Gambling growth raises concern among some Asians

Chatting in Cantonese on a Saturday morning, elderly and middle-age Asians and Asian-Americans line up to board a bus outside of the Kam Man supermarket in Quincy.

On board, they pay $13 for a round-trip ticket to the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut, a deal that comes with a $20 credit for the casino’s buffet, as well as other bonuses.

The Oriental Travel bus leaves three times a day, every day, from Presidential Plaza on Quincy Avenue, where Kam Man is an anchor for the city’s roughly 22,000 Asians and those from other South Shore towns.

As Massachusetts welcomes casino gambling – Plainridge Park Casino opened in Plainville last month – at least one out-of-state casino is marketing specifically to the Asian population. At the same time, help for problem gamblers among Asian speakers has disappeared.

A 2013 study by the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling found that Asians as a group are less likely to gamble than the rest of the general population. But Asians who do gamble are more likely to be problem gamblers.

“Recent immigrants are at especially high-risk for gambling addiction. Facing language barriers and limited social venues, many turn to gambling to cope with stress or to seek excitement,” the study said.

Yet, help for Asians with gambling problems is hard to find.

The Chinese language help line that’s advertised at the nonprofit Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling’s website is out of service. No one at the main office could speak Chinese or redirect a call to someone who could.

A video on gambling addiction provided by Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling, Sunshine Travel and Mohegan Sun was shown for a time on casino buses departing from Quincy and Boston, but it’s not anymore.

Marlene Warner, executive director of the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling, said its Asian program, which operated from 2006 to 2011, was cut from the budget. Reinstating it depends on the amount of money available in a new gambling addiction fund created as part of the state’s Expanded Gaming Act. Reinstatement also depends on whether the council determines a need.

“We don’t know enough about how Asians gamble,” Warner said. “We were getting feedback that we were focusing on Asians too much. Not focusing on Latinos and African-Americans,” she said. “We weren’t keeping records of what we were doing.”

More information on Asian gambling may come soon from the University of Massachusetts-Boston, which is researching the issue.

“In some ways, as this population grows, and as legalized gambling grows, it’s critical that there be culturally appropriate, sensitive and accessible treatment for Asian-American communities,” said Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass-Boston.

On any given day, Asian-Americans make up roughly 16 percent of the men and women who visit Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, Cindy Liu, the casino’s Asian marketing coordinator, said.

“Compared with five, 10 years ago, yes, the Asian market is bigger than it used to be,” she said.

The casino uses Asian-focused advertising, public relations, public and private events and shows to reach Asians, Liu said. There are some games particularly popular with Asians, including Pai Gow tiles, a game of Chinese dominoes. The casino redesigned its website last spring to make it friendlier to Asian customers, Liu said.

Chien-Chi Huang, former manager of the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling Asian program, said casinos appear to be marketing to vulnerable populations, sponsoring Boston-area events that Asian-Americans attend in great numbers, such as Chinese New Year festivals.

“Most people don't have a gambling addiction but some do, and oftentimes they’re in denial,” said Huang, who now directs the Asian Women for Health organization in Boston.

“It’s a serious social problem here. It’s really hard to adjust to a new country,” she said. “I remember I talked to a cook for a restaurant. He said gambling was the only thing he had to get social activity,” she said.

As gambling buses picked up passengers near the Kam Man supermarket, some people inside expressed concern about new casinos in Massachusetts.

Sharon Cheng, 21, who was selling bubble tea at the supermarket as a casino bus unloaded passengers outside, said one of her uncles had a gambling problem.

“People tend to gamble away their savings and jobs, borrowing money from other people,” she said.

A shopper, Don Sun, said gambling is popular among Asian people. “We should do whatever we can do to stop it,” he said.

Victor Sok, who was coming from dinner at China Pearl, said casinos are one of the few social outlets for immigrants.

He said some Asian people believe that numbers can hold lucky or unlucky meanings. “They don’t sit in the fourth seat,” he said, because the Chinese sound for the number four sounds similar to the word for death.

“They’re afraid to admit to a gambling problem. It brings stigma to the family,” said Sok. “They work so much, they don’t have time to think about it and realize it’s an addiction.”

Natalie Ornell earned her master’s degree in Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley.