Rising Concerns About Young People’s Access to Gambling Products: ‘It’s a Social Ill’

(AsiaGameHub) –   As a middle-aged person without children, I find it hard to picture what it feels like to be young and susceptible to gambling addiction.

Daniel Durkin, an associate professor of social work at the University of Mississippi, doesn’t have to imagine this scenario. He encounters young people facing these struggles every day.

“This is a social blight,” Durkin told CasinoBeats. “Many individuals are grappling with very severe issues related to it.” 

Durkin then shared a recent anecdote about a father who emailed him concerning his son, who had developed a gambling issue.

“I was eager to get a parent’s viewpoint on this,” he stated. “He mentioned that his wife—who works as a realtor—was a key reason he thought to reach out. She’d recently attended a real estate conference where there was a talk about young men graduating from college who can’t save enough for a down payment due to their gambling debts. 

“So this issue is being discussed even at national real estate conferences.” 

Betting on Almost Anything Imaginable

Prediction markets have provided those aged 18 and above with unparalleled access to wager on nearly any topic. As Durkin pointed out, this is concerning because the brain’s prefrontal cortex—responsible for decision-making and impulse regulation—doesn’t fully mature until the mid-20s. This makes students especially prone to gambling addiction.

“I believe we need to take more action than we currently are, as I worry that young people will graduate from college drowning in debt,” Durkin said. “Another worry is that gambling disorder has the highest suicide rate among all behavioral disorders.”

Some students are introduced to betting even before they set foot on a college campus. Durkin asks if I’m familiar with Fliff, a platform that uses a dual-currency sweepstakes system. Fliff Coins are for social gaming, while Fliff Cash is for promotional play—this latter currency lets users win actual prizes and cash-like rewards.

“High school students are using this platform,” he noted. “While technically they aren’t supposed to, they’re finding ways to do so. My worry here is that they could develop a gambling addiction before they even spend any money. If they engage with it for a few years, by the time they’re old enough to use FanDuel, they already have a problem.”

In most states, commercial sportsbooks are off-limits until you turn 21, but young people (and even us older folks) are flooded with ads from DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and other brands. Bet365’s latest ad includes an octopus, and the main character is shown celebrating a win on an 8-leg parlay.

Of course—those bets are so responsible and easy to win, right? The constant promotion of same-game parlays turns them into a high-profit product for sportsbooks and a losing proposition for casual gamblers.

A recent survey by the National Council on Problem Gambling revealed that 66% of participants were worried about the effects of underage exposure to gambling or gambling-like behaviors.

The key question isn’t why young people are gambling more frequently—it’s why we’ve created a system that makes it so challenging for them to avoid betting.