Effective July 1, a new law in Iowa allows individuals to self-ban from casinos or lottery offices for five years or for a lifetime. Previously the only option was a lifetime ban.
Iowa Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer said, “Someone who has signed up for a self-exclusion from an Iowa casino or from the Iowa Lottery has the option if you’ve been on the self-exclusion list for five years to request that your name comes of the list. But that does not mean that you can just walk into a casino or walk into a lottery office and the process is done.” Neubauer said the individual must fill out the proper paperwork to have his or her name removed from the exclusion list, and then wait for a confirmation that it has been processed.
Neubauer explained, “Obviously we can’t ban folks from going to a convenience store or from a grocery store because they have other business that they need to be doing on in those locations. So the way we came at the motivation to play was to have folks who sign our self-exclusion agreement to ban themselves from lottery offices across the state.” Neubauer said that excludes self-banned individuals from cashing in on big jackpots. “Any lottery prize of more than 600 dollars in Iowa has to be claimed at a lottery office so in the process of banning yourself from a lottery office you are preventing yourself from ever being able to claim a big lottery prize,” she said.
Neubauer said the new law allowing a five-year self-ban option was designed to encourage more people to realize they have a problem and sign up. “What we’re all trying to do is give someone who is trying to deal with the issue of dealing with compulsive gambling more tools that they can use to try to make a healthy recover from the difficulty that that has caused in their life,” Neubauer said.
However, she noted the ban itself won’t help people who don’t follow up and seek help. Neubauer noted casinos and the Iowa Lottery are working with the Iowa Department of Public Health to develop a brochure that they will give to people who sign up for the ban, featuring 1-800-BETTSOFF and the Iowa Gambling Treatment Program.
Neubauer said the law allows those who believe they have addressed their gambling problem to be removed from the self-banned list. “For the first couple of months after July there may be some bumps in the road in that regard if folks aren’t paying attention to the details and aren’t taking the steps necessary to get off the exclusion list. So, we’re doing everything that we can to make it very, very clear how the process works,” she said.
