Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The: Compulsive gambling fuels criminal habits; Mother of 3 stole

On the one-year anniversary of the last time she gambled, Pamela Wick was upbeat. She's five months into a 10-year prison term for stealing more than $520,000, then losing it all and more at casinos.

"It's a new beginning for me," Wick, a mother of three, said in an interview last month at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac County. "It's a whole new feeling that life can be normal.

"I'm really glad that I came here. It was time for me to accept responsibility."

Two hundred miles away, at the Stanley Correctional Institution near Eau Claire, Timothy J. Verbunker is morose about his seven- year sentence for finding slot machine money in more than 50 churches that he burglarized in the dead of night. Like Wick, he figures he deserved his sentence, but he's doing little more than marking time.

"Prison makes you bitter," Verbunker said. "I'm getting nothing accomplished but my (high school equivalency diploma), and that was court-ordered."

While there are no statistics on how many people run afoul of the law for gambling in the state, anecdotal evidence suggests that people such as Wick and Verbunker are becoming increasingly common, said Rose Gruber, executive director of the Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling. The number of calls to the council's gambling helpline has nearly tripled since 1996, with callers reporting escalating amounts of gambling debt.

"Every time we turn around, we hear about someone else," Gruber said. "I would say that in the last two or three years, we've seen an increase."

The crimes that put Wick, Verbunker and other compulsive gamblers like them behind bars each year are the result of an overpowering addiction, according to Gruber, and it will take more than time to turn them around.

"The addiction is still there while they are in prison," Gruber said. "It is something they need to work on."

At Potawatomi every night

Wick, 39, started gambling in 1997 and developed a problem with it in 1999 when her second marriage turned rocky.

"I started going to the casino once a week, then twice a week," she recalled. "Before I knew it, I was there seven days a week.

"I'd spend my vacation at Potawatomi (Bingo Casino in Milwaukee). I'd get up in the middle of the night and go because I'd wake thinking I knew which machine would win.

"I'd spend the night there, then go straight to work."

While Wick, formerly of Eagle in Waukesha County, developed her compulsion at Potawatomi, Verbunker, a Milwaukee native, developed his while traveling the country selling magazine subscriptions.

"The job was perfect for me, but it gave me too much freedom," said Verbunker, now 26. "Whenever we went to a different state, I'd find out where all the casinos were."

The first time he gambled was shortly before he turned 20 in 1998. By 2002, he realized that he was addicted to slot machines.

"I don't know what made me think I could beat those one-armed bandits," he said. "When I saw I had a problem, I decided to quit my job and come back to Milwaukee.

"What I didn't realize was that they had a casino in Milwaukee."

Verbunker arrived in Milwaukee with about $10,000 in savings and lost it quickly while living with his father.

"The casino is seven minutes from my dad's place," he said. "I couldn't stop gambling."

Wick was human resources director at Trans International Co. of Menomonee Falls. She had, in her words, "a very good job."

"One day at work, I came across this article in an HR magazine about a woman who took money by embezzling," she recalled about a day in 1999. "I thought I would do it once or twice.

"Little did I know."

Wick's most common scheme was depositing company checks in her personal bank account, netting her $341,000.

"I knew what I did was wrong," she said. "But I never shut my (office) door. I never destroyed any of the evidence."

Hit churches in 7 counties

Verbunker decided to steal from churches when he couldn't find a well-paying job.

"I said to myself, I'm only going to do this until I get a decent job,' " he said. "I wasn't doing it looking for the big score.

"I would just drive around until I found a church. The best way that I can explain it is that I was acting on nothing but impulse."

His nighttime forays took him to churches in Waukesha, Jefferson, Milwaukee, Washington, Walworth, Ozaukee and Dodge counties.

"A nice sturdy knife with a good point" and a plastic membership card from a video store were typically all he needed to get a locked door to open, he said. He'd head straight for offices and rifle though desks, looking for keys to locked cabinets and leaving after usually finding no more than $200.

In January 2003, Verbunker was spotted leaving a Hartford church by a passer-by, who alerted police. He was arrested and questioned for several hours, and although he was released for lack of evidence, he became the prime suspect in dozens of unsolved break- ins.

"That was my wake-up call," he said. "I did three more and decided to leave for Florida where I had a job offer."

His last burglary, at a church school in Franklin, was his most profitable, landing him $2,300. But he was unaware that Washington County authorities had attached a tracking device to his car and alerted law enforcement officials in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested on his way to Florida.

When he was returned to Wisconsin, Verbunker admitted to every burglary he committed.

"I do have a conscience," he explained.

$100,000 wasn't enough

Wick continued stealing into 2003, a year in which she had more than $100,000 in taxable gambling winnings.

"The more I won, the more I'd spend," she said. "You dream bigger dreams."

In October that year, her scheme was discovered and she was forced to resign. But while police began an investigation, she landed another job and continued gambling.

In December 2003, three police officers came to her home and took her to the Menomonee Falls Police Department, where she spent 13 hours and provided a 33-page confession.

"I had no idea how much I took," she recalls. "When I found out, I was shocked."

Eleven months later, on the night before she was sentenced in Waukesha County Circuit Court, Wick braced herself for Taycheedah, though relatives told her she was overreacting.

"We're not talking $25 here," she told them. "I stole over a half- million dollars and I have nothing to show for it."

"Five to 7 percent of the people who game have a problem with gambling," said Dianne Markut, public relations director for Potawatomi. "Of that 5 percent to 7 percent, 2 percent are compulsive and they can't control it.

"It is an issue that our tribal leadership recognizes is important, but it is a small percentage. The overwhelming majority who gamble do it responsibly."

Markut said the casino provides literature about problem gambling and lets people know where they can seek help, including Gruber's council.

No prison program

Wick hooked up with a therapist while her court case was pending and attended Gambler's Anonymous meetings weekly for seven months before she was incarcerated. There is no Gamblers Anonymous program at Taycheedah.

"We could really use a GA program," Wick said. "Gambling goes on every day here for things like clothing and items from the canteen."

Gruber said gambling is common in most prisons.

"The fact that there is gambling shows the value in having a program like GA in the prison system," Gruber said. "These people need help while they are there. The problem does not go away."

John Dipko, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said that the majority of the treatment resources in the system go to programs concerning alcohol and drug abuse, which affect 70% of the inmates.

"Gambling addiction is less commonly seen across our inmate population," he said.

Dipko noted that with the help of Gruber's council, the prison system has established its first Gamblers Anonymous chapter at the John C. Burke Correctional Center in Waupun.

The Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling helpline can be reached at (800) 426-2535.

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