KIDS HOOKED ON GAMBLING
HOW did harmless childhood games such as jacks, marbles, ‘lastic’ and money football cause a “chronic” gambling problem now being identified among many Jamaican children?
A recent study on ‘gambling among children and adolescents in Jamaica’ found that a growing number of children have been skipping school to spend their days betting on crown and anchor, Cash Pot, horse racing and playing slot machines in bars.
Children as young as 10-years-old have raised the stakes, spending all they have in the hope of being a winner at gambling.
According to the study, 10.7 per cent of children surveyed were problem gamblers, while an additional 9.6 per cent were classified as at risk of problem gambling. This meant that one in five adolescents is either a problem gambler or at risk of becoming one.
“Further work needs to be done to better understand the link between the informal childhood games and problem gambling,” explained Sonita Morin Abrahams, executive director of RISE (Reaching Individuals through Skills and Education), the organisation which commissioned the study.
Morin Abrahams said the study was undertaken after the organisation noted a threefold increase in the number of calls to its counselling service seeking help for gambling-related issues. She added that although more students were becoming frequent gamblers, that there was no study in place at the time to determine the severity of the problem.
But when the findings of a subsequent study was revealed on Friday, it highlighted more than a chronic gambling problem among Jamaican children.
This “addiction”, the study found, was also directly related to certain at-risk behaviours such as substance abuse, drinking problems, violence and sexual promiscuity, prompting the need for a gambling prevention programme at the primary school level.
Students at this level were selected because the organisation found that many of the high schoolchildren with gambling problems were too far gone to benefit from this type of early intervention.
“We are now working with the grade six students because we tried doing it with high school students and walked into a class where half of them were already gambling,” said Richard Henry, programme co-ordinator for counselling services at RISE.
“We realised we would not be doing prevention in its truest sense, so we had to provide another type of intervention for them and go back to grade six where we only got one or two gambling,” he said.
The study showed minors spending up to $13,000 over a six-month period at gaming establishments and $10,000 on horse racing over the same period.
“There was no significant difference in the amount of money spent for those in the 10-14 age group versus those in the 15-19 age group,” Morin Abrahams explained.
The study also showed that boys were more likely to use gambling to fill an emotional void, as well as for the excitement and prospect of winning money.
“Younger respondents (10-14) were also more likely to gamble to “forget their problems for awhile”, while older youths did it to “decrease boredom.”
Morin Abrahams said boys who gambled were much more likely to smoke ganja, use crack/cocaine and have five or more alcoholic drinks in a row.
Compared to their non-gambling counterparts, these boys were almost twice as likely to skip classes, be involved in a group fight, carry weapons to school, steal and repeat grades.
The study also found a link between gambling among teenage girls and sexual risk taking, with approximately four in 10 being sexually active compared to two in 10 girls who had never gambled. These girls were also less likely to use condoms.
The study further highlighted a link between suicide and gambling, as 10.6 per cent of girls who gambled felt life wasn’t worth living, while 41 per cent felt like killing themselves during the past 12 months under review.
Dr Earl Wright, director of mental health and substance abuse at the Ministry of Health, said gambling addiction was caused by changes within the brain, similar to what occurs in alcohol and substance abuse, and needs to be tackled from many angles.
“Early prevention and recognition are key treatment strategies in dealing with this problem,” he said.
Dr Wright said although gambling has been around for centuries, modern medicine recognises it as a disease which needs to be treated.
Meanwhile Derek Peart, executive director of Betting Gaming & Lotteries Commission, which sponsored the study, said one aspect of the challenge that the commission faced and have been addressing is the problem of minors being involved in gambling activities.
There are some games such as those played in schools, which he said the Commission had no ability to control.
On the other hand, he said they have had quite a bit of co-operation from their licensee in respect of minors not being allowed to gamble.
“I remember we had to read the riot act at one time, and we ask the public to report to us. And we know, for example, that licensees with agents are given the mandate that anywhere minors are facilitated the contractual arrangements will end immediately and we have actually seen situations where the licensee has done exactly that,” he said.