Ex-gambling addicts tell their stories in new book "Broken By Gambling, Reconciled In Hope"

Straits Times, Apr 8, 2011

Ex-gambling addicts tell their stories in new book

By Theresa Tan

PAULINE lived in fear that her gambler husband, who had stolen money from two companies to pay his debts and was jailed once for embezzlement, would kill himself and his family to end all their misery.

The sub-contractor was hooked on jackpot machines, soccer bets and 4-D, betting up to $1,000 a week on 4-D alone. At his lowest, he owed about 20 loan sharks over $40,000, and banks and relatives another $100,000.

The father of two boys had often expressed thoughts of suicide. When Pauline, a 39-year-old clerk, showed him a newspaper article of a gambler who had killed his wife and their two children, before jumping to his own death in 2005, and asked him pointedly: 'You are not going to do this to us, are you?', his only response was a wry smile.

In desperation, she dragged him to a support group run by the One Hope Centre, a Christian group that helps gambling addicts and their families. Through counselling and witnessing how others managed to rebuild their lives, the 41-year-old, now a cabby, has broken free of his addiction.

These and 14 other real-life accounts of how gamblers kicked the habit have been compiled in a new bilingual book, Broken By Gambling, Reconciled In Hope. Published by the One Hope Centre and written by Lianhe Wanbao correspondent Woon Wei Jong, 38, it is on sale for $10 at major bookshops, such as MPH and Times Bookstores.

Of the book, Pastor Tan Lye Keng, the centre's 57-year-old executive director, said: 'We want to tell people that there is still hope, that people can stop gambling and mend their family relationships. Most of the gamblers we see are hopeless, desperate and suicidal. And some have tried to kill themselves.'

With two casinos in Singapore and more gamblers asking for its help, he said the centre wants to raise awareness of the pitfalls of gambling. The two support groups it runs weekly now see about 60 to 70 people per session, up from 40 to 50 before the casinos opened.

Gambling is not a 'play-play thing', as many people view it, but a menace that can destroy your life, he added. Those who learnt this the hard way include high-flying professionals and a top student who had to quit school to work to pay off his gambling debts, who was featured in the book.

The former gifted education programme student, now in his 20s, was known to his friends as the 'Teenage God of Gamblers'. He picked up online soccer betting in Secondary 3. He graduated to online casino games and lost more than $100,000 in a year.

Soon his mounting losses made him resort to loan sharks, and he had to quit school to work to pay them off. In desperation, he stole from his company, got caught, wrote a suicide note and prepared to end his life. Fortunately, his father stepped in as he was about to step off the ledge.

After counselling at the One Hope Centre, he realised he did not want to 'squander his youth' away. Now in the Air Force, he shared his story to warn other young people about the dangers of online gambling.

With the two casinos a short ride away, Pastor Tan said he is also concerned over the growing number of retirees and housewives - who were not gamblers to start with but got hooked after visiting the casino 'for fun'.

The Institute of Mental Health, which treats gambling addicts, says it is seeing more gamblers seeking help. Its latest figures, which are for the financial year ended March 2010, saw 217 new gamblers, three times the number - 71 - two years before that.

However, with those figures, it is probably too soon to examine the casinos' impact given that Resorts World Sentosa opened only in February last year, while Marina Bay Sands' soft-launch was in April last year.

Malaysian jailed for theft, cheating casino (Singapore Casino related Crimes)

Straits Times dated 6 April 2011, Wed

A MALAYSIAN gambler lost all his money and later used a $100 chip belonging to another patron for his own gain.

Yesterday , Goh Wing Wal , 30, was sentenced to a month in jail for theft and cheating the Marina Bay Sands casino last month.

A district court heard yesterday that the salesman came here as a tourist and visited the casino at 10am on March 12.

It was not known how much money he had with him but, by 2pm, he had lost it all.

About 20 minutes later, he saw Mr How Yew Hock placing a bet, using a $100 chip, on the Sic Bo table. Sic Bo is a game of three dice.

