Long before the casinos came to Atlantic City, David traveled to Puerto Rico, Paradise Island and Monaco. Every vacation was spent in a casino country. But A.C. would make it convenient; he once went on a 60-some-night gambling streak.

Now, David, 55, of Havertown, is a member of Gamblers Anonymous (GA), a 12-step recovery program. David guards his last name, but not his disgust for what gambling does to some people.

"It's a gross industry, and the public's getting bamboozled," he says. "[Donald] Trump and [Pat] Croce stand at podiums and talk about saving [Nicetown, where they hope to built a slot parlor at the former Budd Co. factory site]. I wish they'd just say, 'We're two greedy motherfuckers trying to make more money.'"

GRAND PLANS: Trump says his project will help the neighborhood; foes think greed will destroy lives.

Gov. Ed Rendell signed the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act (or Act 71) in 2004, mostly, proponents say, to spark an estimated $1 billion in projected tax relief. Officials have promised wage-tax reductions for Philadelphia workers. The game warden, so to speak, is the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which will issue conditional licenses for six racetracks by late summer and permanent licenses for 14 slot parlors by early 2007. Five groups are competing for the right to operate a casino in Philadelphia, but only two will be chosen. Four of the parlors are proposed for the Delaware River waterfront; the fifth, for the Budd site off Route 1 between Nicetown and East Falls.

In its first year, gaming is expected to generate between $668 million and $750 million in gross revenue for city operators, according to Mayor John Street's Philadelphia Gaming Advisory Task Force's 436-page final report. While the city's two slot parlors could generate $26 to $30 million for Philadelphia's General Fund, the task force also estimates the number of citywide problem gamblers will increase by as many as 5,000.

Some say the number is modest. Either way, a crisis is brewing, and those concerned with the impending social ills problem gamblers can create are scrambling to position themselves for crunch time. The fear and forewarnings go way beyond the NIMBY-driven neighborhood protests.

Facilities like KeyStone Center in Chester, which since 2001 has offered the area's only private residential gambling program, is already training and certifying more gambling consultants. The Philly-based nonprofit Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania, Inc. (CCGP) is poised to increase its statewide efforts.

"The gaming operators, politicians and special interests are blinded by the near-term bottom line [profits and taxes] and don't see the inevitable longer-term negative effects of the gambling expansion in Pennsylvania," says Glenn Gorelick, a psychotherapist and founder of the nonprofit Institute for Problem Gambling in Connecticut (www.gamblingproblem.org). "The social costs in both human suffering and financial costs will eventually exceed the taxes received from the proposed 60,000 slot machines."

In 1997, the Harvard Medical School Division on Addictions estimated there were 7.5 million American adult problem and pathological gamblers who wreck their own lives, their families, and often turn to drugs and alcohol and then sometimes even to suicide.

Act 71 calls for whichever is greater — 0.01 percent of first-year statewide gambling revenue or $1.5 — million to go to education, prevention and treatment programs. The state says that number will rise to $2.5 million, and that the current funding is twice the support for similar programs in New Jersey and West Virginia. While the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will oversee gaming licensing, regulation and implementation, the Department of Health's Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Programs will manage and monitor the treatment monies —and that's when the wagering will really begin. Interested organizations and agencies must apply for funds.

Among those jockeying for position is the statewide CCGP, which is sponsored by the state lottery and the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Association. It already holds a gambling behavior conference each November, and hosts a help line (1-800-848-1880 or 1-800-GAMBLER).

CCGP Executive Director Jim Pappas is hoping his organization will become the state's primary "gatekeepers for education, prevention and training."

"We're going to need to expand our operating budget," says Pappas, a self-described "recovering gambler" who needed 10 years to pay off his own gambling debt and survived nine "halfhearted" suicide attempts. "We've already seen an increase in activity on our help line since the advent of Powerball, and now we're going to see even more of an increase with the slot parlors. We don't advocate prohibition, but we say if you're going to promote gambling, then it requires responsibility."

KeyStone, which gets "99 percent" of Pappas' referrals, still isn't sure if it's eligible for the gaming-generated state funding and won't be until eligibility requirements are established, according to CEO and managing partner Michael J. Salazar. Typically, KeyStone serves two or three gamblers at a time. Once, there were six. In a year, 50 gamblers get help, according to Deborah Voluck, the program director.

Currently, KeyStone has one nationally certified gambling counselor, but since Salazar is predicting the advent of "an immense need," Voluck says three others, including herself, are training. KeyStone hosted 83 trainees from around the region at a one-day gambling counseling workshop in May. Another is scheduled today.

David S. thinks a $1.5 million fund is a start, but nowhere near what will be needed once the parlors open in Philadelphia. A regular at GA meetings at Belmont Center on Monument Road, one of eight weekly GA sites around the city, he also attends meetings in other states and countries when traveling. Thanks to GA, he's been clean for 19 years and five months. He's finally calling himself a "semi-solid citizen," but he now fears many more lives will need saving.

"When gambling comes to people, there will be people who will have a problem they never had before," David says. "Mark my words: New lives will be ruined."

(j_pirro@citypaper.net)