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<\/p>\n
There he became obsessed with blackjack, poker, and roulette. He was able to use video game items as money. He quickly became hooked, but signs of addiction were hard to spot.<\/p>\n
“He wasn’t locked in his room 24\/7,” Freudenberg said. “He ran track and played soccer. He was a great student.”<\/p>\n
Until he dropped out of college at the age of 19. That’s when his mother learned that he had spent nearly half his life gambling.<\/p>\n
He started selling everything in his house, borrowing money from friends, and eventually stealing money from his parents to pay off his debts.<\/p>\n
Educators, researchers and parents like Freudenberg say the problem is affecting a growing number of young people, mostly boys. A recent national survey conducted by Common Sense Media found that 36% of boys ages 11 to 17 in the United States have gambled in the past year.<\/p>\n
“A lot of them are children,” said Michael Robb, director of research at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that promotes digital safety for children. \u201cOne-third of children are many children.\u201d<\/p>\n
He points out that playing fantasy football with friends or making March Madness brackets may be harmless. For example, it could help strengthen a male friend group. But things can get out of control for some boys, Robb added. [some kids] People who engage in gambling activities are already flashing red flags. \u201d<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nIt’s not just teenagers. Gambling has skyrocketed in the United States since a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2018 allowed states to legalize sports betting. This opens the floodgates from one state at the time to 38 states by 2024.<\/p>\n
Before this decision, Americans were spending $4.9 billion annually on sports betting. By 2023, that number has grown to $121 billion, according to American Medical Association Journal<\/em> (Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association<\/em>).<\/p>\nAnd those were just legal bets. Although people under 18 can’t legally gamble, experts say the opportunities are everywhere.<\/p>\n
“If you want to bet, [Washington] “Twenty years ago, as a teenager, I would go find a bookie and place a bet. Now I can bet on every pitch in a game,” says Matt Missal, an addiction counselor in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
Much of the explosion in legalized gambling is happening on mobile phones, Misal points out. “It’s incredibly easy.”<\/p>\n
He specializes in gambling and video game addiction, and says the number of young people coming through his practice has increased in recent years.<\/p>\n
“It’s not just that the problem started when they were 18,” he says. “It started when they were 13 or 14 years old…and slowly over those years it became a bigger problem.”<\/p>\n
Freudenberg wishes he had seen the warning signs. But in many cases, online gambling can look a lot like texting a friend or watching a video, she says.<\/p>\n
She believes the removal of the guardrails created a slippery slope for children. “If my child had to get in a car, go to the bank, withdraw money, go to a casino, enter the casino, and show ID at the door, he probably wouldn’t become a gambling addict.”<\/p>\n
After several attempts at rehabilitation, she says her son is back in college and thriving. Freudenberg helped start a growing number of support groups for parents of teenage gamblers.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nShe worries that there are many more parents like her across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tsunami is just around the corner,\u201d she says. “And it’s going to be really, really bad.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#teenagers #addicted #gambling #Parents #undetected<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kim Freudenberg, a longtime teacher in San Francisco, knew that raising her two boys would require many difficult conversations. She warned them about all the common dangers: drugs, alcohol, sex, social media, riding without a helmet. “I never felt the need to say ‘gambling,’” she recalls. One day, when her oldest son was 11, he … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[2328,626,2329,2327,2330],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-mental-health","tag-addicted","tag-gambling","tag-parents","tag-teenagers","tag-undetected"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}