After all these days, nobody could prove that online gambling can cause addiction. All we have is some kind of assumption because we believe that kids are prone to such a thing, but I say that whether it is land-based casinos or online, we all can possibly fall into it if we can't control ourselves.
As we think deeply, anyone can be addicted to gambling, but the only thing that differs from online casinos is that even those below legal age can gamble. And educating their children is an additional responsibility of the parents.
Nowadays, there are definitely more and more cases of children being attracted to online gambling. The reason behind children being more attracted to it is their use of mobile phones. When children use mobile phones and see various casino or gambling advertisements on that phone, children usually become curious enough to be attracted to gambling.
Also, it does not help there are videogames companies with use predatory tactics to increase the implementation of loot boxes and gacha game mechanics, which are pretty much reminiscent to gambling, all of it condensed in games which are played by children and teens. So it is not a surprise to me there are more and more children nowadays willing to get into the world of online gambling when they grew older enough to pass KYC verification, many of them have been conditioned already to seek for thrill and entertainment within randomness in games.
In my opinion, parents more than ever need to be careful on what their children do and play on their smartphones and consoles, they could be slowly introducing to the adult world of gambling without anyone around them noticing it.
Perhaps, we should get used to give children their first smartphone when they are 16 years old and not when they are still toddlers.