Over the years, the popularity of gambling and sports betting has increased dramatically as technology and the economy advance as each year goes by.
But what’s even more popular, is the popularity of young adults beginning their adult life with actively participating in the industry.
“I think when we’re looking at gambling and youth, the youth are a very vulnerable population for gambling, and they can be very influenced by social media and the world around them.” Says Canadian Mental Health Association addiction counsellor for the Thames Valley location April Laithwaite.
Laithwaite goes on to talk about how young adults in this generation are under a lot more pressure to get into gambling and sports betting, and why this happens.
“It can put youth into a position where they may experience gambling when they may not have. Especially when your peer groups, a majority of it or a large number of them already do sports gambling.”
“At this age, when we’re young, we want to fit in. We don’t want to stick out. We want to kind of blend in with the crowd. Some of that crew might end up with problem gambling, but another portion might not end up with problem gambling, depending on protective factors and risk factors that already exist.”
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the human brain does not stop developing until the age of 25 which affects young adults and their decision with gambling according to Laithwaite.
young adults at the casino (credit: Shuttershock)
“When we’re looking at the prefrontal cortex, I call this the voice of reason. This helps people monitor risk and benefit. It helps as that develops; they’re better at impulsivity. When we’re looking at making impulsive decisions earlier on and that part of the brain isn’t fully developed yet, we can start to develop a pattern of behavior.”
“We have part of our dopamine, which is the reward part of our brain. When that spills over with dopamine for a certain behavior such as gambling, then we start to associate that behavior with high dopamine reward. We can build those strong pathways in our brain that when I gamble, I get a bit of stress relief. When I gamble, I feel like I can win or if I feel like I have better skill.”
“But that dopamine depletes over time. And when that depletes over time, it can leave us in a deficit, which means that the brain chemical that’s supposed to be there to reward us is depleted. We’re not getting the dopamine that we should be getting or that normal amount when we only get that once when we’re gambling.”
As specified by global market research and consulting firm I.P.S.O.S, six in ten (60%) Canadians partake in gambling, while four in ten (40%) do not spend any money on gambling.
“Oftentimes we think gambling starts at around 18 or 19 years old when they can start to go into buying their scratch tickets at the corner store or 19 when they can start to go to the casino. But typically gambling starts much, much earlier than that. It typically starts around eight years old. it doesn’t start with things like money, like adults would use, rare youth don’t typically have access to money like we do, and they’re more likely to gamble with things like food or candy. And they also are more likely to gamble with things like Pokémon cards.”
“And the Pokémon’s are for looking at what gambling is defined as, it’s when you risk something of value, when there’s an element of chance associated with the outcome. For that age group, things like a really rare Pokémon card or even a really rare hockey card. If you leave that game with more or less than you are gambling. When we’re looking at risking things that are of value, we want to make sure that youth know exactly what they’re going to do if they are going to bet.”
“They need to know the rules of the game. They need to know what’s at risk. What am I going to lose? What am I going to win? And those are some things that we should be teaching our youth about gambling because we know in the world that we live in, gambling is not going to spontaneously just disappear. It has a culture, and it’s embedded in our culture as well.”
young adult playing online casino (credit: Vice)
Laithwaite finished with some important ways young adults, parents and educators can go about helping young adults who struggle with a gambling addiction.
“There’s always something we can do. Prevention is always going to be cheaper. It’s always going to be more cost effective. Hitting our younger youth at an earlier age in a meaningful and impactful way. Just being able to connect to youth at a time that works for them in a way that works for them is probably going to have a better impact.”
“Gambling is more problematic than chemical addictions at this point. And we can see, when somebody’s high on pot, we can smell when somebody’s been drinking alcohol, but we can be very blind to gambling because it can be so well hidden.”
“So just ask the questions and continue asking the questions. Recovery is possible. I see it all the time. I see people make changes to their gambling and I see people walking away. Hard work, but walking away healthier, happier. More well than they were when they started here. And that just really speaks to recovery.”
Gambling has lots of ups and downs, with the ups always feeling the greatest, and the lows always feeling the lowest.
Remember If you are struggling with gambling you’re not alone. Call the Canadian Gambling Hotline at 1-866-531-2600 or visit responsible gambling dot org.
