Home

Studies indicate that young people are experimenting with gambling from an earlier age.  One Canadian study idicated that roughly 79 percent of children between the seventh and ninth grade have gambled and 83 percent of children in the eleventh grade have gambled.  Although many of these kids are not gambling for money, they are exchanging other things of value to them at that age such as trading cards or in some cases cigarettes.

Many circles are perfectly content with blaming all of this on online casinos.  Joanna Franklin sees a much bigger culperate.  According to the lesson taught by Franklin at the Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling conference, local lotteries are creating games that are either knowingly or unknowingly appealing to children.  

Franklin points out that many scratch off games with their flashy colors and juvenile themes, catch the eye of children as young as three and four years of age.  Franklin cited games named Chicken Change, Ducky Dollars, and even Cash Cow.  “Who might be the target audience for these tickets?” questioned Franklin.

However, Franklin does not let online casinos off the hook.  She blames many online casinos for widening the availabilty of casino style gambling.  Far too many online casinos only require players to click a box to confirm that they are of legal gambling age.  Online casinos that only require players to click a box are clearly more concern about coverin themselves legally and not about protecting children from gambling exposure.

Franklin charge both online casinos and local lotteries for using popular childrens games as themes to draw in players.  Although these themes are intended to appeal to the nostalgic memories of adult players, they of course appeal to juveniles as well.

Casino News