In two months last year, Boomers Pub & Gambling Parlor in Missoula let a gambler use a credit card to obtain more than $10,000 in cash advances to gamble. Each transaction was coded as a food or beverage sale, ranging from $50 to $600, or most of the money was designated as a tip.

That’s a violation of Montana law.

The Montana Justice Department’s Gambling Control Division took legal action against the casino, administrator Gene Huntington said. Under a settlement, the casino agreed to reverse all cash advances it made to the gambler’s credit cards and make a charitable donation to the Montana Council on Problem Gambling.

The casino was placed on probation for two years, with a suspended fine. It agreed to educate its staff about Montana’s ban on credit gambling. Gambling regulators will make random inspections of the casino’s credit card-charging procedures.

“It’s against the law to gamble on credit,” Huntington said.

The law has been on the books since 1989, he said.

“The idea of the legislation is that people can’t lose the farm,” Huntington said of gamblers. “They can lose all the money in their wallet and bank account, but they can’t get a loan to lose all of their money.”

In 2003 and 2004, a Missoula college student used his father’s credit card to get about $49,000 in cash for gambling at eight casinos across the state. They charged it to the credit card company as food, beverage or tips. (See sidebar story.)

“That’s when we realized we needed new rules,” Huntington said.

Tough new rules were put in place in November 2005, and the Gambling Control Division began a public education campaign in the industry.

“It has to be a legitimate cash advance,” Huntington said. “It can’t be a $500 hamburger.”

Since then, the division has investigated about two cases a month.

“Part of it is the nature of people with gambling problems,” Huntington said. They’re engaged in what’s called “chasing your loses,” where problem gamblers believe they can win back the money they lost so they continue gambling, he said.

In the past year, he said there have been three or four cases where people have lost “huge amounts” through credit gambling. Gambling regulators, often working with county attorneys, have prosecuted them.

Two leading industry groups, the Gaming

Industry Association of Montana and Montana Tavern Association, have been strongly supportive of the division’s effort to crack down on credit gambling, Huntington said.

“We’ve always tried to be really strident and stringent on this message on credit gambling,” said Rich Miller, who is retiring soon as the Gaming Industry Association’s executive director. “Credit gambling is one of the things we hate more than anything. People who would break a law that is so well-known, they’re just not the people we want to be in the industry.”

Mark Staples, attorney for the Montana Tavern Association, said, “It’s an area where the operator has to be very careful because the rules are fairly technical. We’ve tried to educate the operators on what’s acceptable and what isn’t. It’s not too difficult to fall off the curb.”

Sometimes settlements require casinos or bars to make donations to the Montana Council on Problem Gambling, a nonprofit Billings-based group that provides support, referral services and education to compulsive gamblers and their families. It runs outpatient treatment programs across Montana for problem gamblers and their families.

Executive Director Donna Johnson said the council has received about $20,000 this year from fines and donations resulting from credit gambling enforcement. The rest of its budget comes from donations from the Gaming Industry Association, Town Pump, Montana Coin Machine Operators Association and other groups.

Huntington said it’s appropriate that money collected from casinos or bars from enforcement goes to the council.

“You’re dealing with compulsive gamblers,” Huntington said. “There’s a pattern there they shouldn’t be supporting.”

Huntington cited a study that concluded that although only 3 to 4 percent of adult Montanans are problem gamblers, they account for 35 percent of all video gambling machine revenues.

He urged people to gamble responsibility by viewing it as entertainment and setting a limit for how much they will spend gambling. They should not try to win back their losses,

he said.

Casinos and bars are allowed to have automated teller machines where customers can withdraw money from their bank accounts.

Electronic poker and keno machines now take $20 bills, up from the previous $5 limit. The maximum winnings under Montana law are $800 from an electronic gambling machine and $300 in a live card game.