Poker Epidemic Sweeping America's Youth

An interesting article on the poker craze affecting teenagers in America is published in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. The article "Teens: The New Face of Poker" presents many angles to the issue including whilst there may be no obvious harm to regular low-stakes poker games, the effect of normalising behaviour patterns may cause longer term detrimental effects.

The parent in the article even presents it as a harm minimisation strategy:

"In my glass half-full perspective, all available science tells us that those types of individuals would develop an addiction whether a parent hosts a card game or not," Winters said. "There's so much gaming available these days that if you have an itch to gamble you can scratch it in any number of ways. You have to keep a public health mentality. Keep the betting minimal. Keep booze out of the picture, and make sure it's a social event."

Depending on the age of the young people, and the nature of the gambling, this may actually be true but parents need to make careful decisions and supervise and set ground rules to make sure that the gambling does not get out of hand.

Parents need to decide how they will teach their sons and daughters about gambling responsibly but while low-stakes gambling may seem like a safe entertainment option there are potential consequences that parents need to be wary of.

GG