The allure of gambling calls out to Matthew Bowles-Roth wherever he goes.
When he drives on the freeway, casino billboards entice him with riches.
When he buys cigarettes at the convenience store, lottery tickets shine
under the glass counter. When he flips through TV channels, guys his age
appear in high-stakes poker tournaments, beaming like movie stars. Each
time, Matthew pauses. He can’t take that path again. He forces himself to
remember what it was like when he did: Lying. Stealing. Dropping out of
college. “There’s tons of things that I just wish I had never done,” he says
now, four years later. At 22, Matthew has experienced the grip of gambling
in a way most people never will. In just three years, he went from someone
who had never gambled to compulsive gambler to recovering addict. He is part
of an age group that is drawing increasing concern from gambling-addiction
counselors, government regulators and college administrators.
Card playing and Internet gambling have increased among zcollege-age men in
recent years, according to one study in Pennsylvania. And many of them
learned the game in high school. In many cases, “parents are actually
strongly encouraging their kids to play poker,” said Jeff Derevensky,
co-director of the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and
High-Risk Behaviors at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. “They would
prefer them to be in their basements playing poker than doing something
‘more dangerous’ like drinking and doing drugs.” Research is scant about
college-age gambling participation over time. And studies conflict on the
question of whether young people are more susceptible to become problem
gamblers – some studies say yes, others cast doubt on that premise. Still,
researchers are concerned that gambling accessibility could lead to more
problems.