Maureen Holleran, a 62-year-old woman from Buffalo, is imprisoned for stealing over $2 million from her employer to fund her gambling addiction. She spent almost $1 million at local casinos between 2020 and 2023, ultimately leading to her arrest and sentencing to 18 months in prison. New York is on the verge of licensing new casinos, which many fear will exacerbate gambling addiction and its destructive consequences for families. Historically, efforts to legalize gambling eroded the original ban established in the 1894 state Constitution.
"I am a compulsive gambler," she told a judge at her sentencing earlier this year. "I let my gambling addiction destroy my life and harm others."
New York is preparing to license three full-scale casinos in or near the city. That is sure to trigger a wave of financial disaster that capsizes thousands of families.
While games of chance are a harmless diversion for most of us, an estimated 4 percent of New Yorkers are at risk of a behavioral disorder, classified by medical authorities as a disease.
These sad souls often suffer in silence, invisible until the addiction leads to bankruptcy, divorce, suicide, fraud.
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