The more you ban it, the more is the interest an average teenager shows in any activity be it, smoking, drugs or gaming. The Annenberg Adolescent Communication Institute just invested in a telephonic research at the University of Pennsylvania which has shown conclusively that more and more students continue to flout norms prohibiting online gaming sites.
Details of the study show that 16 percent of males between fourteen and twenty years of age are using online gaming casinos. This figure was only 4.4 percent in 2008 and this shows a marked increase of almost 12 percent in use of these sites. Additionally, it shows that even the percentage of high school students who gamble monthly has gone up from 2.7% to 6.2% in the same time period between 2008 and now.
The female population is not far behind though their participation in online gambling is still less than that of their male counterparts. Between 2008 and 2010, there has been recorded an increase of 9% in the weekly as well as monthly rates of both online as well as offline gambling in the case of high school females between the ages of 14 and 17.
This particular survey covered as many as 835 respondents during 2008 and nearly 600 respondents during 2010 which are between the ages of 14 and 22. The researchers behind the study have concluded that on a national basis, more than 400,000 college-going males in the age group 18 to 22 use online gambling casinos at least once a week and more than 1.7 million are gambling online at least once in a month. It was also shown that roughly 530,000 high school-going males are gambling online once in a month.
The irony is that the US happens to be one of the largest gambling markets in the world despite the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act coming into effect in 2006. Rather than curbing online casinos as it was intended to do, the act actually fuelled increased growth in the industry. ACI Director, Mr. Dan Romer, has gone on record to say that payment restrictions are no longer enough to stem the tide that this industry is witnessing in this age group and stricter rules need to be enforced.
While online poker players have already been lobbying with lawmakers to modify the current laws, no real change has come about. It is also a fact that the online and offline gambling industry is a big revenue spinner for most governments. But the sad truth is that this money and profit is adding to the expenditure of the poor middle class individual trying to make a little extra money by gambling away the little that he has.
Gambling is also very addictive and can turn into a serious vice if it is allowed to continue unchecked. Online casinos offer total privacy and convenience making them far more accessible to almost everybody, despite age or gender. The need of the hour is to sit down and create a better system which can prevent increased interest in gambling especially among the younger population.