Online Gambling and Children Don’t Mix

July 17, 2008

Online gambling and children don’t mix. This seems like a pretty obvious thing and yet there are many people who don’t really understand why it is a bad thing for our youth.

By children we are obviously referring to teenagers, the fastest growing group of online gamblers today. They are mostly playing for free, but experts say that this is setting up a disturbing trend for when they start playing for money. The numbers of children, who play for free, then go on to play for money is staggering. Even worse is the number of those players that become addicts.

With the media really targeting our children with their online gambling games, the question really is how to we shield them from it. Online casinos look more like arcades and online game playing than they do gambling sites.

This is attracting our youth, who are so programmed for playing games already that the sheer numbers of them that end up playing the online casinos simply because of the way they look is frightening. Not only that but they get so used to playing for free, that when they start playing for money it is a much harder concept to get used to and they end up losing a lot of it.

So how do you keep them from participating? Talk to them about it. Be aware of what your kids are doing when they are on the internet. Do they have a credit card? See what they are using it for. If they are on the internet, be aware of who they are talking to, games they are playing, etc. If you don’t want to be hanging over their backs while they are on the computer, install spy software that will keep track of keystrokes and sites visited. By being aware you can save your child a whole lot of trouble later on.

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