Gambling is also taking place right in the home of the students including sports gambling and lottery tickets. Swift said she knows these type of ISU student gamblers are out there because she has been told by ISU advisers that there are students who are doing a lot of sports gambling and betting on campus. Another factor related to problem gambling, especially with college students, is the accessibility of credit cards which have risen in popularity in the past five to six years, and ATM cards which also allow not only easy access to cash, but also availability of money taken from credit card lines. Tom Coates, the executive director of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service, has also been very concerned with the rise in gambling in Iowa, even more so with college students. With ATM cards, he said, the money just doesn't come from the pockets, but also the credit card lines.
College students are more likely accessible to open lines of credit.
Coates said the rate of bankruptcy due to gambling has increased by 20 percent in 1995 versus 1994 for the state of Iowa, compared to a 5.5 percent increase in the rest of the country. The young are much more likely to become compulsive gamblers. Coates said he has a problem with the Mesquaki Casino, where most college students are likely to go. He believes they are not checking IDs like they should be at Mesquaki. At the time, gambling was 18 in Iowa.