Adults need to be aware that: 

1. Children as young as age ten may be engaged in gambling and that 80% of teens have gambled.
Those who start younger tend to have more problems with gambling and the prevalence of problems is 2 - 4 times greater in adolescents who gamble than in adults.

2. Gambling can have harmful consequences.
It is considered as a "gateway" to other youth behavior problems such as alcohol use and delinquency.

3. Their gambling can have a potentially harmful effect on a child.
For example, parents are endorsing as well as exposing children to gambling when they:

• Purchase lottery tickets
• Take children to bingo games

Children do think gambling is illegal or harmful.
In yet another research study, we found that by the time children leave elementary school (age 12), less than 10% of children fear getting caught gambling (Gupta & Derevensky, 1999). Similar results would not be found for cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption or drug use.

Today, children and adolescents are educated about the dangers inherent in smoking, alcohol, and drug consumption. Few, however, are informed to understand the potentially addictive qualities inherent in gambling activities. Many schools and religious groups inadvertently endorse gambling by sponsoring bingo or casino nights for both adults and youth as social events and for fund-raising. Frequently, adolescents only recognize the potential addictive quality of gambling after either they or their friends develop problematic gambling behaviors. The widely held belief that gambling is an innocuous behavior with few negative consequences has contributed to the lack of public awareness that gambling amongst children and adolescents can lead to serious problems.

Source: http://www.camh.net/egambling/issue2/feature/

 If a family has problem gambling, then child will likely also have problem gambling.

Children whose parents gamble excessively are more prone to adjustment difficulties.

Research links gambling to other school and behavioral problems.

A survey of 8th graders in 2002 in Delaware found the following troubling connections:

Those students that reported gambling were:

• Over 50% more likely to drink alcohol.
• More than twice as likely to binge drink.
• More than three times as likely to use marijuana.
• Three times as likely to use other illegal drugs.
• Almost three times as likely to get in trouble with the police.
• Three times as likely to be involved in a gang fight.
• Almost three times as likely to steal or shoplift.

A study of four California high schools revealed that:

• Children of problem gamblers have higher levels of use of tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs and overeating during the year prior to their test period than their peers.
• 75% of problem gamblers' children reported their first gambling experience before 11 years of age, compared to 34% of their classmates.
• Children of compulsive gamblers experienced almost twice the incidence of broken homes due to separation, divorce, or death of a parent before they had reached the age of 15 (37%)
• When compared to their classmates, children of problem gamblers rate themselves as more insecure, emotionally down and "unhappy with life and myself" while reporting poorer school and work performance.
• These children also acknowledged suicide attempts at twice the rate of their classmates (12%)

Could Your Child Have a Problem?