"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=313What'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?
You have to understand that news organizations love building controversy, one week it will be teens gambling, the next week it'll be pregnant mothers vaping, the week after it will be angry pensioner vandals and so on. When you recite things like a "90% increase" then you really at the very least have to give a time frame, are you comparing the last year, the last decade, the last month? There could be reasons that need addressing, but there could also be things like the scope of what falls into the gambling definition has now expanded. Maybe it is the rise and prevalence of the gambling sites in the USA that have risen due to loosening restrictions, but the rest of the world has stayed very similar - so the fault is within a specific country that is not properly regulated.