Monica Yant Kinney: How tax collector could not resist casino, then crime

Mike O'Neill is guilty, humbled, humiliated, and disgraced. He did it to himself, but he had help.

O'Neill is the Jenkintown tax collector who embezzled $225,000 to fund his slots habit at Parx Casino in Bensalem. He lost all of it, plus $125,000 of his own dough.

The gambling addiction cost O'Neill his house, son, job, and pride. At 50, he's living in his mother's basement. He'll soon plead guilty and could spend seven years in prison. He vows to repay every cent, but might die trying.

"Every time I went home after losing, I felt like crap. But the only thing that made me feel better was to go back and gamble again," the former stockbroker recalls in his first interview, a two-hour tell-all last week in the Horsham office of his attorney, Steve Fairlie.

"Gambling changed me, who I was, who I wanted to be," O'Neill concludes. And it happened "because that casino was so close. I couldn't stay away."

From 1989 to 2000, O'Neill served as Jenkintown's mayor. In 2002, he was elected tax collector, paid a $30,000 salary to handle $12 million.

In retrospect, access to that much money - tax checks were made out to O'Neill by name - was a recipe for tragedy for someone with addiction problems.

In 1994, O'Neill confronted the alcoholism and drug use that had cost him his first marriage. "Trading one addiction for another," he got hooked on eBay, buying Christmas collectibles in such quantity he often didn't bother to open the boxes.

After he remarried in 2000, he and his wife began making occasional trips to Atlantic City.

"Once I sat down, I couldn't get up," he says. "I wanted the action. My wife wanted me to get help."

By 2007, the now twice-divorced O'Neill was earning $60,000 a year at the tax job and as caretaker at his parish, Immaculate Conception. One night that fall, he and a buddy ventured to PhiladelphiaPark in Bensalem to check out the region's first slots parlor. O'Neill couldn't wait to empty his wallet.

"I went in and thought, 'Oh, my gosh. This place is just 20 minutes from my house!' "

"I started on 25-cent machines but quickly moved to the high-limit rooms. I figured if I played bigger machines, I'd win bigger.

"All I would think about and obsess about was, 'When can I go? How am I going to get the money to play?' It consumed my whole life, every day," he explains, pausing often as if surprised he survived.

"I'd play $75 a spin on a $5 machine. I came three, sometimes six times a week. Sometimes twice in one day. I'd get there at 3 p.m., and before I knew it, it was 3 a.m. . . . Once, I looked up and realized it was 5:30 a.m. and I needed to open the church at 6 a.m."

Because slots players thrive on the speed of the game, they can get furious when their generous play is not rewarded in a timely manner.

"Once I complained to the host that I'd put in $6,000 and the machine had not hit," O'Neill says. "I said, 'I'm never coming back!' "

Two days later, he was back, armed with Parx comps - which he blew through in seconds.

He drained bank accounts and maxed out credit cards. He stole from relatives. He even took out home-equity loans, gambling his house into foreclosure.

By December 2008, O'Neill was tapped out. Then it hit him: "I'm the tax collector. There's money I could play with."

He started small, wagering $3,000 worth of tax checks. For a while, he made good on promises to replace the money with winnings; records show he once deposited a $32,000 Parx check directly into a borough bank account.

Between December 2008 and December 2009, O'Neill gambled at Parx at least 180 times, losing $181,599, according to his player record. His real loss totaled $226,973, since he often gambled anonymously.

"If I'd win on one machine, I wouldn't want to wait the 20 minutes it took to get paid," he says, "so I'd start playing another machine without my [player] card."

By January, the cooked books were beyond reconciling. He confessed to Jenkintown's school superintendent, who called the police.

"The chief came with other officers, people who, as mayor, I had sworn into service," O'Neill says, shamed. "I used to be the figurehead of the department, and now I'm being charged with a crime."

Talking with O'Neill, I, too, become obsessed - with understanding how and why no one at Parx reached out to a drowning man.

Pennsylvania's Act 71 calls for gaming revenue to be set aside for problem-gambling programs. So far, $3 million has been committed to reimburse therapists for treatment and to staff the 1-800-GAMBLER hotline. Casino workers are legally required to be trained every year on spotting the seven signs of problem gambling. After learning each sign, they're taught "what you can do," from handing players pamphlets to stopping by a slot machine to talk.

"They're supposed to say, 'Are you OK? Is anything bothering you?' " says Jim Pappas of the nonprofit Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania, which conducts the training.

Nothing remotely like that ever happened with O'Neill, he says, though he was such a fixture that staffers would "save" slot machines for him when he had to go to the bathroom.

Parx waitresses knew how he took his coffee - extra cream, extra sugar. Cashiers knew that when O'Neill tried to protect winnings by asking for a check, he'd be back begging them to cash it so he could keep playing.

Supervisors said, "Hey, Mike, how you hitting?" Not "Hey, Mike, you've been here every day this week."

O'Neill sighs. "They knew. They all knew."

My attempts to discuss O'Neill's downfall with Parx officials were rebuffed. Apparently, Parx prefers good news, like its record $36 million revenue in July.

After a summer in which five desperate souls left their children in parked cars while gambling and one woman tried to sneak her 5-year-old into the casino, Parx continues to refuse to confront the proliferation of problem players.

Instead, chief counsel Thomas C. Bonner issued an electronic statement suggesting that the casino is doing all it needs to: "Parx Casino is a substantial contributor in funding problem-gambling programs with our gaming taxes and also through significant direct contributions we choose to make to the Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania."

Unlike Parx, O'Neill owns up to his misdeeds, pledging to "take responsibility and make amends."

He still has the church job and five clients for a fledgling landscaping business. He pawned his coins and collectibles for $5,000 and occasionally makes money reselling on Craigslist items his mother finds at garage sales.

He completed gambling rehab in Arizona, adheres to a 12-step program, and sees a therapist every week. In a delicious twist, 20 counseling sessions will be paid for with problem-gambling money. So his suffering funds his healing.

And Parx? Months after O'Neill's public undoing, the casino's marketing machine keeps luring him back. He receives daily e-mails and monthly mailers tailored to his playing history.

"They know I have a problem," O'Neill marvels, "but they still send me offers."

Before, he would have sped to the casino to cash in $150 in free play or enjoy a $200 "Money Monday." Now? "I throw them away, right away."