Concerns grow over online gambling among teens

[topbitcoin]

Never mind teenagers who are still underage, even those who are old enough and perhaps already have families often lose control when gambling. Especially those who are still teenagers, whose behavior and thinking are still unstable, who are not yet able to determine and take responsibility for the decisions they make, who are not yet able to truly differentiate between what is good for them and what is not. With all their shortcomings, lack of experience, knowledge and understanding, they are very vulnerable to becoming addicted to gambling and being trapped in a cycle of irresponsible gambling.

Gambling can destroy their lives and future, because the negative impact and domino effect of irresponsible gambling activities is worse than we think.

And the lack of attention and supervision from parents is one of the main factors in the number of teenagers involved in the cycle of irresponsible gambling. And many of them (parents) prioritize their work more than their children. They have neglected this, and underestimated the importance of family education for a child. So I agree with what the OP said, that education related to gambling prevention must be pushed into the educational realm, especially in public schools. Because currently school is the only place they study.

[mv1986]

At last, they notice it somehow because it is already an alarming situation that could ruin their life once they fall into early addiction. I wish this also happen in our place.

It is already time for the school to act before this situation worsens. Proper education is needed as they are old enough to understand why they should not gamble while studying. Guidance from the school and as well as from their parents will be effective in battling this issue. Let them help to understand that there is a right time for gambling, not now while they are still in school. Even if it was just a friendly game, it still influenced their mind and it will carry one if not stopped.

Most schools don't mention about gambling and I think, it is really high time to include the discussion about this addictive activity. At least be open to these students as they may have queries towards this industry. If the teachers are open to this discussion, maybe, some kids or students will disclose their troubles towards this activity, if there's any. Most students are hiding their gambling activities as they know the negative reputation of this in the community.

Younger generation who are into gambling usually can't cope the roller-coaster ride of emotions involved in this activity. Hence, you will hear some bad news of some youngsters ending their life owed to gambling debts. Even adults have hard time dealing with gambling losses especially if they lack funds supporting this vice.

I don't know whether it makes a lot of sense to talk about gambling. It could be more of a general issue called addictions. Nobody would stop someone from trying to play cards for money or something. Or play a round of roulette. It's something people will try and as soon as there are ways to easily access something at a young age, it'S taking place no matter what.

Take porn as another example. Whether there are courses in school about the dangers of porn addiction or not, it won't stop any of the kids interested in it to access it via their mobile phones. The problem is that not even a ban would solve the problem.

I do think though that public advertisements on TV and Youtube are not the best way to go about it. These advertisements are often said up in a way that's telling the people how cool and promising gambling is. That might be problematic, but if someone really wants to gamble, then better make sure that kid knows when to stop with anything (alcohol, drugs, gambling, porn, etc.) instead of focusing on one specific thing. It can be part of a cause generally teaching about dangers and threats in life and how quickly risks can be underestimated or go unnoticed entirely up until a point when it is hard to get away with low to no harm done.

[qwertyup23]

What's striking the most of what Colby Cotrone said was that kids are unaware of what they are doing. Could it be that even the grown-up man may also not be aware of what he is doing as over time a gambler may be consumed by how much he enjoyed the thrills of gambling?

I do not think think that grown men do not understand the nature of what they are doing.

I would understand if teens engage in an activity involving money and they do not realize that they are actually gambling. When I was a kid, I used to buy lotto skins from a certain online fps game not knowing that I was already engaging into a gambling-related nature of transaction.

Grown men, on the other hand, know already the basic understanding of their actions. They are also aware that what they are engaging into is gambling overall. If they are justifying that they do not understand what they are doing, then they are either that ignorant or just plain in-denial.

And would you agree with him in implementing gambling prevention education in schools?

Of course- gambling prevention programs should be implemented into programs that schools may offer.

For example, schools and universities may implement into their schedule a dedicated 1-2 days of gambling awareness and its dangers. If the young could understand and grasp the potential dangers of gambling addiction, then this can at least reduce the amount of teens being addicted to such act.

[Hirose UK]

Prevalence of online gambling among the youth in our country is considered as an important and national issue especially among school and college students online gambling trend has become a cause of great concern in Guardian circles. The horrendous gambling addiction among students who are supposed to be busy with their studies will greatly affect the current education system.
Moreover, the education system should include some education about the dangers of gambling. Moreover, I will blame the current legal system of my country for this social and state degradation because currently no laws are being made in our country regarding this gambling especially among school and college students because of which they are paying close attention to online gambling. I would hold the legal system and police system in my country largely responsible for this.

