The rate of growth of teenage gambling is as alarming as are the numbers. The future may be even more grim. Noted California researcher, Durand Jacobs, who specializes in the study of adolescent gambling problems, says that high school students are 2.5 times more likely as adults to become problem gamblers, while St. John University sociologist, Henry Lesieur, found eight times as many gambling addicts among college students as among adults.
Children start gambling at home, usually at card games with family and friends.
Thirty percent of children who gambled started doing so before their eleventh birthday. Bookies threatened to cut off his mother's legs unless he paid up. Florida teens are not immune to this growing epidemic. When asked how she purchased tickets at 16, she stated older friends would purchase them for her. Adolescents with other addictive behaviors are particularly at risk for gambling related problems.