Children start gambling as young as 11, study says

Monday, Feb. 24, 2003 | 11:12 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Children as young as 11 1/2 years old in Nevada become problem gamblers and up to 4,000 adolescents have experienced severe difficulties related to gambling, legislators were told this morning.

But Nevada teens appear to have fewer problems with addictive gambling than their peers in other states that have gambling, according to a two-year study on problem gambling.

The results of the study by Rachel Volberg of Gemini Research Ltd. were outlined for the Senate Finance Committee this morning as it considered a bill to allocate $250,000 for local organizations to treat addicted gamblers.

Senate Bill 42 was introduced in 2001 by former Sen. Mark James, R-Las Vegas, who is now a Clark County commissioner. It was brought to this Legislature by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which James chaired in 2001.

"The most surprising aspect was that 13- to 17-year-olds in Nevada we interviewed were less likely to have ever gambled or gambled in the past year than those in other states," Volberg said.

Nevada teens were less likely than those in Georgia, New York, Texas and Washington to gamble weekly or more, the report said.

Furthermore, the prevalence of problem gambling among adolescents in Nevada was lower than among those in three of the other four states.

Volberg said the researchers had several theories of why that could be. Nevada teens may benefit from an "exposure effect," as children of drug abusers do, in which exposure to the behavior makes them less likely to become abusers.

It could also be, she said, that in Nevada age restrictions are better known and accepted among teens, their parents and casino workers, and that efforts to educate the community about the dangers of problem gambling are taking effect.

"One of the findings was that we had was that only a small percentage of Nevada youth had been able to get into casinos to gamble. They were less likely to acknowledge gambling in casinos than adolescents where gambling had more recently become legal."

But, she added, "we don't have any data on that. It's speculation."

Mike Willden, director of the state Human Resources Department, and Carlos Brandenburg, administrator of the state Division of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, reviewed the study's findings for the legislators to support funding for programs to problem gamblers.

Willden told the committee that an estimated 6.4 percent of adults, about 53,000 people, have pathological gambling problems, and his agency does not have any money to help them.

He said children 11 1/2 to 12 years old become problem gamblers through card games and betting among themselves.