In the Basement or Online, Teen Gambling Can Have Devastating Consequences

By Hugh C. McBride

The police told Jennifer McCausland that the death of her 29-year-old son, Ben, was the result of an automobile accident. But she knew that the truth was much more complicated - yet maddeningly more predictable.

"The police report stated Ben died after losing control of his car due to mechanical failure. Actually Ben died after losing control of his life to gambling." McCausland wrote in the Dec. 8, 2005 edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "It started as an innocent after-school poker game and ended with his car wrapped around a tree."

McCausland, who founded the anti-gambling group Second Chance Washington in the aftermath of her son's death, wrote that her son's long struggle to overcome his obsession with gambling led directly to his death on the side of that Seattle-area road. "Poker, Internet gambling, and blackjack became the sole beneficiaries of Ben's finances," she wrote. "Maintaining his car was not a priority."

HARDLY 'HARMLESS'

Like many parents, Jennifer McCausland once believed that the poker games her son and his high school friends participated in were little more than "harmless fun." But after experiencing the personal and financial devastation that Ben endured because of his addiction to games of chance, McCausland came to believe that behaviors as apparently benign as allowing a child to play with scratch-off lottery tickets could be as dangerous as handing that youngster a can of beer or a bottle of pills.

"The risk of gambling addiction among youths isn't amusing or child's play," she wrote. "The explosion of gambling in all types of venues - especially including the present craze over poker online and on cable TV - is driving more and more young people to bet their after-school money, their college fund or ... even their own lives on gambling's many forms."

With televised poker events becoming surprisingly popular in recent years, and with more states creating more attractive lottery options to increase revenues, gambling has become a major attraction in modern popular culture. And as the industry has attempted to shed its shady past and remake itself as a safe and attractive entertainment option ("we're not 'gambling' anymore, we're just 'gaming' now!"), teens and parents may be lulled into a false sense of security.

Many experts are neither fooled nor amused.

"For many, gambling can grow from an occasional social activity to a compulsion," gambling addiction expert Bob Vietro said in a June 10, 2005 article in The Stamford Advocate. "Kids get obsessed and it can become a lifelong problem. It's an addictive behavior."

EASY ACCESS, BIG RISKS

Though legal casinos refuse admittance to anyone under the age of 18, teens who want to gamble don't appear to have much difficulty finding a place where they can make a bet. Basement games like the ones in which Ben McCausland got his start remain prevalent, as do dorm-room events and other "underground" venues. And of course, there's the Internet.

U.S. law prohibits online gambling for money, but that hasn't stopped hundreds of sites from setting up on servers outside the United States and inviting gamblers to play from the comfort of their own homes.

In 2006, Congress countered this jurisdictional end-around by passing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which made it illegal for credit card companies to transfer funds to online gambling sites outside the U.S. But as anyone who has purchased a controlled medication without a prescription from a rogue Internet pharmacy can attest, regulating the online world remains a work in progress.

Some sites have gotten around the restrictions altogether by eliminating the cash and offering opportunities to play "just for fun." And though playing for virtual tokens sounds about as dangerous as an intense game of Monopoly, experts say the threat remains.

Teens who play poker, blackjack, and other online games without having to pay for their losses are "learning that gambling is fun, it's stimulating and it's risk-free," Wendy Hausotter, problem gambling prevention coordinator with the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS), told The Oregonian reporter Kay Mitchell for her June 1, 2008 article. "That's not true at all."

Mitchell's article reported that an ODHS survey had discovered that one-third of Oregonians between the ages of 12 and 17 had gambled online for free - a statistic that Hausotter and other experts felt put many youth at risk for devastating consequences once they advanced from no-cost betting to "real" gambling.

"We're afraid that they're going to want to do this more and more," Hausotter told Mitchell. "If they do this with money, they're at risk for many things."

GETTING HELP

Research conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center indicates that gambling among high school and college-aged individuals dropped significantly between 2006 and 2007, with researchers attributing the decrease to tighter regulation of online sites and a decline in the popularity of televised poker tournaments.

While the damage inflicted on teens by gambling may not be as widespread as is the impact of substance abuse, that doesn't mean that risks don't remain. The Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery lists the following signs as indicators that a young person may be struggling with a gambling problem:

  • Unexplained need for money, and unexplained credit card charges
  • The sudden and unexplained acquisition of large amounts of money
  • Withdrawal from family, secretiveness, and the abandonment of old friends
  • Anxiety, depression, and mood swings
  • Excessive interest in televised sports, and an out-of-the-ordinary emotional outburst at the result of the contest

Some youth will be able to stop gambling once they are confronted about their activities, but those who have become obsessed or addicted may require professional help. Outpatient treatment is successful with some compulsive gamblers, while others benefit from a stay in a residential facility that specializes in treating teens who have addiction problems and other compulsive behaviors.

Many parents believe that having a child whose worst vice is playing cards in the kitchen with his friends means that they have little to worry about. Jennifer McCausland knows differently.

"When Ben talked about his struggle with gambling, he often said, 'Kids don't realize they are not only gambling with money, they are gambling with their lives,'" she wrote. "It's time somebody told them."