Slots, this is the only game that is most associated with the passion of teenagers or school children who are trying to get some money easily, they have been indoctrinated by external influences or the views of gambling streamers on social media.
A child or teenager still has an unstable attitude and they are easily influenced by anything bad that can make them feel pleasure and ease, but they cannot think long term.
Problems like this are actually very difficult to eliminate or resolve because they play online and nothing can prevent it except their own awareness to stop and abandon all gambling activities.

I have never really seen solution that is truly proven to be accurate for dealing with all of this, and if there is, it is only small part because the majority can still do it freely without any pressure being applied.

[ethereumhunter]

It will be a good idea to implement gambling prevention education in schools because that can helps students to knows what's the risks of playing gambling and how to avoids if someone asks them to join. It needs supports from all parties, including parents because that programs can supervise their children in that schools. Their teachers also helps to supervise the students when they are in schools but parents must still pay attentions to their children in home. The situation now is different so parents and teachers must really careful to guide students and make sure that they will not doing something that can harms their lives. Students interaction with their friends now becomes worried because with many information that they can gets with easy, that can caused them to acts without filtering if that's good or bad for them. That needs supervise from their parents and teachers so everything will be good for their children.

[EarnOnVictor]

"It's time for schools to focus on the root cause of online teen gambling by implementing gambling prevention education in all high schools. Health class curricula across the nation cover the typical risks for teens such as smoking, drinking, vaping, etc yet gambling education is nowhere to be found in our schools. "

This is what Colby Cotrone said when interviewed by NBC News about the article he published in NYpost about the online gambling trend among teens causing concern because, in the school halls, they can already overhear teens checking odds and their parlays like it's the most casual thing to do in the campus. This is due to the gambling apps easily downloaded by anyone.

When Marc Potenza the Director of the Center of Excellence in Gambling Research was asked whether they were seeing young patients calling for help, he said there is an increase of 90% in young males with sports gambling problems. Either the patient himself or the parents calling for them. https://youtu.be/pCDbvDDLpFg?t=313

What's striking the most of what Colby Cotrone said was that kids are unaware of what they are doing. Could it be that even the grown-up man may also not be aware of what he is doing as over time a gambler may be consumed by how much he enjoyed the thrills of gambling?

They think they are doing something as simple as rooting for thier favorite players but it's turned more into making money than the game and having fun as a fan. - Colby Cotrone

And would you agree with him in implementing gambling prevention education in schools?

Ultimately this comes back to whether casinos are properly enforcing identity checks and determining the age of users. It seems rather straight forward these days to confirm someones identity via an ID and it isn't especially easy to fake KYC documents, or at least it probably is more effort than a teenager is going to take. Believe it or not, casinos don't actually want or need this type of player, as they are already making a lot of money from the regular punters who keep depositing. They are more than happy to avoid these sort of controversies and if anything is suspicious at the ID check stage they are likely to reject.

Fine, there are means of identification, but this has never been 100% effective. As I write, underage people are gambling with verified means online and offline, and they either fake it, buy a verified accounts/IDs or look for older persons to verify the account for them. So this can never be 100% reliable.

But let say you should speak for yourself and not others on others and not speaking for companies, let them talk for themselves. Fine, some casinos will truly mean well for the world, but I can assure you that many, if not almost all of them do not see it that way, they are all for the money regardless of who brings the money. The age issue has been the subject of discussion for so long, it is much better in many sane countries where their system is working and people are not so desperate for money. But for the developing/poor/third world countries where anything goes, nothing like that can't be spoken of them.

By the way, that is for the physical betting. But for online gambling, if not for the regulations, do you think that casinos will not do worse? If some of them could be caught for money laundry and cheating of customers, how much more is collecting money from underage people who they did not force to do so but are willingly interested in gambling. It is the law that is restricting them and curbing a long of menaces and excesses of companies not that they will out of their good nature do the needful, except a few of them that are truly humanly in nature.

[livingfree]

This is the kind of concern that many parents and other concerned people are seeing nowadays. So, if they're trying to do some solution about it, I am for it.

