When fourth-year history student Daniel Gushue started gambling
online on his 18th birthday, he said he never could have guessed
that four years later gambling would lead him to drop classes, ruin
a relationship, and acquire a $19,000 credit card debt.
“I started gambling around the same time I started
drinking,” he said. “In college, people find themselves
drinking, being alone, and turning to the easily accessible
computer.”
But what started off as a form of entertainment and money-making
eventually turned into an addiction.
“It got so bad that at one point I was playing eight hours
a day, five days a week,” Gushue said. “It was like a
full-time job where I lost money.”
With the Internet becoming more widely popular and certain
online gambling sites not strictly enforcing age restrictions,
online gambling, which may involve cards, sports or bingo, has
become a $6 billion industry. It is a large problem, especially
among young people, said Timothy Fong, co-director of the UCLA
Gambling Studies Program.
A problem gambler is defined as someone who continues to gamble
despite the negative effects such as financial loss, impaired
health or ruined relationships, Fong said.
Along with online gambling addictions come many other problems
including alcoholism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,
depression and other personality disorders, said Ari Kalechstein,
the consulting neuropsychologist for the UCLA Gambling Studies
Program.
Three to 6 percent of the college population has a problem with
online gambling, Fong said.
“It’s easy, fast, fun, profitable, other peers seem
to be doing it, and there’s competition involved,” he
said.
The main factor driving the increase in online gambling is the
loose enforcement of restrictions by companies running the Web
sites on underage gamblers, said Bruce Roberts, the executive
director of the California Counsel on Problem Gambling.
“Any young person with a credit card can be at a gambling
site in a minute despite the controls that may be set up,” he
said.
Most college students start gambling online for convenience,
said Rojen Gharagedaghi, a second-year mathematics student who
started gambling when he came to UCLA.
“I had no ride, so instead of going to the casino, I
brought the casino to me,” Gharagedaghi said.
Others, such as Gushue and second-year chemistry student Garni
Arakelian, said they started gambling to make what seemed to be
easy money.
“Instead of actually going to work for 10 hours, I could
make the same amount of money in three hours sitting in front of my
computer,” Arakelian said.
Yet the games are more difficult than one would expect, Gushue
said.
“It is too easy to lose because you don’t see the
actual money and chips in front of you,” he said. “You
lose the value of money.”
Unlike gambling in casinos, online gambling is an isolated
activity. This makes it much harder to win because people cannot
gauge play based on other players’ reactions, Gharagedaghi
said.
In response to these disadvantages, this past October President
Bush signed into law an act placing more restrictions on online
gambling transactions. But gambling sites, such as those based
overseas, continue to find ways around it.
“The problem is that there is little enforcement of the
law, (making it) an unregulated industry,” Fong said.
“Colleges don’t have provisions or mechanisms to
prevent students from going to online gambling sites either in the
dorms or on campus.”
The UCLA Gambling Studies Program is starting a research project
in January focusing on online gambling patterns and treatment in
college students, Fong said.
“The problem of online gambling can (be likened to) the
problem of HIV,” Fong said. “It is as if more people
were to get HIV because there are more risk factors, but no
treatment or solution is available. We aim to obtain more knowledge
about online gambling and find that solution.”