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Elders and Casino Gambling: A Growing Problem

Last month Minneapolis journalist John Rosengren published "The Casino Trap" in AARP Bulletin. The story focused on aggressive marketing tactics that casinos are using to attract seniors. Rosengren explained that seniors fill off-peak hours in many of the casinos.

For the second part of Mary Lou Cooper’s series on compulsive gambling in seniors, she spoke with the New Mexico Council on Problem Gambling. The council's annual budget hovers slightly below $1 million. Its funding comes from the gaming industry including state lotteries, tribally owned casinos, racetracks, and nonprofit fraternal orders that  operate slot machines in their facilities.

Elders and Casino Gambling: A Growing Problem

Mary Lou Cooper reports on consumer issues for KSFR as well as on politics and elder affairs. She has worked for the U.S. Congress as well as for the Nevada and Tennessee legislatures, and remains a political junkie. She worked many years for an association of Western state legislatures and was a contributor to “Capitol Ideas,” a national magazine about state government. In 2016 Cooper received a public service award from the New Mexico Broadcasting Association for her KSFR story on Internet romance scams. She has received journalism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and from the National Federation of Press Women. She grew up in Oak Ridge, TN and received her BA from Emory University in Atlanta and her MA from the University of Texas Austin. She also holds fiction and screenwriting certificates from the University of Washington.