There's no need to be against to those people that are looking to see the new generation not to get addicted in gambling. Even us, we're also into gambling and we don't want teens to get addicted on it.

If that's the way they are seeing it, it's not the best solution but it's a way to reduce the number of teens getting addicted. IMO, the best is still to educate the parents so that they'd pass it on to their children to not to engage in gambling.

[sompitonov]

This is the kind of concern that many parents and other concerned people are seeing nowadays. So, if they're trying to do some solution about it, I am for it.

There's no need to be against to those people that are looking to see the new generation not to get addicted in gambling. Even us, we're also into gambling and we don't want teens to get addicted on it.

If that's the way they are seeing it, it's not the best solution but it's a way to reduce the number of teens getting addicted. IMO, the best is still to educate the parents so that they'd pass it on to their children to not to engage in gambling.

Of course, a lot depends on the parents, including upbringing and attitude towards gambling. If teenagers constantly see their father playing, then they will probably want to try it too. And even if he forbids them, they will find time and place for what he did not disturb them and will completely plunge into the world of excitement. Another difficulty is that it can be difficult for a teenager to explain and understand how dependent one can be; he can only do so through his own sad experience. Therefore, I sometimes wonder whether he will even be able to understand where this dependence begins, because even an adult cannot determine this very often.

[irhact]

Of course, a lot depends on the parents, including upbringing and attitude towards gambling. If teenagers constantly see their father playing, then they will probably want to try it too. And even if he forbids them, they will find time and place for what he did not disturb them and will completely plunge into the world of excitement. Another difficulty is that it can be difficult for a teenager to explain and understand how dependent one can be; he can only do so through his own sad experience. Therefore, I sometimes wonder whether he will even be able to understand where this dependence begins, because even an adult cannot determine this very often.

Though their are lots of things that could hinder a child from being responsible which includes peer pressure, bad society, lack of quality upbringing and many others but it all falls back to the parents of that child, when a child is spoilt the society would say the parents didn't raise them properly and when it's the other way round all praises goes to the parent, therefore parents have a big role to play in raising their children.

 Children learn very fast especially at teenage age and a that age they'll want to explore and try out things whether good or bad, it's normal it human nature to tend to know especially at that age, that's why it's the duty of parents to provide proper guidance for their children, parents ought to drag them closer not only gibe them quality education in schools but also educate them at home concerning certain things and their consequences.

[Stepstowealth]

Of course, a lot depends on the parents, including upbringing and attitude towards gambling. If teenagers constantly see their father playing, then they will probably want to try it too. And even if he forbids them, they will find time and place for what he did not disturb them and will completely plunge into the world of excitement.

Parents play the major role, but it is not only parents who are involved in bringing up a child. If you are close to a teen, they may learn some habits from you that their parents do not have, so you who is also not a parent, need to be careful so not to teach these children these habits unknowingly. If you gamble in front of teens, even though you are not their parents, you are indirectly teaching them to do it, and if they look up to you as a father-like figure, someone they can learn from, they will be influenced to try it.

[livingfree]

This is the kind of concern that many parents and other concerned people are seeing nowadays. So, if they're trying to do some solution about it, I am for it.

There's no need to be against to those people that are looking to see the new generation not to get addicted in gambling. Even us, we're also into gambling and we don't want teens to get addicted on it.

If that's the way they are seeing it, it's not the best solution but it's a way to reduce the number of teens getting addicted. IMO, the best is still to educate the parents so that they'd pass it on to their children to not to engage in gambling.

Of course, a lot depends on the parents, including upbringing and attitude towards gambling. If teenagers constantly see their father playing, then they will probably want to try it too. And even if he forbids them, they will find time and place for what he did not disturb them and will completely plunge into the world of excitement. Another difficulty is that it can be difficult for a teenager to explain and understand how dependent one can be; he can only do so through his own sad experience. Therefore, I sometimes wonder whether he will even be able to understand where this dependence begins, because even an adult cannot determine this very often.

That's true, there will be some moments that they're going to gamble even if they will be prohibit that's why the patronage should start at home.

The time will come for these teenagers that they will realize that life isn't just all about them gambling all day long or getting some money from their parent's pockets.

While those that have side hustles, they can do whatever they want with their money. Yes, there are teenagers nowadays with side hustles but still that doesn't give them a pass to gamble.