When Mr How went over to the next table to observe the action, Goh moved the chip from Mr How's bet on 'Big' to the number 'Four'. When two dice turned up with that number, Goh won $200 and left the table $300 richer.

After Mr How noticed that his chip had gone missing, he informed the croupier and the closed-circuit television footage revealed the identity of the culprit.

Goh, who was still in the casino, was handed over to the police. There was no money on him. He had lost it all.

He was jailed two weeks for theft and a month for duping the casino into paying him for the wager with the stolen chip.

District Judge Roy Neighbour ordered that the jail terms be run concurrently, so the total sentence is a month.

The maximum penalty for theft is a $10,000 fine and a three-year jail term while that for cheating is a $10,000 fine and a 10-year jail term.

Manager jailed for $20,700 criminal breach of trust (Casino related crime)

straitstimes.com, dated 10 January 2011, Monday

Reported by Elena Chong

============================================

A LOCAL shoe-chain executive who gambled away $20,733 from the outlet's daily sales collections was jailed for nine months on Monday for criminal breach of trust.

Michael Ng, 25, an Indonesian, was working at Charles & Keith's Suntec outlet at Temasek Boulevard when he committed the offence between Sept 13 and 24 last year.

The court heard that he was supposed to bank in the daily sales of the company's outlet but instead used the money to feed off his gambling habit.

He would take the daily proceeds and 'try his luck'' at the casinos. But he lost all the money.

He could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.

The Straits Times, Jan 4, 2011

Casino exclusion process now faster

By Ng Kai Ling

FAMILIES will now be able to get their relatives with gambling problems barred from casinos, just two weeks after they apply for it.

This comes after changes to the application process by the National Council of Problem Gambling (NCPG).

Acting on feedback that six weeks was too long, the NCPG has more than halved the processing time by ensuring that a hearing date is set for each case once someone contacts the council for a family exclusion order.

Earlier, families and subjects of the exclusion order would have to go through counselling, and have a detailed 25-page report on their circumstances submitted before a hearing date could be set.

This part of the process is often the most time-consuming, said Tanjong Pagar Family Service Centre senior counsellor Charles Lee, because problem gamblers can be uncooperative and delay the hearing by skipping appointments.

With the new process, a hearing date is set even before the counselling is done, and regardless of whether the gambler turns up or not, a decision can be made based on the family's input.

If the application is approved, an exclusion order is issued immediately after the hearing. Following which, case workers can recommend follow-up counselling sessions. Families can also ask for them after the order is given.

The NCPG started testing out the process early last month after frustrated families complained about the time it took to have a family exclusion order issued.

One family member, Mr Richard Ho, wrote to the Straits Times Forum page on Nov 27 last year, saying that the process to get a ban on one of his relatives was too bureaucratic and long.

NCPG chairman Lim Hock San said a lot of waiting time has been cut by having the counselling session and hearing on the same day.

'We want to help families better manage the tensions and conflict from an application for family exclusion. Yet, we have also learnt that families feel an urgent need to stop problem gambling.'

Mr Lee recalled a recent case of a husband gambling away the daily $30 maintenance money he was supposed to give his wife and three kids.

'In this case, the faster approval definitely helped as we could stop the man from gambling away more money,' he said.

To meet the shorter timeline, the NCPG has deployed more manpower, starting last month.

So far, the council has received 410 applications for family exclusion orders since April 2009. As of Dec 31 last year, 297 problem gamblers have been slapped with family exclusion orders.

Unlike cases of voluntary self-exclusion, where gamblers get themselves banned from casinos with immediate effect, family exclusion orders take longer to process.

Mr Lee said applications often get delayed because the parties involved would postpone their counselling appointments or simply not show up.

'Now they get a hearing date immediately and a letter from the NCPG informing them about it. They treat it more seriously. They know that it is important and that it is a time for them to tell their side of the story,' he added.

