"Online Poker Attracting The Youth"

It is no surprise that the growing number of young people who are play poker online is causing alarm. It seems that for many students, online poker is becoming the latest American pastime. Brooklyn teenager Oswald Santaner is just one example. Santaner is in the 11 th grade. He lives with his parents and two brothers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Oswald will typically come home from school everyday, and after completing his homework, he will power up his computer and start playing online poker for the rest of the evening. A member of his high school’s champion chess team, Santaner says that he isn’t worried that he will become addicted to gambling. He believes with a certainty that he’s got everything under control. According to Oswald, he can just stop whenever he wants. He also claims that he hasn't ever lost since he started playing. Addiction is not one of his worries, he says. He just loves the game.

It can be said that fears about the potentially dangerous costs of online poker along with its popularity among youth are probably not unfounded. Rita Gupruta who is co-director of a youth gambling research center at McGill University in Montreal agrees. She sees online poker as definitely having the potential to create problems in the long run. Gupruta reports that they have been getting an increasing amount of requests from the states for information regarding prevention. People she says, call and say that they are counselors in schools and that an increasing number of students are playing poker online. But the recentness of the problem means that not much data are available that could be of help. Gupruta sees this as a problem, there not being any research yet available on youth and online poker addiction. But, she explains, they do know for a fact that poker and online poker are catching on like wildfire.

Nor does it appear that the problem is about to solve itself anytime soon. Annenberg Center at the University of Pennsylvania last month, published a national study, that reported an 84 percent increase in weekly card playing by males between the ages of 14 – 22. The study covered the years 2003 and 2004. The study also found that those who play cards on a weekly basis, had a greater chance of gambling over the Internet even if they were under 18 years of age. A study performed by the International Center for Gambling Youth of McGill University, reports that out of a sample 1,100, 12 to 17 year olds, 42 percent gambled online, but not for money. Another six percent report gambling online for role money. The other children in the study report that they do not gamble.

Heiker Ganzberg, a therapist who specializes in gambling addiction is reported as saying that the present generation is in love with poker and computers. According to him, parents and teachers generally don’t have a clue as to what is going on.