Out of luck

Ming Chen left China in 1989, seeking a better life. He started out washing dishes in a Chinatown restaurant and was eventually promoted to chef. Working long hours over several years, he saved enough money to bring his wife and daughter to Boston, purchase a house, and open his own restaurant.

But Chen's American dream has turned into a nightmare. He lost his restaurant. His wife left him, and a second marriage fell apart. His house is facing foreclosure. He has filed for bankruptcy.

And he still owes $380,000 on the half million-dollar debt he amassed.

"How can I end up with nothing after so many years in the land of promise?" he asks. Although Chen, 48, speaks the words aloud, he is talking to himself. And he knows the answer to his own question all too well.

It began with a Thanksgiving Day trip to Atlantic City. Chen had only recently arrived in the United States, and his boss took all the restaurant workers to a casino. Chen, who was lonely in his new country, had never seen anything like it. "I was just very excited and drawn to all the sights and sounds," he says. He won $40, and a devastating love affair was born.

It is people like Chen whom the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling had in mind when it hired its first Asian community program specialist last fall. The Council, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing problem gambling, was concerned about increased calls to its help line from people of Asian descent and from professionals who work with them. The new staffer is trying to reach a diverse population with a long history of recreational -- and sometimes compulsive -- gambling. The Asian Initiative includes holding workshops on gambling with agencies that deal with Asians, increasing public awareness of the issue, and running a helpline in Mandarin. Though the program is for all Asian cultures, it is particularly focused on the Chinese because among Asians they constitute the largest group of "problem gamblers" here, according to council officials.

From mah jong to Pai Gow poker, Sic Bo to baccarat , gambling goes back thousands of years in some Asian cultures and is a widely accepted form of socializing.

"We gamble at birthday parties, we gamble at weddings, at funerals, at festivals, especially New Year's," says Chien-Chi Huang, the council's new Asian outreach worker. "You'll have family members acting as bookies and taking bets." On special occasions in China, adults hand lucky red envelopes filled with money to children, who then use it to bet on their card games.

But some, particularly those who face a language barrier and isolation, are vulnerable to the lure of casinos, which are aggressively pursuing them. Dozens of buses sponsored by Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in Connecticut leave daily from places with high Asian populations such as Chinatown, Dorchester, Quincy, Malden, Methuen, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, and Worcester. The round trip costs $10 to $15, and the casinos throw in free lunch and betting vouchers -- at Foxwoods, it's a $52 value.

The casinos advertise in Asian-language newspapers and send direct -mail "invitations" with coupons to Asian households. They employ Asians to work in their marketing departments and at their gaming tables. On holidays such as the lunar New Year, they hire Asian entertainers and extra buses. And in Asian communities, they sponsor many festivities such as the Dragon Boat and August Moon festivals, the casinos' names prominent in the programs.

Foxwoods, the world's largest casino , has hired Robert Chan as its vice president of Asian marketing : One-third of the casino's clientele is Asian, and 80 percent of the dealers who work in the "Asian pit" speak an Asian language. The casino is adding a Mandarin version of its website next month, and a third Chinese restaurant in an expansion due to open next May.

Gary Border , senior vice president of property marketing , says Asians make up the largest ethnic group at the casino, and the numbers are increasing with immigration. "We really like these folks," he says. "They're very good players, and they contribute quite a bit to our casino. We don't want to see them get into trouble. That's not in anyone's best interests." He says dealers are trained to keep an eye out for those who are losing control at any of the 63 Asian-style games.

Mohegan Sun, where 20 percent of the clients are Asian, also has an Asian marketing department with 30 employees who speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Korean. In July the casino will open a $15 million expansion to its Casino of the Earth , which is geared toward Asians, featuring a Hong Kong-style "street fair" eating area, a new gaming pit with dozens of tables, and a bus lobby, where "guests" will be greeted by bilingual staff.

Many of those who get on the buses are elderly, who have time on their hands and appreciate the free meals and chips. Jenny Ou , a nurse at Manet Community Health Center in Quincy, recently saw an elderly man who, along with his wife, had been evicted from their apartment because he had squandered the rent at the casinos.

Carrie Tang , a Boston-based reporter with the Chinese-language World Journal , says her aunt, who is in her 80s, takes the bus to the casinos three or four times a week to play the slot machines. "That's the only hobby she has," Tang says. "She tells us how much she wins, but she never mentions how much she lost." But Tang knows she has been in trouble for gambling away her monthly Supplemental Security Income disability check.

Tang recently took her daughter to Mohegan Sun to see a popular singer from Taiwan. She was stunned by the number of Asians she saw there. "It's all decorated very Chinese. There are Chinese scrolls hanging from the ceilings and walls, wood carvings. It's like you're not in America."

Mohegan Sun distributes gaming brochures and warning pamphlets about responsible gambling in Asian languages. "We try to be good corporate citizens," says Jeff Hartmann , chief financial officer. Both casinos donate to and meet regularly with the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling.

Some people say the casinos can do more. Huang, of the Mass a chusetts Council, would like them to increase educational and preventive measures and to fund research projects; there are few studies on Asian-American gamblers.

Still, notes Foxwoods spokeswoman Sandra Rios : "We're not here to be a social service agency."

For Ming Chen, the casinos offered an easy, familiar form of entertainment in a foreign land. It was at Foxwoods where he got into trouble. He started with the slot machines and moved on to blackjack. At first he won constantly -- $30,000 to $40,000. "After that, I thought to myself, why should I work so hard? I'm winning. Besides, I couldn't focus at work. I was gambling all the time," he says, speaking Mandarin while Huang interprets.

He quit his cooking job and began making the three-hour round-trip drive to Foxwoods every day, betting as much as $4,000 a hand at blackjack. One day he gambled 24 hours straight. But he began to lose, and it became a vicious cycle: win some, lose more, win again, lose again. When he ran out of cash, he turned to his credit cards. Soon he owed nearly $50,000.

"My income didn't even cover the interest," says Chen . Because he was a regular, he says, the casino gave him a credit line of $20,000. As a VIP customer, he was also offered free food, drinks, lodging, and limo rides. Though Foxwoods officials declined to give details, they did acknowledge that there are special rewards for regular customers.

In one day, Chen says he lost $30,000. He was down to his last hundred bucks when he placed a final bet -- and made $40,000.

But that, too, quickly disappeared. Chen took out a second mortgage on his house and used the money to gamble. His addiction had already cost him his first marriage. He'd stopped gambling for a while and remarried, but soon succumbed to the siren song of the casinos. His second wife also left.

Last year Chen sold his restaurant to help pay his debts. He had no job and no home, so for three months he lived free at Foxwoods. "During that time, I had 15 credit cards with a total line of $30,000, and I maxed them all out to gamble," he says.

A Foxwoods official declined to comment on Chen's story, saying that it would violate his privacy. "I feel it would be inappropriate to say anything more about a particular individual," said Ken Davie , vice president of table games.

Chen owed $500,000 when he declared bankruptcy. In January he saw an advertisement in a Chinese newspaper for the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling and called the help line. Chien-Chi Huang answered. She is only a one-year, part-time worker; ironically, her position is funded by state lottery receipts. The council is supported by state and private funding. Working with Asian social service and health agencies, Huang is trying to develop a guidebook and website in Mandarin and hopes to add Vietnamese and Cambodian versions.

Still, resources are scarce, and Gamblers Anonymous meetings -- the self-help group modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous -- are held only in English. In addition, cultural stigmas often prevent Asians from seeking help.

Richard Cheng , co founder of the Great Wall counseling center in Malden , says part of the problem is that gambling is glamorized in Asian cultures. "You're considered smart and successful if you can play and win big," he says. "You become a folk hero."

But he sees clients who have played and lost big -- and who are broke, depressed and in legal trouble. Much of the time, domestic violence follows, he says. "Counseling can help, but we still have to change the culture that condones pathological gambling, and to be more self-responsible," Cheng says. "It's a public health issue."

Meanwhile, Ming Chen is working three jobs to pay the bills -- and to keep his mind off gambling. It's been eight months since he has been to a casino. "It's not that I don't want to," he says. "It's that I don't have the means to."

The Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling will hold a day-long conference Friday at UMass-Boston. The conference is open to professionals who treat clients as well as the general public. Christopher Kennedy Lawford, the keynote speaker , will share his experience with addictions. There's also a session on Asian problem gambling . For more information, go to masscompulsivegambling .org.