On Aug. 13, 2012, Scott Stevens, a husband, father of three daughters and businessman, took a hunting bag to a park near Steubenville, called 911 and when the sheriff’s deputies arrived, pulled a gun out and killed himself. He was 52.

What would cause a family man and former chief financial officer to do such a thing is the subject of a lawsuit recently filed in the U.S. District Court in Wheeling.

The wrongful death lawsuit claims that, from 2007 to the day he died, Stevens was a regular patron at Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort, where he played the slot machines and, over time, became hopelessly addicted to gambling.

To support his habit, he embezzled more than $7 million from his company and emptied out his family’s savings, 401(k) account and his children’s college funds, the lawsuit said.

Even after an IRS audit discovered the embezzlement and Stevens was fired, he continued playing the slot machines at Mountaineer for 10 more months, never telling his wife about his secret life as he dragged his family deeper into debt, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said Stevens’ suicide was the proximate result of a gambling addiction that was fostered by Mountaineer; Reno, Nev.-based slot machine manufacturer International Game Technology (IGT); and former Mountaineer parent company, MTR Gaming Group. Mountaineer’s new parent company, the Reno-based Eldorado Resorts Inc., is not named as a defendant.

The lawsuit, filed by Stevens’ widow, Stacy Stevens, of Steubenville, accuses the defendants of negligent and intentional breach of duty of care; defective product design; product use defectiveness and failure to warn; premises liability; intentional infliction of emotional distress; and wrongful death.

“Rather than cause the suicide, Mountaineer Casino, MTR and IGT had a duty to prevent the suicide from occurring,” the lawsuit said. “(They) have knowingly and intentionally taken advantage of casino patrons, exploiting and causing harm to them, by employing and concealing the present state of gambling with slot machines.”

The lawsuit’s main allegation is that the IGT slot machines used at Mountaineer are “inherently dangerous” and are designed to keep a person playing to the point where they can’t stop.

“The products were not a passive medium through which gamblers enacted a pre-existing addiction but, rather, an interactive force that eroded players’ capacity to make reasoned decisions,” the lawsuit said.

Wheeling attorney James G. Bordas Jr. said the lawsuit has national implications and has the support of organizations such as Gamblers Anonymous.

“The intent is not to shut down Mountaineer or any other gaming institutions, or to declare all slot machines bad. There are some slot machines that are inherently bad and are designed to lead to addiction,” Bordas said. “That’s the heart of the case.”

Bordas said Stevens, by his repeated and lengthy visits to Mountaineer, showed all the classic symptoms of “disordered gambling” – symptoms that required intervention and that should have been recognized by Mountaineer personnel.

“MTR’s own publicly-available ‘Problem Gambling Mission Statement’ pledges to educate casino personnel to recognize problem gambling behavior and proactively curtail it through such actions as ‘management exclusions,’ ” the lawsuit said, “but no such exclusion was broached in Stevens’ case, despite clear evidence of his addiction.”

The lawsuit said Mountaineer employees witnessed Stevens’ problem gambling behavior and management kept data on the time and money he spent at the casino – but did not intervene.

The section on Mountaineer’s website about “responsible gaming” encourages anyone with a gambling problem to call a toll-free number. IGT’s website has a section on responsible gaming that states, “It is IGT’s mission to promote responsible gaming to our employees, our customers and the public at large, and to supporting those agencies and programs committed to researching, preventing and treating problem gaming.”

Neither Mountaineer spokeswoman Lesley Campbell nor IGT spokeswoman Susan Cartwright would comment on the lawsuit.

Bordas said Stevens played his favorite slot machines over and over again – even on the day of his death – without the awareness that the machines “are designed to cause and foster the loss of willpower and rational decision-making capabilities. … The design formula yields a product that, for all intents and purposes, approaches every player as a potential addict – someone who does not stop playing until his money’s gone.”

Bordas said Stevens did not voluntarily become addicted to gambling. The lawsuit accuses IGT of intentionally concealing from patrons algorithms and other design features that govern slot machines’ win-loss functions.

“No other form of gambling is known to manipulate the human mind as much as slot machines,” the lawsuit said. “Playing these machines produces in numerous gamblers a trance-like state in which their ability to make rational decisions is eroded. Players become addicted to a dissociated mental state of diminished self-awareness and the suspension of a sense of time, money value and one’s immediate surroundings.”

Following Stevens’ suicide, a note was found in which he apologized to his family and said the only way his gambling would stop hurting his family was if he was no longer around.

The lawsuit asks for punitive damages in excess of $75,000 and a jury trial.