MACAU (UCAN) -- As more and more casinos open in Macau, a local Protestant social-service group and a Catholic organization in neighboring Hong Kong are joining hands to train counselors for people caught up in gambling.

The Macau Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican) Youth Leadership Development Centre and the Caritas Addicted Gamblers Counselling Centre in Hong Kong ended their joint course for the counselors on Feb. 11.

Seiko Lee Wai-wah, director of the Youth Leadership Development Centre, told UCA News the course that started on Jan. 20 drew 21 participants including health-care workers, social workers and even trainers for casino dealers. The hope is for "more local professionals to become gambling counselors so they can help the gambling-addicted," she said.

According to organizers, the course taught how to identify and counsel gambling addicts and how to help others avoid such addiction, as well as increasing participants' awareness of gambling issues. Lee added that it also allowed participants to share experiences.

Joe Tang, supervisor of the Caritas center, told UCA News the number of gambling addicts in Macau is increasing as more casinos open, but the local government does little to prevent gambling addiction or to help addicts.

Macau has a 300-year-old gambling industry and has been called the "Monte Carlo of the Orient." Local media reported that more than 50,000 people attended the Feb. 11 opening of the territory's 25th casino.

Lee and some other people from Macau attended the first counseling course the Caritas center conducted, in November 2005 in Hong Kong. The Caritas center offered the course for the first time in Macau in 2006.

Tang suggested the government should allocate one-tenth of its gambling tax revenue for services that help people avoid becoming gambling addicts. "The effects of gambling can be far-reaching and may ruin the life of a person or disintegrate a whole family," he warned. He also is concerned that young people in Macau are abandoning school for casino jobs.

Lei Kuok-kit, who teaches at the Macau Tourism and Casino Career Centre, joined the recent training course. He told UCA News on Feb. 6 that he knows people, including some relatives, who have become addicted to gambling.

The 50-year-old trainer for casino dealers expects the course will be of great benefit in his work, since he can share what he learned with his students preparing to work in the casinos. "Giving them some basic concepts might help them avoid becoming gamblers themselves," he said.

A former casino dealer himself, Lei pointed out that though there are several counseling centers in Macau, the government has not allocated enough resources for promoting such services. Like Tang, he thinks the government should appropriate a certain portion of its gambling revenue to offset the drawbacks, which he said are "inevitable but hopefully can be minimized."

According to the Macau government, the gambling industry generated 55.9 billion patacas (US$6.9 billion) in total revenue in 2006. The law requires 35 percent of this to be set aside for taxes.

Lee observed that while young people commonly say they work in the industry to make money for their studies, many started gambling and became addicted. She observed that there have been a number of theft cases in casinos in the past six months involving young dealers in their 20s.

Social worker Hong Kuok-keong told UCA News the recent course helped him in his work with young people. Hong said some of his friends have changed drastically after working in a casino for a year or so and now "believe that money can solve every problem."

Noting that the monthly salary of casino dealers jumped from 10,000 patacas last year to 18,000 patacas this year due to competition for recruits, Lee said such high salaries are not readily available in other industries.

The government's Statistics and Census Service put the number of residents employed in the gambling industry in 2006 at 60,000. This accounts for 21 percent of Macau's total workforce of 286,000.

Surveys done in Macau and Hong Kong have indicated that about 3.5 percent of Macau's 502,000 people and about 1.6 percent of the 6.9 million population of Hong Kong, an hour's boat ride from Macau, are "problematic gamblers."