The administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission says some 550 people filed paperwork to have their lifetime ban on gambling lifted after a change in law that began July 1st.

Administrator Brian Ohorilko says the law change now gives the option of a 5-year self gambling ban along with a lifetime ban. And those who had previously signed the lifetime ban could request to be taken off the list.

“There’s approximately 4,000 people who are eligible to be removed — essentially those are all people who had been on for five years or more,” Ohorilko says. Ohorilko says most of those who applied fit the requirements to get off the lifetime ban list.

“Some of our records showed that people applied maybe more than once or weren’t eligible. But I would say of those 550 — we’ve had at least 500 folks who requested to be removed and were eligible to be removed, pursuant to that new law,” he says. Ohorilko says it usually only takes a couple of days once the paperwork is filed for IRGC to research the request and then send an approval if the person qualifies.

“What we do tell people though, is that information then gets sent out to each of the casinos and there are 20 different licensees who use that list,” Ohorilko says. “And so, sometimes it takes anywhere from seven to 30 days for those properties to get their own databases in sync with the removal.” He says they weren’t sure what to expect once the law was changed and saw many of the requests for removal from the ban list in the first couple of months.

“Those requests of have really calmed down within the past month or so — so I don’t expect those requests to increase dramatically as we move on,” Ohorilko says. The change in the law allowing the 5-year ban had support from gambling treatment organizations who said it could lead to more people signing up for a gambling ban since it was a shorter period of time.