Kowalski, a garrulous politician who served as Ralph Klein’s “minister of everything” in the early 1990s and who is now the Speaker of the House, insists that the introduction of vlts was to curb “grey machines,” the illegal gambling that had sprouted up across the province. Charter planes were heading off to Las Vegas every weekend on legal gambling junkets. Both factors prompted the government to become a gambling regulator and entrepreneur, Kowalski claims. To placate hotel owners hit by a recent 5 percent provincial tax, Kowalski offered them a consolation prize: 15 percent of the government’s share of vlt revenues, a sum that now averages $20,000 a machine per year.
While studying the mechanics of buying and installing vlts in Las Vegas, Reshke, who had never really gambled before, couldn’t help but play a slot machine. “I put in a few bucks and won $2,000 over three or four days.” The win gave Reshke what the machines were designed to produce: an ecstatic feeling that he ultimately spent the next decade chasing. Recent studies have shown that the same part of the brain stimulated by vlt gambling is also triggered by cocaine and morphine.
In the spring of 1992, Kowalski launched Alberta’s vlt invasion with little fanfare and no real public debate. The province located 435 machines in eighty-four bars and lounges, but Kowalski’s ultimate goal was to plant 8,600 terminals throughout Alberta. “It was virgin territory,” says Kowalski, who claims that he was unsure the province would make money from vlts or if people would play them. According to an Alberta Lotteries annual report, the machines generated $17.4 million in 1992 – 1993. By 1995 – 1996, gaming revenues had grown to $487.8 million, thanks largely to vlts. “Never once did we talk about the social impacts of vlts,” revealed one government official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It was always how much and where. Those were the only considerations.” In fact, while academics, citizens’ organizations, and others produced numerous studies, the province itself has never done a community-impact assessment on electronic gaming.
Dr. Robert Hunter, a Las Vegas pioneer in the treatment of problem gamblers, dubbed vlts “the crack cocaine of gambling” at a 1990 conference in London, England. Not only did the machines induce a trancelike state, Hunter argued, they could also turn an occasional player into a full-blown addict within two and a half years. In contrast, racetrack gambling takes twenty years to make an addict and rarely leads to suicide. Hunter also asserted that vlts had the power to change the fabric of society, and by the mid-1990s several academic studies had identified problem gamblers as toxic to their families, social circles, and work peers. Unlike alcoholics, electronic gaming addicts often spend their family’s entire life savings.
Reshke’s habit began innocently enough. He started by playing video poker two or three times a week after work at Rosie’s Bar and Grill or the B-Street Bar in Edmonton. Jacks was one of his favourite games, and with a Coors Light in hand he quickly learned how to spend $20 a minute and play hundreds of games an hour. “You could double up your bet by pushing a button,” claims Reshke. Whenever he won, lights flashed, whistles blew, and people looked at him with envy. “Next thing you know you’re looking for your last dollar to pay the bar bill.” Within a year he was addicted.
By 1993, Reshke had eaten through his own savings and was borrowing heavily from friends or maxing out his credit cards. Divorced and without direct parental obligations, on many nights he’d play for six to ten hours and lose $500. Reshke routinely gambled with his girlfriend, who was similarly seduced by vlts. One Christmas they couldn’t wait for family guests to leave so they could rush out to play. “That’s how ridiculous it got.”
Albertans began noticing the highly addictive nature of vlts and their capacity to erode community values. One study showed that problem gamblers spent nine times more per month on the machines than did the nonaddicted. Critics accused the government of moving like a speeding train on vlts and using economic vampirism to pay down government deficits. In Rocky Mountain House, a community of about 6,500 people southwest of Edmonton, the machines brought in $2.5 million in 1996. Meanwhile, the three-year average for lottery-supported grants that the town had received was only $200,000. In northern frontier communities like High Level, with transient populations working in the oil-and-gas sector, vlts were a veritable gold mine, producing revenues in excess of $200,000 per machine per year. Southern agricultural communities such as Pincher Creek averaged a comparatively paltry, but still significant, $61,000 per machine annually.
In 1994, Reshke lost his house in Millwoods after he fed his mortgage payments into vlts. Banks and friends were reluctant to provide more credit, and shortly thereafter he split up with his girlfriend. He started to drink heavily as he gambled. “When you play vlts and drink, your inhibitions go out the window.”
Despite his galloping addiction, in 1995 Reshke landed a new job, Assistant Deputy Minister Finance and Administration with Alberta Transportation. His tasks included accounting, budgeting, information technology, and contract management services for the department. It was a clear promotion, but the added responsibility took its toll. By now Reshke was living to gamble. Lunch hours he spent at the bar getting lost in the twilight world of the machine. He would lose hundreds of dollars in twenty minutes, think a win was just around the corner, and then phone the office to say, “Something’s happened. Cancel my appointments.” He knew that in the randomly programmed world of vlts there are no corners, but the seduction was too strong, the addiction too deep.
Reshke fit the psychological profile of a problem gambler. “By and large the people who become addicted are unhappy with life’s circumstances,” notes Garry Smith. And Reshke had his share of unhappy losses. His mother died of cancer when he was four, and his father, a harsh disciplinarian, died when he was ten. In 1982, his marriage collapsed. Like most problem gamblers the civil servant probably had a predisposition to view the machines as a coping strategy, says Smith. A confluence of hurts and pains makes some people especially vulnerable, and vlts and slot machines are digital opportunists hunting for low self-esteem, depression, and other human weaknesses.
