Gambling News by Gambling Headquarters

More than one-third of Ontario teens who participated in the first-ever study to examine the gambling habits of students aged 15 to 17 are already gambling, and their ranks will likely double by the time they're 20, the study's authors say. The study, to be released Thursday, was conducted by the Responsible Gambling Council, an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention of problem gambling. Of the 2,140 teens surveyed, 34.9 per cent said they're already gambling. Of those, 40 per cent said poker is their game of choice, while another 36 per cent admitted to regularly buying raffle tickets, including scratch-and-win lottery tickets. Sports betting was next at 23 per cent, followed by playing dice at 15 per cent and online gambling at 10 per cent. Poker is the most popular form of gambling because of its accessibility, ease of play and recent explosion in popularity, said Jon Kelly, chief executive of the council, which has programs funded by the Ontario government. "It's relatively easy to learn, you could play it at home, you can play it with your friends, you can play it online, you can watch it on TV . . . so access is an important feature as well," Kelly said. While the majority of teens surveyed cited entertainment as their main reason for gambling, 20.7 per cent said they did it because they needed the money, and 15.3 per cent said it was to win back cash they had already lost. Thirteen per cent of teens who play poker admitted they spend more money than they can afford on gambling. Of those respondents who admitted to gambling, 3.9 per cent said they're already experiencing gambling problems. That number jumps to 6.9 per cent in the case of gamblers aged 18 to 24, Kelly said. "When we look at this younger group, then, and see that more than one-third are gambling, we know that that number's going to double, that's it's going to be at least two-thirds in three years." The council is staging a play called "House of Cards" in schools across Ontario in an effort to educate teens about the perils of gambling. The play is about a university student who develops a gambling problem while playing online poker. Two outspoken critics of the gambling industry said Wednesday it's time for governments and industry alike to better protect consumers and shield vulnerable youth from the tempting lure of making a quick buck on games of chance.

Phyllis Vineberg's son Trevor, 25, committed suicide in 1995 following years of being addicted to video lottery terminals or VLTs.

"It's like a smoker who's hooked on nicotine or you give somebody crack cocaine: they're going to get hooked," she said. "We didn't understand that, we didn't have the information and parents today don't have the information either. They're totally clueless."

"You just have to stand at a lottery booth today and you see people buying tickets with their kids and they think it's just a game."

Consumer advocate Sol Boxenbaum, who has spent 12 years as a gambling addiction counsellor in Montreal, said the youngest client he ever treated was 20 years old. An increase in youth gambling, he said, could signal the start of a troubling trend.

"Normally, compulsive gamblers don't look for help until they've completely bottomed out, and young people don't bottom out because they come home to where rent is paid . . . supper's on the table," Boxenbaum said.

"But it carries forth into later years, when they're married and they get all the responsibilities, that they end up having to come for help."

The onus should be on the industry, not the underage gambler, to keep those at risk out of their facilities, he added.

"The responsibility is for them to keep minors out of the casinos, to keep minors off of slot machines and to have proper self-exclusion programs so that people that begin to have a problem can be barred from an establishment."

Lotteries are the biggest source of gambling revenue for the Ontario government, outpacing casinos and slot machines at racetracks.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation says it sold $2.3 billion in lottery tickets and instant scratch games in 2004-05.

The province's four commercial casinos pulled in almost $1.6 billion in revenues in the last fiscal year, while charity casinos and slot machines at racetracks earned $1.9 billion.

Both Vineberg and Boxenbaum are part of a recently-launched complaint before the federal Competition Bureau that electronic gaming machines are designed to entice gamblers into risking too much of their money.

Net revenue from lotteries, VLT's and casion increased from $2.7 billion in 1992 to $11.3 billion in 2002, a growth rate of more than 400 per cent, according to a 2003 Statistics Canada report.