Problem Gambling Pioneer: Robert L. Custer, M.D.
Robert L. Custer, M.D. (1927-1990), former Chief of Treatment Services of the Mental Health and Behavioral Science Service of the U.S. Veterans Administration, is widely considered to be the father of professional help for the compulsive gambler.
In 1972, Custer, a psychiatrist, established the first inpatient treatment center for compulsive gamblers at the VA Hospital in Brecksville, Ohio. That same year, he joined Joseph A. Dunne and Irving Sacher in founding the National Council on Compulsive Gambling, today recognized as the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG).
The mission of NCPG is to increase public awareness of pathological gambling, ensure the widespread availability of treatment for problem gamblers and their families, and to encourage research and programs for prevention and education.
Custer was the first to suggest that pathological gambling is a treatable illness. Through his efforts, the American Psychiatric Association classified pathological gambling as a psychiatric disorder in 1980, which led to its first listing in the International Classification of Diseases. Also in 1980, Custer authored the diagnostic criteria for pathological gambling that appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This official diagnosis served as the basis of treatment programs, the growth of the NCPG and research for the Journal of Gambling Studies, which was first published in 1985.
Custer also created and served as the executive director of the National Foundation for the Study and Treatment of Pathological Gambling, and he helped organize a compulsive gambling treatment center at The Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.
According to experts, Custer treated, trained or mentored many of today's gambling therapists and researchers. He was a frequent speaker at Gamblers Anonymous conferences and testified on several occasions as an expert witness in compulsive gambling court cases.
At the First International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking, held in 1981 in Lake Tahoe, Nev., Custer presented the only workshop of the conference on compulsive gambling. It is a testament to the power and relevance of his work that, by 1997, seven years after Custer's death, approximately half of the more than 90 workshops offered at the Tenth International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking, held in Montreal, were related to problem and pathological gambling.
