You know, I spent more than I meant to.’ ‘Oh, yeah? Do you normally try to set a budget?’ And we'll go from there.” “Then I might come up and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing today? Doing good today?’ ‘Oh, no. “If I'm walking by and somebody makes eye contact, actually looks up from the machine, we say, ‘Hi.’” Gabrila said. The state’s regulatory body, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, funds the program’s $3 million annual budget as part of its mandate to help problem gamblers.Įvery day, one or two GameSense advisors, as they’re called, are meant to cruise the casino floor and look out for people in trouble. Gabrila, 47, works for a program called GameSense, run by the nonprofit Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health. NEPM Amy Gabrila works as an advisor for the state-funded GameSense program at MGM Springfield. “A lot of times we're going from super fun, interactive, more learning or teaching,” Gabrila said, “and then having to pivot very quickly to a possible emotional situation where somebody might be experiencing harm they’re in distress.” In some cases, she said, gamblers will just stop to chat other times, they come to learn how to play the casino games or to spin what Gabrila calls a “swag wheel” - where everyone gets a token prize. “Whether it's their body language, their facial facial features, you can usually sense when somebody is walking up to the center what they might be there for,” she said. Today, when you walk into the MGM casino in Springfield, tucked on the side of the main floor, where people are pressing buttons on slot machines, you’ll see an open office with comfy green chairs.Īmy Gabrila stands behind the counter and greets visitors. That law is often praised for a key stipulation: every year a portion of gambling revenues must go to mitigate its harms - including inside the casinos themselves. Earlier this year, Massachusetts introduced sports betting as the state's latest form of legal gambling since passage of 2011 casino legislation.

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