Teach online gambling in schools

In the Irish gambling news this week gambling.ie has discovered an article that suggests that the best way to avoid problem gambling in the future is to give school children lessons in gambling. This may seem at first glance a little strange but the report in the Irish gambling news suggests that many youngsters are already into online gambling in one form or another. The online casinos are being blamed for offering free gambling on their sites which is where it is sometimes possible to gamble with play money without registering an account and therefore there is no control of age but other games available which are not true online gambling are those where additional levels or weapons etc. are available at an extra cost encouraging children to spend to keep up with their peers. The Irish gambling news article also states that children are subjected to many TV advertisements about online gambling well before the watershed which is almost certainly true. Gambling.ie supports any measure to reduce problem gambling online but whether gambling lessons are the answer or not remains to be seen. Perhaps the gambling lessons should focus on the fact that online gambling is not a money making exercise but is a form of entertainment which is likely to cost money. The Irish gambling news article does suggest that teaching about the risk of building up large debts should be included but that should be part of any education not simply applied to online gambling, but whether teaching pupils how to play online poker for example would be beneficial is open to question as it might make some feel that when gambling on poker they are always going to win which as we all known is not the case. Showing children that the odds are always in favour of the online casino might be a solution but then this could be included in a maths lesson which might make it more interesting.