Jun 27, 2011
IN THE ST NEWSPAPER TODAY
More leave home to flee gambling debts
Number seeking help to locate missing spouses triples so far this year
By Elizabeth Soh
Two weeks too long for exclusion order?
SHOULD a temporary exclusion order be issued to problem gamblers?
That is the question posed by Madam Chia Guek Hong, who wrote to The Straits Times Forum last Friday, saying a lot of damage could be done during the two weeks it takes to process an exclusion order.
This is what some people apply for - from the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) - in a bid to stamp out their family members' gambling problems.
Madam Chia wrote in to say that she recently found out that her 58-year-old husband had been borrowing money to gamble at the casinos, chalking up more than $17,000 in debt. She and her son applied for a family exclusion order.
'To my horror, I found out that the process takes two weeks. We can only pray that he will stop going to the casinos because, in the intervening days, he could pile up a lot of debt,' she wrote.
She suggested that a temporary exclusion order be issued to prevent further damage.
It was reported in January that Chinese men aged 30 to 50 make up the bulk of those excluded from the casinos, at their own request or that of their families.
Exclusion orders were introduced in April 2009, and the process initially took about six weeks to complete.
The families had to go through counselling and a social report had to be completed before a hearing date would be fixed and the order issued.
However, after extensive feedback, the process was modified last December and shortened to two weeks.
Under the current process, a counselling session is conducted by trained professionals just before the scheduled hearing.
A three-member Committee of Assessors, chaired by an NCPG council member and with professionals and grassroots leaders as members, assesses the application. Follow-up counselling will be provided where required or requested.
JALELAH ABU BAKER
The number of spouses whose husbands run away after losing and borrowing large sums of money at casinos is on the rise, the Crime Library says. -- ST PHOTO: JOYCE FANG
ALICE Lim, 56, came home one day in March to find red and yellow paint splashed all over her door, and her husband?s belongings and passport gone from their bedroom.
It was only then that she found out that her husband, Richard (not his real name), owed more than $150,000 to loansharks after chalking up debts in the past six months at the Resorts World casino.
She is one of the increasing number of spouses whose husbands run away after losing and borrowing large amounts of money at the casinos.
The Crime Library here says that they have been approached by 60 spouses this year - up from just 20 cases last year.
Read the full story in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.
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Additional reporting by Jalelah Abu Baker
