A Colorado gambling addiction system has apparently been gathering dust, based on a present audit of the system’s actual use.

Most states that allow for legalized gambling, including Colorado, acknowledge that along with the revenue they raise through gaming, there will also be some dilemmas with addiction.

To that end, programs to minimize those problems and help individuals who develop problem gambling issues are a part that is big of gambling expansion.

But what are the results when the programs designed to simply help compulsive gamblers aren’t actually doing anything at all?

This is the nagging problem currently being faced in Colorado, where an audit of the state’s gambling addiction program found that barely anybody happens to be aided at simply by those efforts. The issues were simply the latest found by lawmakers who have grown increasingly worried about troubling issues inside hawaii’s Department of Human Services.

Numbers Show Little Work Being Done in Program

The numbers associated with the scheduled program are striking. While more than 9,000 people called a national gambling addiction hotline trying to find help from Colorado a year ago, no one in their state was actually assisted by way of a corresponding state system designed to counsel issue gamblers.

Furthermore, only five counselors acquired national certification in gambling addiction over the past two years in Colorado. That’s out of 23 counselors who received money from the state to obtain that official certification.

‘One thing is incorrect with the program,’ former State Senator Jeanne Nicholson (D-Black Hawk), whom requested the audit, told the Denver Post. ‘The purpose was to help people who’d gaming addictions that have been connected with us legalizing video gaming in Colorado. And we don’t think we are accomplishing that.’

This is not the story of the system that is wasting the state’s coffers: the program, funded with a blend of taxes, fees, and fines from casinos in the state, has a budget of only about $100,000 per year. However, the way in which that money was being used has raised plenty of eyebrows.

Most Money Spent on Marketing, Administration

About 83 % of all funds allocated to the program in the 2015 year that is fiscal been for administrative and advertising expenses, also as re payments to the contractor who had been employed to run the system. It’s yet another blight in the record of Department of Human Services Executive Director Reggie Bicha, whom has been under increasing scrutiny from lawmakers this 12 months.

‘I am beyond disappointed within the outcomes of this audit that is particular’ Bicha said to lawmakers. ‘ And extraordinarily discouraged by the ongoing work of our Office of Behavioral wellness in implementing this program.’

Colorado’s gaming revenues have remained relatively flat in current years, because of the state’s casinos bringing in $745.9 million in 2014. That ended up being virtually exactly like the year prior, though taxes collected by the state increased by 2.5 per cent to $106 million thanks to gains at larger casinos.

But that revenue comes at a price, claims State Representative Dianne Primavera (D-Broomfield), one that the state needs to take really.

‘Gambling addiction is among the worst addictions you could have because it results in criminal activity and job loss and people’s homes going into foreclosure and domestic violence and drinking and other types of addictions,’ she said. ‘ This is not the sort of addiction we should brush aside.’

The audit into Colorado’s problem gambling services found problems that are numerous back years. In 2011, their state began paying the University of Denver about $65,000 an in order to let psychology students offer counseling services, which was not in compliance with state law year. And even though those students counseled 116 individuals over the course of three years, only anyone has gotten help through accredited counselors in 2014 and 2015 combined.