NS - “VLT addiction ends in prison sentence”
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 | 1:35 PM AT, CBC News
A woman whose addiction to VLTs cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars and her freedom hopes her story will be a cautionary tale for gamblers.
Margaret Alice Baldwin, 62, a former military nurse currently serving a five-year sentence for robbing a bank, told CBC News her problem started innocently enough in 1994 when she put a loonie in a video lottery terminal in a northern New Brunswick bar.
At the beginning, gambling gave Baldwin a high. And not even a bartender’s snide comment could dampen her spirits the day she won $300.
“‘I don’t know why you are so excited, you lost over $3,000 before you won that $300,’” she recalls being told.
As Baldwin’s addiction spiralled out of control, she lost friends and was unable to pay her bills, despite a substantial pension cheque from the military.
“I had a $500 watch on me and I would sell it for $25,” she said. “I would take it just to keep playing the machines.”
Fearing there was no way out, Baldwin held up a fast-food restaurant in 1999 with a toy gun she stole from a department store, hoping to be shot and killed by police.
She received counselling in prison but succumbed to the sparkle of the VLTs soon after her release. Numerous suicide attempts followed.
In September 2006, Baldwin robbed the Scotiabank in Amherst. She told the teller she had a bomb and demanded $100,000.
Throughout the entire incident one thought kept playing over and over in her head: “You’re going to be shot very shortly and this will be over,” she recalls.
Baldwin barely made it out the door when the police nabbed her, again without firing a shot.
Baldwin says she doesn’t want sympathy, she simply hopes her story can help others realize how deadly a video gambling addiction can be.
Copyright © CBC 2007