[Jody.Drummer]

Of course, a lot depends on the parents, including upbringing and attitude towards gambling. If teenagers constantly see their father playing, then they will probably want to try it too. And even if he forbids them, they will find time and place for what he did not disturb them and will completely plunge into the world of excitement. Another difficulty is that it can be difficult for a teenager to explain and understand how dependent one can be; he can only do so through his own sad experience. Therefore, I sometimes wonder whether he will even be able to understand where this dependence begins, because even an adult cannot determine this very often.

That's true, there will be some moments that they're going to gamble even if they will be prohibit that's why the patronage should start at home.

The time will come for these teenagers that they will realize that life isn't just all about them gambling all day long or getting some money from their parent's pockets.

While those that have side hustles, they can do whatever they want with their money. Yes, there are teenagers nowadays with side hustles but still that doesn't give them a pass to gamble.

Yes, it is possible, but I think it depends on the environment they are in, because usually it is very easy for someone to fall into negative things if they are in the wrong environment.

But yes, if they are in the wrong environment then they will most likely fall into various negative things, whether it's gambling, alcohol or other negative things that can have a bad impact on their lives, on the other hand, yes I understand what you said that teenagers should understand that life is not about gambling alone, but usually someone who is still in their teens just wants something that makes them curious and maybe one of them is gambling.

On the other hand I think it doesn't matter even if for example they have their own income or still depend on both parents in terms of finances but still if if they use the money for negative things then it is prohibited or not recommended, none other than because after all there are bad effects that will most likely continue to lurk them, and overall I think this is the job of parents who must be able to supervise and direct their children to something right.

[darkangel11]

The question was if I agree with this and the answer is: it depends but probably no.
I feel like children are already overwhelmed with the amount of useless stuff the government is trying to teach them, like all the sexual education, gender pronouns, ecology and now they want to teach them about gambling? Isn't that interfering with the basics that parents should be teaching their children? There's knowledge children should acquire at home, for instance if the family is religious it should educate children in that matter, but now schools are trying to teach religion. This is a waste of time and money if you ask me.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

The question was if I agree with this and the answer is: it depends but probably no.
I feel like children are already overwhelmed with the amount of useless stuff the government is trying to teach them, like all the sexual education, gender pronouns, ecology and now they want to teach them about gambling? Isn't that interfering with the basics that parents should be teaching their children? There's knowledge children should acquire at home, for instance if the family is religious it should educate children in that matter, but now schools are trying to teach religion. This is a waste of time and money if you ask me.

Very much agree with your opinion bud, this is also inline with what I said before in my previous comment, children don't need to be taught anything concerning gambling because I personally think it will be counter productive, in the sense that the knowledge of this things can turn around to act as a gambling promotion to the kids, specially the ones that weren't into gambling before.

A much better solution like I've also said before is for the government to start  working closely with both online and offline casinos to bring strict regulation on the issue of underaged/children and teenage gambling, when government sets out in full force to prosecute any child and his or her parents who is caught gambling while the child is not up to the age that is set as the minimum one must attain before he or she starts engaging in gambling, then children will automatically refrain from gambling, also, parents will become up and doing in making sure they give their wards the necessary training on things to avoid doing at their tender age.

[Blitzboy]

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Fine, there are means of identification, but this has never been 100% effective. As I write, underage people are gambling with verified means online and offline, and they either fake it, buy a verified accounts/IDs or look for older persons to verify the account for them. So this can never be 100% reliable.

But let say you should speak for yourself and not others on others and not speaking for companies, let them talk for themselves. Fine, some casinos will truly mean well for the world, but I can assure you that many, if not almost all of them do not see it that way, they are all for the money regardless of who brings the money. The age issue has been the subject of discussion for so long, it is much better in many sane countries where their system is working and people are not so desperate for money. But for the developing/poor/third world countries where anything goes, nothing like that can't be spoken of them.

By the way, that is for the physical betting. But for online gambling, if not for the regulations, do you think that casinos will not do worse? If some of them could be caught for money laundry and cheating of customers, how much more is collecting money from underage people who they did not force to do so but are willingly interested in gambling. It is the law that is restricting them and curbing a long of menaces and excesses of companies not that they will out of their good nature do the needful, except a few of them that are truly humanly in nature.

