STATEN ISLAND -- With as many as 5,000 problem gamblers around the Island, the Gamblers Treatment Program at Richmond University Medical Center officially expanded to a new headquarters Friday.

Local elected officials, doctors from RUMC and representatives from the state and city cut the ribbon at the programs new headquarters at RUMCs Center for Integrative Behavioral Medicine at 1130 South Ave. in Bloomfield.

One of our main purposes was to bring this program and this type of program closer to the community and take it out from behind the black wall, from behind closed doors and make sure that those folks who are suffering from this addiction and other addictions and other behavioral health disorders do not feel embarrassed, said Rosemarie Stazzone, RUMCs chief operating officer and chief nursing officer.

RUMCs problem gamblers program launched in 1982 as one of three outpatient gambling programs in the state and currently serves as one of the only programs of its kind in New York City.

As gambling becomes more accessible over the Internet and on cell phones, officials said gambling is targeting the Islands youth in particular.

The accessibility to all forms of gambling has increased with the Internet, with legislative changes, with casinos, and gambling and the close proximity to Atlantic City, its certainly a great temptation for problem gamblers to continue their addiction or regress from breaking away from their addiction," said Dr. Daniel Messina, RUMCs president and CEO.

Messina said of the 5,000 gamblers around the Island, many of them are not enrolled in any kind of treatment program.

Dr. Joel Idowu, who chairs RUMCs Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, said gambling is an up and coming epidemic in the field of psychiatry and mental health and affects more men than women.

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