Tuesday, March 13, 2007

At least two private schools in Britain have responded to the increasing
problem of student gambling by offering courses about the risky pursuit.
With many British students become increasingly active in the world of online
gambling, both the Harlow School and King's College School have responded by
teaching students of the dangers of gambling, the Sunday Telegraph said.
King's College School even went so far as to bring in a recovered compulsive
gambler to talk about his own woes to the middle school children. A recent
study in Britain found that of the 8,000 children surveyed, a quarter said
they had gambled in the last week. Barnaby Lenon, the headmaster at the
Harlow School, said getting parents involved was integral in helping
children ignore the lure of online gambling. "These sites are very, very
addictive. At boarding schools it is slightly easier to manage because we
can monitor its use," he told the paper. "It is harder when pupils are using
the Internet at home and parents are not really aware of what their children
are doing."