In USA, 400,000 College Students Gamble Online Every Week
October 20, 2010 7:50 amDespite US Congress introducing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 to effectively prohibit online gaming in the country, a recent report has revealed the number of college students gambling online has actually shot up over the past few years.
The University of Pennsylvania study by the Annenberg Adolescent Communication Institute revealed that 16% of male college students now admitted to gambling online compared to just 4.4% in 2008.
The telephone study conducted on fourteen to twenty-two year olds also concluded that the number of high school students gambling every month online had risen from 2.7% to 6.2% over the same period. High school females gambling online on a monthly basis were also up from 0.5% to 1.5%.
In total, 400,000 college-aged males were found to gamble each week online or 1.7 million every month. An additional half a million high school students could also be found gambling online every month.
Although online gambling websites may not be too perturbed by the data, many colleges have taken a dimmer view of the situation. and also some of their students.
Speaking at The Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling (CCPG) on Thursday, former University of Connecticut student Joe Turbessi will be talking about his addiction to online poker during his college years.
Turbessi is the author of “Into the Muck” detailing his slide into addiction and Marvin Steinberg, the CCPG’s executive director, states that in his book Turbessi has been very vocal in calling out for “poker operators, the media and successful poker players to paint a balanced picture of the emotional ups and downs of the poker world and the danger of addiction.”
Here at onlinepoker.net, we always recommend responsible gaming and anyone who thinks they might have a gambling problem can contact such organisations as the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) for advice.