There are many things young adults enjoy doing while in post-secondary. One thing that has taken a massive popularity is gambling and sports betting.
“I love watching sports so much, and I started following it so well that I started telling myself I know who’s going to win tonight, I know he’s scoring a goal tonight and I don’t know it’s just a fun thing to do with your friends put a little money on your favorite team and make some money if you can.”
Says Britain Marshall a Fanshawe College student who’s made gambling apart of his life as it’s affected him both negatively and positively.
“Gambling can be amazing, when you go into a virtual or in-person casino and put $100 in a hand of Blackjack and it hits, it feels amazing. You start wanting more and more after and then you lose it. And it takes you back to square one.”
Casino poker set (credit: Mayan Correia)
The highs are so high. But the lows are incredibly low. It could ruin your life. Gambling can ruin your life. But, gambling in a safe and controlled way can be fun and can’t harm you. But once it gets out of control with addiction, using half your paycheck you just got to pay for it, that’s when it gets scary.
You can be so behind and throw every last dollar you have to make it back and you could make it back, but you could lose everything.”
A study done on over 2,500 adolescents done by the Youth Gambling Council shows that in Ontario 60% of young adults have gambled in their lifetime. In the last 12 months, 7.1 percent had a gambling problem.
“When I gamble and I win money, I tell myself this is great. When I lose money I get frustrated and I put 10 more dollars back in. You can’t do that. And, I’ve done that before but what I’ve done now is something that sports betting apps have as well as online casinos is something called My spend.”
Marshall went on to explain how ‘My spend’ is a feature where you can set up deposit limits per day and per week, and your loss limits.
“So let’s say you lose 100 bucks and you have that feature all set up, there not going to let you spend anymore for however long you put.
“If you try to even adjust it or take it off, it even takes 3 days to actually process and go through. I have mine set up so that I don’t get in back into that habit of overdoing it.”
Marshall went on to discuss how he truly felt about the gambling industry, and if gambling was something he took seriously or just for fun.
“At the end of the day, gambling is a scam. It takes your money, you either win a little bit and if you win that money, your going to want to put it right back in anyways so it’s definitely something that’s just for fun.
“It’s more of a spur-of-the-moment type of thing, I don’t really plan when I gamble. Sometimes there’ll be a game where these two teams are playing, and I’m gonna set up this exact parlay and I know I’m going to win. You can’t do that either honestly.”
Marshall finishes with a familiar term in the gambling world, and how it negatively affects young adults when they gamble.
Casino chips (credit: Mayan Correia)
“A lot of people like to use the term ‘Lock’, which mean they see a bet they want to place or a parlay and they are convinced it’s going to hit and make money and go oh, that’s a lock, I’m winning. It’s not a lock. I promise you, It’s not a lock. No bet is ever a lock.”
“Truth is, anything can happen in gambling. I like to say this one saying where It goes you don’t gamble when you need money, you gamble just when you want some money.”
over the years, the trend of young adults gambling has seen a huge increase, especially in post-secondary schools like Fanshawe College and Western University.
Many young adults like Marshall are among the few who used to struggle with it, but now has accommodated and learned to become safer with it as this new lifestyle takes over the new generation or ‘Generation Z’.
