The role of parental guidance, teachers and community leaders can all contribute to youth gambling prevention. By educating children about its risks and impacts, these professionals can incentivise healthier choices.
Gambling prevention programs have proven their worth when it comes to decreasing both frequency and severity of gambling, as well as positively altering cognitive variables like misconceptions and gambling-related fallacies.
Educating the Community
Education of the community is an integral component of underage gambling prevention. This can be accomplished by informing both children and parents on the potential risks of gambling as well as how to avoid it.
Educational-based programs analyzed in this review typically employed dynamic and interactive sessions to raise young people’s awareness of the effects of gambling, combat any possible biases, and develop various skills. Such sessions often included debates, presentations, testimonials or other audiovisual tools – most studies also reported changes in cognitive variables (such as misconceptions or fallacies related to gambling) as well as changes in coping skills or knowledge about random events.
Many teens rely on their peers for advice and support, so educating them about the dangers of gambling can have an immense effect. Doing this may encourage them to avoid scratch off tickets and gamble responsibly.
Creating Safe Spaces
The temptation for gambling is high among young people because their brains are not yet fully developed. They might believe gambling is good for them because dopamine, or “feel-good hormone” helps them feel good. Unfortunately, it will bring addiction and poor decisions in later life.
Parents and other influential figures should be cognizant of the risks of underage gambling, and set guidelines for their children. Furthermore, it would be wise for them to abstain from gambling themselves as this would send a signal that underage gambling is acceptable in their household.
Community organizations can take steps to combat underage gambling by creating safe spaces for youth and limiting access to gambling sites while setting up age verification systems. Peer efforts aimed at combatting underage gambling should also be supported.
Monitoring Gambling Activities
Youth are particularly susceptible to gambling marketing tactics. Due to their immaturity, they are more susceptible to peer pressure and may even be influenced by family members who gamble. Furthermore, youth lack self-regulation skills that protect against dopamine spikes that accompany gambling and can induce feelings of “euphoria”.
Studies demonstrate the value of prevention programs for helping adolescents and young adults understand the risks of underage gambling, improving knowledge, reducing erroneous beliefs and attitudes, as well as decreasing gambling frequency.
Parents, teachers and community influencers can all take steps to address underage gambling by speaking to youth about it and creating safe spaces where gambling is prohibited; events and locations should also remain free from gambling-related events and locations. Furthermore, educators and supporters play an essential role in fighting this trend.
Providing Counseling and Support Services
Adolescents are especially prone to gambling-related harm. Their minds are still developing and more susceptible than adults to peer pressure and marketing ploys; additionally they typically suffer from low self-esteem issues and come from families where gambling is prevalent.
Families play an essential role in combatting underage gambling. Parents can encourage youth to get involved with social activities like clubs, sports and community events rather than gambling; and set an example by setting limits and gambling responsibly themselves.
Community influencers can play an instrumental role in changing their community environment by creating gambling-free zones or advocating for anti-gambling messages in schools, and by working with organizations that offer counseling and support services for problem gamblers.
Strengthening Laws and Regulations
Many states and countries have regulations in place to combat underage gambling, such as ID verification processes during onboarding processes as well as age limits for sports betting and online gaming. These regulations help keep underage gamblers out of the industry while shielding legitimate operators from legal repercussions.
Underage gambling can have serious repercussions for young people’s psychological, social and financial wellbeing. Gambling may also become a source of distraction from academic and extracurricular activities leading to strain relationships and poor academic performance at school. Gambling also poses financial instability risks that are especially detrimental for youth with limited resources.
Regulatory measures can effectively combat underage gambling through responsible advertising practices, deposit limits and self-exclusion programs. They must be tailored to local conditions while taking into account how social determinants contribute to gambling-related harms.