Is the student population more susceptible to gambling?
Image by Lee Thomas on Unsplash
I don’t think I was aware of gambling until this year. Sure, I’d driven past the casino and heard Powerball ads on TV, but certainly no one I knew gambled. Call me sheltered, but I’ll admit it was a culture shock getting to uni and being surrounded by people who bought lotto tickets, played the pokies and went to the casino on a Saturday night. Suddenly I was aware my younger brother was playing online gambling games daily on his school laptop, and my boyfriend was spending money every week on Pokémon cards. But is gambling a real issue students are facing? Or just a bit of harmless fun?
According to an article published by The Spinoff, “many students, particularly men, participate in some kind of recreational gambling on a weekly basis. Some even gamble their entire food budget for the week on the 50/50 chance of doubling it or losing it all, in a game that’s known among Otago University students as Feast or Famine.”
Betting among uni students ranges from football and horse racing, to the dogs and online gambling sites. While some youth bet spontaneously for money when they need it, others have developed unique strategies to help them make profit. A math and finance student studying at Dunedin has created a system that incorporates data from dog career probabilities, historical wins, weather conditions and box win percentages to calculate information to make betting easier.
“I can’t be stuffed working; Wellington rent is pretty pricey, I’ve got exams…” According to The Spinoff, “when he decides to invest more time in the bets, by employing more complex mathematical methods he can make $1000-$2000 weekly.”
Most students, however, aren’t as worried about the math. Social media accounts document students betting online to pay for rent, living costs, parking tickets, petrol, broken items, new laptops or student loan repayments. RNZ reported earlier this year that “the Department of International Affairs has warned 10 university students about promoting overseas gambling websites on social media.” The students, mainly from Canterbury and Otago, faced the threat of a $5000 fine for posting material that encouraged online gambling on websites such as Rainbet and SpinBet.
Vicki Scott, director of the Internal Affair gambling regulatory services commented that “the students we've spoken to have been co-operative, and several have taken immediate steps to remove the content.”
But it’s not only uni students engaging in gambling. The New Zealand Herald found that high school students are also participating, often encouraged by older siblings or friends. With gaming incorporating betting elements such as spin the wheel or loot boxes, transitioning to online gambling using real money is very easy.
Last year, RNZ reported there had been an increase in online gambling related problems among children at intermediate and high schools across the country, leading to intervention from school counsellors and social workers. One intermediate aged student was referred to support services by his parents after they discovered he was spending all night gambling, using his mother’s credit card to bet a total amount of over $16,000.
Ethan*, a high school student based in North Canterbury commented that he began playing online gambling games at the age of 14. While he mainly plays Club Vegas, a game that does not offer real money gambling, he noted “many people play Plinko, Blackjack, and other slot games.”
“Many of my peers gamble. I was brought into gambling [games] by one of my closest mates, and we have great times in class.”
Aaron Drummond, previously a professor at the University of Waikato, has made links between playing gambling games and real gambling addictions. He said “people who have symptoms of problem gambling also tend to spend more on loot boxes…” These mystery boxes in games that can be purchased for real money employ similar psychology to slot machines. According to Drummond, “… recent evidence suggests people who engage with these loot boxes are at greater risk of migrating into conventional gambling behaviours later down the road.”
Youth are especially at risk of problem gambling behaviours due to the stages of their development and the way gambling is marketed towards them. When my dad started studying at the University of Auckland, he was welcomed to the halls with a pack of freebies from the SkyCity casino. Today, however, gambling websites and companies specifically target social media.
The chief executive of Manu Maia, a Pacific support service, noted "there are lots of adverts and marketing out there around online and betting on games, I believe the marketing to young people is really rife.”
"The industry uses those platforms to specifically target young people. They're not using social media to target the older generation. We believe it's specifically targeted to young people…”
When asked if he thought his online gambling games could lead to real gambling down the track, Ethan commented “I think I might try with some low bets, but definitely not where I could lose everything. I don't think I could get addicted.”