Underage gambling is about people, and some of them are bad. Technology is lax. The casinos are more concerned with profit than ethics. The exploit every gap they can find, regardless of who suffers. Shameful. This isnt just about casinos. Its much worse. How various societies manage these issues must be discussed. People with it good have stricter laws and they enforce them. However, in impoverished areas, those rules are relaxed or not implemented. Problems go beyond gambling. The issue is social. We must safeguard the weak. Indeed, without strict legislation and enforcement, this will worsen. These criminals must be punished. Only this will win.

[bluebit25]

(...)And would you agree with him in implementing gambling prevention education in schools?

It's just the way a certain side talks about the negativity of this field. I feel their argument is not wrong but is it necessary to use the word "prevent"?

While there are many interesting things about exploiting probability in mathematics or logic, what is important is our attitude towards this field. I often talk about knives and how to use them, like someone uses it in the kitchen to cook, but someone will use it to kill someone, and the knife is not a crime, it's just a means to kill people, everyone fulfills the purpose.

Blaming the means is an excuse for irresponsible behavior. I think raising awareness for all audiences is the main issue, not blaming good/bad means.

[blckhawk]

Valid concern, with the ease of accessibility in technology, it's bound to happen that gambling would be easily accessed if they just type in the right words, also this shouldn't be a surprise to any of us because we've all grown up with unrestricted access of the Internet too, I mean most of us had those privileges so it's never really something that we should be surprised right, what we should be doing is that we should do all the things that we've learned when it was us and teach the children that this shouldn't be how they spend their money into or you can just straight up go dictator against them because young children are easy to mold and that's going to be really difficult to do some changes down the line once they become an adult, we should be doing what we can to prevent children from getting addicted to gambling by trying our best to stop them from playing, that's the only way that you can deal with this issue in my opinion.

[LogitechMouse]

~
And would you agree with him in implementing gambling prevention education in schools?

Teenagers nowadays have smartphones that they can use to gamble and with the rampant advertising of online casinos coming from different influencers, it's not a surprise that there's a surge in teens getting addicted into online gambling.

A smartphone, and an internet. That is what you need if you want to gamble. Of course, I excluded money because that's a must when you're gambling. Add also the fact that these teenagers might be following some influencers that are promoting gambling websites, and you all have a perfect recipe for an increase in online addiction on teenagers. I would be happy if gambling prevention will be added in school especially now that there are many gamblers who are experiencing negative things about gambling. Some of them might be teens that lost huge amounts of money, and now regretting their decisions.

Overall, I would like to see schools around the world implement this one. Not this year maybe, but in 2-3 years depending on the effect of gambling towards teens and not just teens but other people as well.

[Solosanz]

If child porn can make someone to being arrested, why did casino that allow teens to gamble didn't get arrested too?

It seems that many people are allowing teens to gamble and take it as a normal thing, as long as the casino pay tax to the government, they didn't care with legality when it comes to money.

The question was if I agree with this and the answer is: it depends but probably no.
I feel like children are already overwhelmed with the amount of useless stuff the government is trying to teach them, like all the sexual education, gender pronouns, ecology and now they want to teach them about gambling? Isn't that interfering with the basics that parents should be teaching their children? There's knowledge children should acquire at home, for instance if the family is religious it should educate children in that matter, but now schools are trying to teach religion. This is a waste of time and money if you ask me.

Not all parents will have a time to teach their kids everyday, both of the parents need to work all the day and taking care the house, so they lack of time, sadly they didn't have enough money to pay babysitter.

[bounceback]

Isn't education about gambling prevention or gambling addiction has been exist since long time? I remember there was few non profit organization conduct a seminar when I was a kid.

Gambling education could have been existing since a long time ago but not common or not existing in some countries. I can say that there is nothing like gambling education in Asia and Africa. I do not think it is common in North America, Europe and South America and Australia. We only even saw this today but which could be ineffective. What we noticed more is that gambling is becoming more common among teen and the under aged are not given a better education on gambling.

Even though gambling education has been around for a long time, unfortunately it has not reduced the percentage of gambling among teenagers and shows that it is not very effective in preventing the rise of gambling among teenagers. It is not easy for us to give advice to the younger generation, especially in this day and age where almost everything is online, so it will be difficult to prevent children from gambling because every time they hold a smartphone, advertisements for gambling sites will appear on their smartphone screen, whether intentionally or not, and this is a strong influence for them to start with gamble.