The advent of online gambling platform has created a significant change in the gambling landscape. Thanks to the easy access of the new modern-day gambling medium, more and more people gains access to gambling, even teenagers. In fact, researchers have found out that more adolescents are into online gambling than what has been previously reported.
Tara Elton-Marshall, the first author of the study said, "A substantially high proportion of young people are gambling in general, and mostly in unregulated forms, like in a dare or a game of pool, which are accessible to youth." The author currently works as a scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Canada.
Tara also noted that, "The high proportion of teens who are gambling in any form is concerning because there is research to suggest that the earlier people start to gamble, the more likely it is to be an issue later on."
A 2012-1013 Youth Gambling Survey in schools in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador shows a research from 10,035 students that are between age 13 to 19 indicated that 10 percent of those who took part in the survey had gambled online within the last three months. The survey also showed that 42 percent of the adolescents had gambled money or something of value in both online or offline gambling methods.
The research showed popular gambling activities among teens and comprises mostly of dare or challenge at 22 percent; scratch tickets at 14 percent; games of skill like billiards or darts at 12 percent, and card games like poker and blackjack at 9 percent - either online or offline. Many of the teens who participated in different forms of gambling were not of legal age to gamble.
Source: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-2933-0
