DATE: Thursday, June 26, 1997               TAG: 9706260369

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   57 lines

LOTTERY TICKETS BEAR NUMBER FOR GAMING ADDICTS

Beginning Tuesday, Virginia Lottery tickets will bear a toll-free number for compulsive gamblers who need help to kick the habit.

A Dallas company, the Texas Council on Problem and Compulsive Gambling, will offer a 24-hour counseling service for chronic bettors willing to pick up a phone to seek aid, said Paula Otto, a Virginia Lottery spokeswoman.

Lottery ticket buyers will see this message on the back of their instant game, Lotto and Big Game tickets: ``If you or anyone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-888-532-3500.''

Texas Council is one of two companies that answered a Virginia Lottery request in May seeking interest from organizations experienced in offering gambling counseling.

Texas Council was established by the Texas legislature in 1992, when the Lone Star state started its lottery program.

In the five years since then, Texas Council has signed hotline contracts with Michigan, Mississippi and Nevada.

Since Sept. 1, the beginning of the company's fiscal year, Texas Council phone banks have fielded 207 calls from Virginia and 8,046 nationwide, a company spokesman said.

Virginia Lottery will pay the Texas company $30,000, plus telephone expenses until July 1, 1998, when the contract - by state law - expires. The General Assembly may decide to continue the hotline service, if funding is available, Otto said.

Legislation calling for the gambling hotline was approved by the General Assembly in February and was sponsored by State Sen. Mark L. Earley, R-Chesapeake, and Del. Robert M. Tata, R-Virginia Beach.

The man who started the bill rolling through the legislature was Harvey Markman of Virginia Beach, a recovering compulsive gambler and a behind-the-scenes activist in helping addicted local bettors for the past eight years.

While Markman succeeded in persuading lawmakers to have a hotline number printed on lottery tickets, he said he is unhappy that the Virginia Lottery Board couldn't be persuaded to broaden its efforts to help problem and compulsive wagerers address their problems.

The Virginia Lottery raises more than $326 million annually for the state and is an important part of biennial budget planning.

Markman has offered his services as an unpaid gambling consultant to the state lottery program, but was politely put on hold Wednesday after a brief appearance before the Virginia Lottery Board in Richmond.

``He offered his expertise to the board and the board thanked him and said he may be contacted, along with another Gamblers Anonymous man from the Richmond area,'' said Otto.

Markman said later Wednesday: ``I feel I should have some input. It's for somebody who has a gambling problem, not just the lottery.''

Markman has been asking the legislature for seven years to fund a program for problem gamblers, but legislators kept putting him off, insisting no money was available for such a program.

Until Earley and Tata took up his cause a year ago, Markman's efforts seemed to be at a dead end.

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