gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

The only readily available figures documenting the actual number of people receiving problem
gambling treatment are the statistics tabulated by AADAC, presented below in Table 47. We
must presume that there was an increased demand for treatment in the early 1990s which led
to AADAC expanding its purview to provide problem gambling treatment in 1994.
Unfortunately, however, AADAC has no record of treatment numbers prior to 2003. Rather, all
that is available is a snapshot from 2003 to 2009. Table 47 shows that the number of clients
receiving treatment for gambling problems from AADAC declined from 2003 to 2009 in terms of
raw numbers, percentage of the adult population, and percentage of AADAC clients. Annual
budget documents for Alberta Health and Wellness show that provincially funded addiction
prevention and treatment services cost $61,001,000 in 2003/2004, $67,269,000 in 2004/2005,
$77,444,000 in 2005/2006, $92,644,000 in 2006/2007, and $102,177,000 in 2008/2009. Thus,
the approximate provincial government cost of treating problem gambling in this time period
has been in the range of $5 or 6 million dollars (far right column of Table 47). It is difficult to
estimate the costs of other services such as publicly funded physicians and psychiatrists, but it
would be reasonable to speculate that the cost might be equivalent, such that the total cost of
providing problem gambling treatment in Alberta would be in the range of $10 - $12 million
dollars a year.
Table 47: AADAC Clients Receiving Treatment for Gambling Problems.
Year Number
Number per
10,000
Albertan
Adults
% of all AADAC
Clients
% of AADAC
Budget
April 2003 to March 2004 2013 8.4 8.0% $4,880,080
April 2004 to March 2005 2124 8.7 8.0% $5,381,520
April 2005 to March 2006 N/A N/A N/A N/A
April 2006 to March 2007 2134 8.0 6.9% $6,392,436
April 2007 to March 2008 1883 7.0 6.2% N/A
April 2008 to March 2009 1893 6.9 6.1% $6,232,797
Note: 88% of clients received outpatient treatment in 2006/2007 and in 2007/2008. Also, 52% of clients
treated for problem gambling received treatment for gambling problems alone in 2006/2007 (whereas
37% also received treatment for alcohol, 29% for other drugs, 11% for tobacco), and 49% received
treatment for gambling problems alone in 2007/2008 (41% also received treatment for alcohol, 33% for
other drugs, 13% for tobacco).
Note: Records were not available in 2005/2006 or prior to 2003.
Other Financial Impacts
Although the financial impacts of treating and preventing problem gambling may be relatively
low, there are other important financial impacts with apparently much larger monetary costs.
The 2008 and 2009 population surveys asked people several questions that bear on the
potential financial impacts of problem gambling. More specifically, people were asked: a)
whether their gambling caused them any financial problems in the past 12 months, b) how
much money they have borrowed or obtained from selling possessions in order to gamble in
the past 12 months, and c) whether they had ever filed for bankruptcy because of gambling.
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