2006

17Apr06 – British Columbia - The youth problem gambling rate of five percent was also found by McGill University in Montreal, which, since 1992, has operated an entire institute devoted to the subject. It cites studies from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Europe and Australia that have noted rising rates of youth involvement in both legal and illegal forms of gambling. The McGill centre noted a large-scale study of adolescents in Alberta that found the average problem gambler started gambling at age 10 and it says similar results were found in other studies around the world.

A 1998 Harvard Medical School study found teen gamblers are three times more likely to become addicted than their adult counterparts because they lack impulse control, and the younger the age of initial exposure, the higher the incidence.

10Apr06 - According to the 2005 National Annenberg Risk Survey of Youth (NARSY), conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the rate of young people age 14 to 22 who play for money each month increased 20 percent in just one year.  "Based on our latest estimates, there are approximately 2.9 million young people between the ages of 14 and 22 who are gambling on cards on a weekly basis," the Center said.  "Over 80 percent of these youth are male." The Annenberg survey found that 37 percent of males in high school and 50 percent of those in college reported gambling on cards at least once a month.

16Mar06 - According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the percentage of males between the ages of 14 and 22 who gambled each month increased from 48 percent in 2004 to 57 percent last year (2005).

27Jan06 – A 1999 study by Washington State Council on Problem Gambling found that 8.4 percent of teens have a gambling problem. But with increased access to Internet gambling, that figure is probably higher now. The study also found that teens were more likely to develop a gambling problem if they bought lottery tickets or bet on card games.