cash-advance windows, and hot line numbers for addiction counseling are posted near the casino's 1,000 slot machines.
 
 
 The casino's marketing director, Trey Jordan, also said that it only mails promotions to affluent seniors who live in the Coachella Valley.
 
 
 "There probably are casinos trying to grind all the money they can out of them," he said. "But we do everything we can to have them play responsibly."
 
 
 Advocates for the elderly say more must be done. Their emerging counterattack looks much like the presentation that Tom Tucker, a leader of the California Council on Problem Gambling, brought here to the Joslyn Senior Center earlier this summer.
 
 
 It was his latest stop in a nine-city tour of the Coachella Valley, where the number of residents at least 65 years old grew by 47 percent in the last decade. The region, 130 miles east of Los Angeles, is a desert scape of palm trees, golf courses and roadside restaurants offering early-bird specials. In the winter, retirees from across the country swarm here to bask in balmy weather. In the scorching summers, many retreat to the air-conditioned comfort of local casinos.
 
 
 Once a month, in a new project financed by Riverside County, Tucker visits a senior center to deliver the same urgent message. He is careful not to condemn gambling, but stresses that many retirees are turning to the habit to escape loneliness or pain and instead are falling into financial ruin.
 
 
 The elderly are a group especially vulnerable to gambling addiction, Tucker said, for two simple reasons: "They have time and money."
 
 
 At one point during his seminar, Tucker flipped off the lights in a small conference room and showed a video titled "Game Over." It featured retirees speaking with anguish about how gambling had taken over their lives.
 
 
 "I had too much leisure time."
 
 
 "I felt like it had become my machine."
 
 
 "I was in total denial until one day I couldn't meet my bills."
 
 
 On the narratives went. Tucker's audience listened intently. But only a few elderly residents had come to the session, despite the offer of a free lunch. One was Madelyne Sklar, a retiree who said she visits local casinos a few times a month and does not bet or lose much money.
 
 
 "But I am noticing more people around here who seem to have a problem," Sklar said. "I have friends who go to the casinos all the time. Some people have nothing better to do. I came out to this because I think a lot of people really need a better idea of what the difference is between gambling that is okay and gambling that is too much."
 
 
 The trouble that Tucker has getting retirees to attend some seminars is not uncommon. Across the country, similar groups say that many senior citizens are reluctant to admit they have a problem or are not comfortable in self-help sessions. Some groups are trying to lure retirees to seminars on gambling addiction by promoting them vaguely as workshops on health.
 
 
 "They have made it this far making their own decisions, so you have to be careful about telling them what they should or shouldn't do," said Barnard, of the Joslyn Senior Center.
 
 
 And since many senior centers make day trips to casinos a staple of their activities, it is not easy to reverse course and disparage gambling.
 
 
 "Casinos are very attractive to senior centers," said Burns, of the Arizona council. "It's easy programming -- you don't have to plan anything."
 
 
 For many retirees, there is no better way to spend a day. As they gamble in greater numbers, stigmas once associated with the habit fade. And to many senior citizens, casinos are safe, clean places that lavish them with attention. One recent weekday at the Agua Caliente Casino, retirees lined nearly every row of slot machines looking entranced by the spectacle of blinking lights, ringing bells and jingling coins.
 
 
 Gambling counselors say seniors with addiction problems often develop them after retirement, when other social outlets are harder to find.
 
 
 "Our society is not prepared for so many elderly people living longer and healthier with more money," said Terry Elman, a director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling in New Jersey. "The solutions are not very far along."
 
 
 
 Originally Printed 07/08/01