Young people fall under gambling’s spell

Experts say over half of U.S. adolescents betting in some form

About 1,800 E-gambling web sites have cropped up offshore since the mid-1990s.

By ASHANTE DOBBS and CARRIE SEIM ~ Medill News Service - 9-4-03

WASHINGTON

evin Groth was 19 when he first made the hour drive from Iowa State University in Ames to the American Indian Meskwaki Casino in Tama. The sophomore biology student and his fraternity brothers were looking for some fun, and for college kids in the middle of Iowa, casinos promised fun in neon Technicolor.

How to tell if your gambling is a problem Anyone who answers yes to one of the following questions is advised to seek help. For more information, call 800-522-4700 or visit the council’s web site at www.ncpgambling.org. Have you often gambled longer than you had planned? Have you often gambled until your last dollar was gone? Have thoughts of gambling caused you to lose sleep? Have you used your income or savings to gamble while letting bills go unpaid? Have you made repeated, unsuccessful attempts to stop gambling? Have you broken the law or considered breaking the law to finance your gambling? Have you borrowed money to finance your gambling? Have you felt depressed or suicidal because of your gambling losses? Have you gambled to get money to meet your financial obligations?

When Groth walked into the 127,669-square-foot casino, he had $40 in his pocket. He left with $3,000.

“That was the worst thing that could have ever happened,” Groth said.

Within two years, the Marshalltown, Iowa, youth was $15,000 in debt and had been arrested on felony embezzlement charges. He had stolen thousands of dollars from his job to fund his gambling addict.

The $66 billion gaming industry is a cash cow for state and local governments, as well as a fountain of entertainment for millions of adult Americans. But addiction specialists say young people are increasingly vulnerable to gambling’s allure, unable to fully understand the risks and consequences.

Underage gambling continues to flourish despite recommendations in 1999 by the congressionally mandated National Gambling Impact Study Commission that anyone under 21 should be restricted from gambling.

The Commission reported 69 percent of 18- to 24-year olds use computers for hobbies and entertainment, making them a prime target audience for the swelling Internet gambling industry.

Experts say more than half of the nation’s adolescents are now gambling in some form, about one third on a weekly basis. More shocking, they say, is the rate of youth with serious gambling problems, a number two to three times higher than that of adult gamblers.

Addiction specialists say the earlier children start gambling, the more difficult it will be for them later in life to responsibly navigate the ubiquitous gambling industry.

In the United States, minimum age requirements vary by state and type of gambling, with most in the 18- to 21-year-old range. In Iowa, the minimum age for casino wagering is 21.

However, the Montreal-based Youth Gambling International estimates most problem gamblers begin gambling, on average, at age 10.

After two years in a Waterloo, Iowa, treatment program, Groth, now 27, has a new appreciation of what he was up against.

“It’s so nuts thinking back on it,” he says. “I was stealing money just to go to the casinos.”

For many teenagers, experts say, gambling is as common and seemingly benign as playing a video game or instant messaging.

“This is the first generation that will grow up for their entire lives when gambling is not only legal but supported by the government and endorsed by their family members,” says Jeffrey Derevensky, co-director of Youth Gambling International.

Derevensky estimates that between 65 percent and 80 percent of North American high school students gamble in some form.

Gambling industry leaders insist they do not encourage underage gambling.

“We are totally opposed to young people gambling,” says Frank Fahrenkopf, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association.

In the recently published “Futures at Stake: Youth, Gambling and Society,” Elizabeth George, executive director of the North American Training Institute, a division of the Minnesota Council on Compulsive Gambling, suggests that health educators and parents incorporate lessons on the dangers of adolescent gambling into discussions about other addictions.

“(Underage gambling) shouldn’t be a freestanding, independent concern that is far removed from any of the other concerns that we have for youngsters,” she says.