Internet Gambling Rates Among America's Youth
5th December, 2008
The University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Centre has released its latest annual study.
The Study looks at the incidence of online gambling among high school and university aged males. First conducted in 2002 the survey is the only national representative of trends in young people between 14 and 22.
The Study found that there has been an increase of 0.9% in the number of males who had played cards for cash in the last month over the internet. The number of those more addicted and playing weekly also increased be 0.6% to 1.7%. While general card playing remained the same at 5 and 26 percent for weekly and monthly plays respectively.
Dan Romer, Director for the Annenberg Adolescent Risk Communication Institute said, “The card playing fad that we saw earlier in the decade appears to have lost its steam among young people.”
He also that a decline in weekly use of internet gambling sites in 2007 and that this has remained throughout 2008, and that this is due to the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
However, the study also found that, on a national basis there are more than 300,000 youngsters in America still gamble for money on a weekly basis over the net with more than 700,000 doing the same monthly using third-party payment systems.
These worrying results suggest that more educating of young people about the dangers of internet gambling needs to be done.
By Rommon
