Growing gambling problem at college

"Shannon Shorr remembers seeing emails about the dangers of gambling as a freshman at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, in 2003, but he wanted in on the poker boom. He started '$5 house games' with friends and quickly moved into Internet poker," the Christian Science Monitor reports. Lucky for him, his story is more about wins than losses, but he did lose $3,500 early on, which he admitted was an awful lot for a college student. Forty percent of 18-to-22-year-olds gambled monthly last year, it adds. "In a survey of 119 colleges, only 22% had a gambling policy, Harvard researchers found in 2005," but changing because another study, from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, "showed rampant gambling among student athletes." Meanwhile, a hearing about the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was scheduled on Capitol Hill this week, the New York Times "Bits" blog reports.