Online Gambling Companies Bet on Teenagers
By Audrey O’Neill ’24
Log in. Scroll. Click. Bet.
Scroll. Think. Click. Bet.
“It’s only $1!”
“This one has to land.”
Adolescence is the time to explore, develop passions and learn lessons. It’s the time to make lighthearted mistakes. But today, people as young as 14 are gambling online. Gambling– that’s not the lighthearted mistake you want to make.
Underage gamblers, according to an NCAA survey, bet between $1-$50 a day. It sounds small, insignificant. Those under 18-21 may not care. I know kids who don’t.
The reality: winning might not cover the cost of their losses. Sometimes it can. But even triumph fails to provide the satisfaction needed to stop.
The moment adolescents start betting, the pull to do it again feels like a magnet. Irresistible. The phone is just sitting there waiting for another click.
It doesn’t help that gambling is more addictive to younger populations. Their budding brains have yet to fully develop. Those essential regions that control reasonable decision-making skills? They aren’t wholly formed, making them two to four times more likely to develop an addiction compared to adults.
It’s no wonder why so many adolescents–feeling the inescapable, demanding pull of the magnet– give in.
Relinquishing this control creates a habit hard to stop.
Made time and time again, $1 bets lead to underage gamblers soon losing $10 to $300 a day. Some adolescents are losing far more than just these daily totals.
What’s scarier? As many as 60-80% of high schoolers reported gambling money in 2022. Easily accessible apps, such as DraftKings, receive over 62,000 bets a day.
When these totals are lost, some teens turn to their parent’s credit card for refuge. A recipe for disaster and precisely what gambling apps want.
Adolescents easily bypass the age limit requirements in a variety of ways. Operating under their parents’ names is only one loophole in a sea of crafty hacks shared on the internet.
Relevant, celebrities and appealing language target gambling ads to younger populations. What the adolescents don’t notice about these all-absorbing commercials is the help lines plastered across the bottom of the screen.
Gambling– a stimulant for your brain’s reward system– can become compulsive. The more you gamble, the more you need to gamble in order to get a dopamine boost. That’s why small print and phone numbers are placed at the end of each ad. Not surprisingly, you can find similar warnings posted on ads selling cigarettes or vapes.
If a product is so addictive that the law provides help lines and professional therapy, it probably isn’t a good idea to download the app. Nor should they be as easily accessible.
However, underage gamblers are inventive, allowing them to sneak into apps. That’s why it is time to get creative with new protections that will be effective even if adolescents do gain access to the apps.
Gambling apps should recognize when behavior becomes compulsive. FanDuel limits their users to 5,000 entries per slate. If they can do this, then they should encourage an account to seek help when it is used excessively. Extreme losses of money should be followed with a temporary freeze on betting.
These apps permit users to limit their screen time, but it’s ineffective. If someone is focused on earning their money back, or winning another bet, they probably won’t turn on their screen limit. Automatic regulation of screen time for betters in need seems to be a plausible solution.
Bottom line: these regulations are crucial as gambling becomes deeply embedded into adolescent’s daily lives. Ill-intentioned apps are emerging, directly marketed and built for kids.
Fliff is a dangerous – albeit creative– app that is at the forefront of addicting adolescents to create chronic gambling. Using virtual currency, the app cannot be penalized for accepting adolescent users. However, the gambling high can still be chased.
Bets are placed on games, similar to typical sports betting. The entire purpose of Fliff is to be an “introductory tool”, according to Fliff CEO Matt Ricci. This “introductory tool” is only unraveling a world of anxiety and legal issues.
The idea of virtual currency to sidestep state laws is not new, but it is certainly on the rise. Apps operating as “social casinos” still build the habits that lead to “low-self esteem, stress, and depression”. Oh, and don’t forget: the addiction is based on losing money.
Companies should not be planning to profit off children by cultivating addictions. Restrictions need to be implemented, along with our own personal caution over the potential side-effects of our daily routines.
