Several decades ago, I was at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for a conference that Gaming Hall of Fame member Dr. Bill Eadington had organized. I had been invited to speak to about 300 people at the luncheon. 

My most recent employment at that time had been as the president & CEO of a Las Vegas casino company — before I disappeared from the world for a bit to address a few mental health issues. My good friend Bill Curran, then-chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, was at the lunch for support. So, too, was my wife at the time.

The audience was comprised of people involved in academia, gaming operations, regulation, problem gambling, and the world of recovery. At this time in the ’90s, problem gambling was beginning to attract greater attention in the casino world, and a diverse group of people were looking to understand it better.

For the lunch, I was honored to have my friend Dr. Eadington introduce me. The title of my speech was “Addiction from Both Sides of the Table.”

For most of the attendees other than the people who were close to me, the speech was something of a surprise. It was the first time I had told my personal story of alcohol addiction in Las Vegas and to that large of an audience.

Following my speech, a woman approached me and said she appreciated hearing my story and found my comments interesting. She said it was a very good lesson in honesty and mentioned that her name was Carol.

The next time I came across Carol was about a year later. She was giving a speech at Lake Tahoe for a conference also organized by Dr. Eadington, and she was telling her story — and her story was one of addiction and hitting bottom as a problem gambler (video poker, specifically). I found her story to be one of incredible pain, chaos, and honesty. 

It fascinated me that Carol O’Hare was a fellow addict, mainly because she was the executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling. That was a bit of a surprise. It seems that we were both addicts — only our drug of choice was different.

‘Still one of the finest’

Carol O’Hare stepped down from her position as the executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling on Sept. 30, 2023, with very little fanfare. Carol, one of the most important people to ever grace the gaming scene, was exiting after three decades of being absolutely amazing.

If the Gaming Hall of Fame were based on pure merit, she would already be in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way, and one attribute of Carol was that her work was always about the council — and not about herself.

One does not have to struggle to find people who have wonderful things to say about Carol, especially those who have spent appreciable time in the problem gambling space — a space that Carol has had a material role in creating and expanding.

Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, stated, “Carol is simply the pioneer of responsible gambling. She started advising Harrah’s in 1994, became executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling in 1996, and everything in the field since then bears her imprint. When I joined the [American Gaming Association] in 1995, Carol was one of the first people I met, and she is still one of the finest.”

Renowned gaming attorney and legal scholar Anthony Cabot added, “Carol O’Hare’s unwavering commitment to combating problem gambling in Nevada has been a beacon of hope, illuminating the path toward a safer and more responsible gaming industry for all.” 

Dennis Conrad, who was one of the first to recognize Carol’s talents and who was materially responsible for elevating Carol to the post of executive director of the Nevada council, said, “I can’t begin to say enough good things about her.”

It was Dennis who helped bring Carol and her story to the gaming world in the mid-1990s. He was heading up the Harrah’s Institute, which had been a vision of Phil Satre, then the CEO of Harrah’s Entertainment. The institute was to be a learning and training environment for the ever-increasing number of executives who populated the many divisions of Harrah’s but did not fully understand the world of gambling.

It was Dennis’ vision to introduce the people enrolled in the institute to the realities of gambling, and one was the topic of the problem gambler. And who better to make such a presentation than someone who understood the disease from the inside? This led to Carol being a fixture of the institute and to her joining the Harrah’s firm to travel about their properties in the United States to begin carrying the problem gambling message. 

Understanding the inner reality

Dennis tells the story of a time when a number of the “normal” people involved in the discipline were exploring policies to address problem gambling. They sympathized with the plight of the problem gambler but had not lived that experience. When they told Carol their plan, which involved a direct intervention with the gambler by an employee of the casino, she told them that if they had they performed this act when she was in the middle of her disease, it would not have ended well.

This is lesson No. 1 for all the folks in problem gambling who may sympathize with the disease but don’t understand its inner reality. Carol understood its inner reality, for she had lived it — it even tried to kill her.

It is one thing to want to help the problem gambler. It is a whole other thing to understand how best to do it.

From her involvement with the institute and Harrah’s, Carol transitioned into the role of executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling. I have been told that there was a robust debate at this time on installing a problem gambler to head a problem gambling agency — there were image issues with such an appointment and real risks to the brand if the individual were to relapse. People like Dennis and others who had come to know Carol felt that the benefits outweighed the risks, so she was installed as executive director. It proved a brilliant decision.

One of the interesting things about Carol is that everyone testifies to her incredible importance in both elevating problem gambling as an issue in the gaming world and developing the reality of securing a viable roadmap to treatment. When asked directly, however, she has a hard time identifying any great accomplishments. 

I believe that this is due to her being involved in not any one specific thing in problem gambling, but rather in everything in the world of problem gambling. Moreover, one of the most interesting statements made by Carol about herself was, “Nothing I have done has been done solely by me.” In an industry of inflated egos, Carol has always done an excellent job of keeping hers in check.

Carol marvels that during her career, she was granted the opportunity to walk among the giants of the field of problem gambling. And while I will not be so foolish as to begin listing them for fear of neglecting a critical player, let it be said that she was on the leading edge of developing state affiliates for problem gambling in the U.S., and as new programs were launched, Carol was there to provide her insights, knowledge, and mistakes. As gaming traveled across the country and the world, Carol and her wisdom traveled with it.

On to the next battle

I asked Carol if she had a mantra in her work. She said she certainly did, and it was “listen, learn, and lead.” She first came across this expression from reading the works of her friend Dr. Eadington.

When asked if she was sad about retiring, Carol stated that she was not. She believes that the industry has transitioned during her tenure from an industry of people to an industry of corporations — and this transition has reduced her confidence in the progress being made in her field. 

She also finds it disheartening when people within Nevada suggest that the state has the “gold standard” in programs addressing problem gambling, and she would prefer that rather than talking about it, they should be working to make it true. She sincerely believes that Nevada should be the leader on problem gambling, but it is not, and that troubles her.

Four years ago, Carol O’Hare was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. In her own inimitable way, she has been fighting the good fight ever since. That battle is now part of her story.

As the severity of her diagnosis became more dramatic and threatening, Carol was visiting with one of her medical team members at UCLA. In this conversation, Carol and the doctor were discussing how she should proceed. The doctor indicated that Carol would need to learn how to live with a chronic and life-threatening disease. Carol responded that she had spent her whole life living with a chronic and life-threatening disease — her addiction to gambling, a battle she has waged successfully for over 32 years.

Carol had been careful to keep her health information out of the public domain, for she did not want it to be a distraction to the transition of the executive director’s position at the Nevada council. That was a pure Carol move and says a lot about the incredible person she is. She wanted the focus to be on the transition to the new leadership of the council and not her.

When asked what drove her to dedicate so much of her life to her work, she makes a typical Carol statement: “Everything I have done, I have done because it was consistent with my recovery.”

I did ask Carol about her post-retirement goals, and she mentioned that it was to meet Ned. I didn’t really want to pry into her private life, but I thought Ned must be really important.

Finally, I could not help myself. I had to ask: Who is Ned?

Her answer was quite succinct: “Ned” is a term that medical professionals use when a person is under treatment for Stage 4 cancer, and the tests have found “No Evidence of Disease.” In short, Ned is the gift of life.

Carol — you go, girl, and I’m sure you will meet Ned soon.