PRIMARY SCHOOL LEAVING EXAMINATION RESULTS: Rosyth boy tops PSLE

Info Source: www.straitstimes.com dated 2010-11-25

ALEX Tan Kian Hye of Rosyth School is the top Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) pupil this year with a score of 282.

Fu Wan Ying from Tao Nan School had the second highest score of 279.

The top Malay pupil is Aquilah Dariah Mohd Zulkarnain, of Coral Primary School who scored 278, while the top Indian pupil is Muhammad Hameem, of Henry Park Primary School with a score of 274, and the top Eurasian pupil is Lendermann Monika Jiz-xin, of CHIJ Our Lady Queen of Peace, with a 269 score.

A total of 45,049 Primary 6 pupils sat for the PSLE this year. Of these, 43,826 pupils, or 97.3 per cent, can go on to secondary school.

Among the others, 63 per cent are eligible for the Express course, 22.1 per cent for the Normal (Academic) and 11.7 per cent for the Normal (Technical) course.

There are 1,223 pupils or 2.7 per cent who did not qualify for secondary school. These pupils can choose to apply to Assumption Pathway School (APS) or NorthLight School (NLS) based on recommendations of their primary school principals, or spend another year in Primary 6 to consolidate their learning.

NEA website has all info on dengue

The following letter is form the ST Forum of the Straits Times dated 25 October 2010, Monday.

WE THANK Mr Lim Hai Leong for his interest in dengue control and sharing his ideas with us ('Dengue cases: Review the reporting of these numbers, as interpreting them can influence how we tackle the problem'; Oct 13)

The National Environment Agency (NEA) publishes the locality of dengue fever cases on its website to alert residents in the area to rid their premises of breeding grounds. Information on what residents can do to protect themselves and family members from dengue fever is also available on the website.

We agree with the writer that information such as the number of people who have recovered from the disease or the disease infection rate is useful, but more so for disease monitoring and control purposes by the authorities.

The NEA has two key criteria for clustering of dengue cases. A dengue cluster is formed when two or more dengue cases occur within 14 days from the onset of their fever and the likely places of infection are within 150m of each other.

A cluster will be closed only when no new case is reported after 14 days from the onset of fever of the last dengue case.

The clustering of cases is important as it helps in vector control management. We assure Mr Lim that our inspections on the ground at Telok Blangah extend beyond the cluster radius by 50m to 100m. All common areas frequented by dengue cases in the cluster are also inspected to eliminate possible sources of infection.

Thus far, no fatality has been reported in these two clusters and one of the clusters has closed.

S. Satish Appoo
Director Environmental Health Department
National Environment Agency

School closure: Help S'poreans who have no protection

The following letter is from ST Forum of the Straits Times dated 25 October 2010, Monday.

MY SON was one of the students affected by the closure of the School of Applied Studies ('Private school closes suddenly'; last Friday).

At a meeting last Wednesday evening, the school's chief executive and representatives from the Council for Private Education (CPE) and a bank had briefed students and parents on the situation.

I hope the CPE and the relevant authorities would resolve some of the issues raised and ensure that the promises made by the school's CEO are kept.

The Straits Times report quoted a CPE spokesman as saying that the private school was working with the insurance providers and escrow banks to work out how much money would be returned to students.

There are a number of Singaporean students who paid their fees last year before the implementation of the fee protection system, and they are left with no recourse.

One such student, the child of a single parent, paid $32,000 (total sum for courses leading to a degree) after taking a bank loan. Now, the parent does not know how to get the remaining fees back, and the student has just a diploma.

Another Singaporean student who paid $36,000 last year is also not protected under any system.

When the new fee insurance system was implemented, such students should have been provided protection. Will anyone be punished for this oversight?

Steps should also be taken to improve the new protection system and plug its loopholes.
Upon checking my son's insurance certificate sent to us after he had completed two semesters, I noted that the limit of indemnity for the fee paid had been under-declared by the school.

Lim Siew Imm (Ms)