Too Many Children Online Gambling

December 27, 2007

According to a recent survey, the number of children that have experienced online gambling has increased over the past few years. It used to be that activists were concerned with the amount of money that was spent on online gambling by adults and the number of those adults that had the ability to become addicted to the sport.

Now, however, it seems that there is a whole generation of children who have not only experienced online gambling, but some of whom are already developing addictions to online gambling themselves. According to the recent study, children and teenagers are more susceptible to online gambling addiction because of their youth and inexperience. They are also more likely to try it due to peer pressure.

With talk of online gambling pretty much everywhere these days that kids look, they have been exposed to it at a much earlier age than that of generations past. Some children even list professional poker player or professional gambler as careers they would like to have as they got older. Past generations did not necessarily think that way, and if they did they were in the minority.

According to the Oregon Department of Human Services, more than 75% of their teens have already tried online gambling and about 4% of those teens have already demonstrated a gambling problem. This makes roughly one in every ten teenagers a potential online gambling addict risk. Not only that, but as of the latest numbers, their age group is among the fastest growing area of the population to develop online gambling addiction.

Some experts say that they feel that children are being �groomed� to take over the online gambling support industry, in that it is considered �socially popular� to participate in it � as is apparent from the number of shows that are currently on television that make gambling seem glamorous. Because children are much more technologically savvy than past generations were at their age, they are more likely to start at an earlier age and to develop a problem at both an earlier age and to a much higher degree of addiction.

 

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