Gambling - Youth Gambling
- Aug 21, 2006 - comment
Jennifer McCausland, founder of Second Chance Washington, a gambling recovery program, describes going into a grocery store where she watched a mother handing her small children dollar bills to feed into a lottery ticket machine. When she approached the store’s corporate offices about the incident, she received a form e-mail and nothing more.
She also alerted the state Gambling Commission that teenagers were being admitted to nearby casinos during lunch-break from school. A sting operation revealed that she was correct. The casino was allowing teenagers to gamble and buy alcohol.
McCausland cites a Harvard Medical School study that found teenage gamblers are three times more likely to become addicted than adults. The study also found that the younger the age at initial exposure the higher the incidence of addiction. She further reports that other studies estimate that between 2.5 percent and 6 percent of teenagers are already addicted to gambling.
McCausland faults parents like the mom who gave her children money to feed the lottery machine with advancing the false idea that gambling is just a harmless game when it isn’t. She faults the gambling industry for making gambling appeal to younger and younger children—much like the tobacco industry did years ago to induce more cigarette smokers among the younger generation.
McCausland lost a son in an automobile accident due to mechanical failure. But she said the mechanical failure was due to her son’s spending his money on gambling rather than fixing his car. Her son, Ben, even said before his death, “Kids don’t realize they are not only gambling with money, they are gambling with their lives.” Prophetic! Tragic! And true!
Jennifer McCausland, “Teens Are Gambling with Their Lives,” The Seattle-Post Intelligencer, December 8, 2005
“More than half of young people (52.7%) ages 14 to 22 report that they gamble in an average month, and nearly one in six (16.2%) gamble in an average week. Private forms of gambling (card games, sports betting, and bingo) dominate early gambling experience prior to age 18. However, with age restrictions lifted for those in the 18 to 22 age group, public gambling sites, such as in state lotteries and casinos (slot machines), attract a significant proportion of new gamblers. Most of these sites either permit gambling at age 18 (state lotteries and some slot machine sites) or restrict gambling to persons of age 21 and older (most casinos). Internet gambling remains at the same level across age groups, perhaps reflecting its ease of access irrespective of age.
“Public gambling sites play an important role in attracting gamblers. Nearly half of youth ages 20 to 22 who are attracted to public gambling sites do not gamble in private venues, and among weekly gamblers who gamble at public sites, 60% only gamble publicly and tend not to participate in private gambling activities. For youth in the 14 to 15 age range, private gambling is more popular than public gambling on a monthly (42% vs. 15%) as well as weekly basis (7.4% vs. 3.9%). However, for youth in the 20 to 22 age range, public gambling is more popular than private gambling on a monthly basis (49% vs. 37%) and equally popular on a weekly basis (9.4% vs. 10.1%).
“Gambling rates are higher in 18 to 22 year old youth, a pattern that mirrors the higher rates for other risky behaviors that are legally available for adults but restricted in public sale to adolescents, such as use of alcohol and cigarettes. Among youth in the 14 to 15 age range, 45.3% report gambling on a monthly basis, while among youth ages 20 to 22, nearly 60% report gambling on a monthly basis.
“More young men ages 14 to 17 have tried gambling than cigarette smoking or drinking alcohol. Although young women have not tried gambling to the same degree, their gambling experience is considerably greater after age 17 and approaches that of young men.”
Excerpted from Dan Romer, On the Path to Problem Gambling: National Survey Shows Casinos, Slots, and Lotteries Attract Youth Into Potentially Addictive Habit (Adolescent Risk Communication Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania), October 13, 2003
Further Learning
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