Poker's rise: Fresh numbers

About 2.9 million US 14-to-22-year-olds gamble with cards (mostly poker), and the number's on the rise, reports the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, which has been watching this trend. Card players are more likely to gamble online - Annenberg estimates that about 580,000 14-to-22-year-olds gamble in Web sites on a weekly basis. More than half (54.5%) of self-identified weekly gamblers reported having at least one of the symptoms of problem gambling: preoccupation, over-spending, tolerance, and withdrawal. That's up from 44.95% in 2004. Then there's the money: "We also asked persons who gamble at least once a month if their gambling ever led to their owing people money and, if so, the highest amount they had ever owed. About 10% answered that it had. We estimated conservatively the average debt to be close to $74. (We excluded one respondent who claimed he owed as much as $10,000.) This level of indebtedness would amount to over $115 million for the population of approx. 16 million monthly gamblers ages 14 to 22." Here's the study's press release in pdf format and the Center's own page for more on its research. Here's earlier NFN coverage, linking to a thorough look at the phenomenon by Sports Illustrated and naming key gambling sites, for parents wanting to monitor online gambling.