Playing the slots was like “the greatest drug there ever was”
After gambling away nearly $2.5 million dollars of a client’s money, Thomas Koch, a 46-year old lawyer from Greenfield, Wisconsin, said at his own sentencing that playing the slots was like “the greatest drug there ever was”.
Koch was sentenced to two years in prison, along with required treatment for his gambling addiction, though it was recommended that he serve four years. The Circuit Judge, however, acknowledged that “Koch probably didn’t need prison to deter him from going back to the behaviors that have essentially ruined his life.”
Even after voluntarily putting his name on a self-exclusion list, which most casinos offer, Koch was still allowed to gamble at the Potawatomi casino, even collecting on hundreds of jackpots after he had supposedly been banned.
The judge noted that though Koch’s behavior was not excusable, he said the casinos “should be ashamed of themselves” for enabling gambling addicts such as Koch.