In Age of Online Casinos, Addiction Becoming More Common at College
The online gambling craze is giving American universities an unfamiliar addiction to deal with. While administrations have historically had to deal with campus alcohol and drug abuse, they are beginning to turn their heads towards online poker and blackjack and offline gambling as well.
In the privacy of dorm rooms and in public theme parties like "casino night" in a fraternity house, gambling is everywhere and has become part of the college culture. Movies like "Rounders" have helped spread poker into the mainstream and the recent release of blackjack movie "21" and the related game Crazy21 should only add to it. One study estimates that forty percent of college-aged youth gambled monthly last year, shockingly down from the year before due to the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006.
Many schools have begun addressing this issue with their students through outreach and seminars and are educating their staffs to be on the lookout for telltale signs of gambling addiction. One administrator at a Midwest college stated that schools ought to "take on a responsibility to provide information about the law, to challenge students to think about their own ethics and values ... to be sure they understand where they can go if they think they might have a problem."
With online gambling and online casinos becoming increasingly popular, it is feared that addiction could become a bigger problem unless schools do a better job of dealing with this issue.
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