The explosive growth of gambling will predictably increase the number of disordered gamblers in New Jersey. The government and its citizens will bear the costs. Gambling Courts are integral problem-solving courts and part of the solution.

Several know me as “the judge who does not judge” or the “Jersey Girl Judge,” having spent my childhood in New Jersey. I served as a Family Court Judge in Las Vegas for 20 years, and I also presided over Nevada’s first Gambling Treatment Diversion Court.

In 2009, Nevada passed a law for treatment diversion to individuals who committed offenses “in furtherance or as a result of problem gambling.” Anthony Cabot and Jennifer Roberts, professors at the University of Nevada Las Vegas’s Boyd School of Law, briefly summarized the law’s history in an article, “Problem Gambling and the Law”.

“The purpose of A.B. 102 was to address problem gambling as the core of a criminal defendant’s problem to prevent recidivism and assist in returning the individual to a productive role in society. Some legislators feared that individuals might abuse this program to escape punishment for crimes they committed, even if they were not problem gamblers. Senator Barbra Cegavske noted: ‘I want it on the record that the intent of A.B. 102 is for those people who have an identifiable problem with gambling. It is not intended for people who declare they have a gambling problem just because they want to go into the program.’ ”